What is Holding You Back?
Photo by Iwona_Kellie
Follow me on Twitter (@successprof)
So what’s holding you back from moving forward more quickly towards your goals? Likely you are reading this article because you want to learn something. You want to learn something that you can apply to your life or business, so that you can grow and move forward more quickly. You likely have goals that you have not achieved. One of the keys to moving forward will be to find out what is holding you back.
This is a question I ask myself from time to time. While I am making exciting progress towards many of my goals, there are some that I am not moving forward on as quickly as I would like. Self examination helps me look at these areas and ask: “What’s holding me back?”
While everyone will have unique factors that hold them back, there are a few things that many people have in common. Here are the things that most likely are holding you back.
1. No Clear Picture of the Destination
If you don’t have clarity about what you are trying to accomplish and where you are trying to go, you will not make significant progress. This is more than simply writing down a goal. It is having a crystal clear picture for what achieving this goal will be like. The difference is like the difference between a black and white photograph and a high definition video. Most people have goals that are like the black and white photograph. You know what you want, but you don’t have a vivid picture of it. Dream a little. Use your imagination. Turn that black and white photograph into a color photograph. Then dream some more and turn it into a movie. Then dream some more and turn your movie into vivid high definition. Your dream will have increased clarity and you will have more passion to move towards it.
2. You Don’t Know WHY
Another thing that might be holding you back is that you don’t know your WHY. Your WHY is the motivating reason behind the goals. It is the reason why you will spend extra time and effort working towards the dream. The WHY is not the dream itself, but all the reasons WHY you want to achieve the dream. The WHY is usually outwards focused – on the difference you can make for others, or the difference it will make for your family. Make sure you know your WHY clearly.
3. Self-doubt
This is a big one. It was the big one in the past for me, is still the biggest one today. While with success comes more and more self-confidence the self-doubt is still there, it is just in different forms. Self-doubt is the voice in your mind that limits you – that says you can’t achieve it, that suggests you won’t make it, that you don’t have the skills and that it won’t work. Self-doubt causes you to focus on your weaknesses rather than your strengths. Self-doubt is a deadly poison for people working towards a big goal. If you let this limiting belief take over you will slow down and stop pursuing your dreams. You need to recognize self-doubt as an attitude that you can control. Focus on your strengths, and remind yourself that you can achieve your goals. Have a support system around you and train them to give you positive reinforcement about your abilities and strengths.
Bonus article: Six Steps to Defeating Self-doubt
4. Lack of consistency
Pursuit of a goal requires consistent effort. While there are times when a focused spurt can be valuable, in general it is much more effective to work at something continuously over time. Consistency helps you to maintain steady growth. The best way to improve your consistency is to have clear goals that you break down and pursue on a weekly basis and that you break down into daily activities. (For one example, see my weekly planning and goal setting system).
5. Procrastination
Everyone struggles with procrastination. Anytime you put off doing what you know you should be doing you are procrastinating. It is something that controls many of us more than we even realize. The more you are able to move past procrastination the more quickly you will reach your goals in every area of your life. Often people procrastinate on what they view as the little things; however these little things soon add up to become very big things. Procrastination occurs when you take your focus off the importance and benefit of doing the task at hand. When you do this, the negative aspects of the task appear larger than the benefits, and then you won’t do it. You need to focus back on the benefits of what you are doing. Often it helps to just get started, even doing a little. Once you are in the state of action, more action will easily follow.
So what’s holding you back? Is it one of these five things? Is it all of them? Is it something else? Take this opportunity to do a proper self-examination. Understand what is holding back, and work towards eliminating these.
Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
If you liked this article, leave a comment below, or subscribe by RSS!
I’m looking for partners, if you are looking for a way to earn extra money, click here!
