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Many people are holding back from doing what they really want. It’s easy to blame it on other circumstances like Covid-19 or even other people. But, here’s the thing, it is always something within them!
Let’s look at some of the common issues that hold people back from being more than they can be. Because at the end of the day you definitely want to “be all that you can be.”
What’s holding you back can be viewed as obstacles. Are they insurmountable? Well they can be depending on how you perceive them. But then they don’t have to be either.
An overriding sub-conscious
In his book, The Ant and the Elephant, Vince Poscente describes the ongoing battle between one’s conscious and sub-conscious mind. He relates how the Ant represents the conscious mind and the Elephant the sub-conscious, which is actually comparable to the size of each.
“In one second of time, the conscious mind uses about two thousand neurons. In that same second the subconscious mind uses 4 billion neurons!” – Vince Poscente
So if you have something in your subconscious that is negative, it can be so overpowering that it will prevent you from accomplishing what you consciously want to or need to do. And you don’t even know it is happening.
Fear of something
This affects many people – and once again can be something in your subconscious. Maybe something happened when you were young, that created a fear – fear of embarrassment, fear of ridicule, fear of failure, fear of success, to name a few of the 10 basic fears that hold us back in life. And as we all know, fear is in our mind and not necessarily true.
It is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
So the fear may not be real at all. As a consequence many people never face their fears. But if you want to be successful, you have to overcome them.
Lack of belief
Here I am talking about a lack of belief in what you are doing. You have to be all in, not partially in with respect to what you are doing because any doubts will scuttle your success.
So you have to ask yourself, “do you fully believe in what you are doing?” If not then you need to do something else or change your belief system; otherwise you will never succeed at that activity.
Lack of self-confidence
This is about belief in yourself. If you do not deeply believe that you are capable then you will not accomplish what you want to do. This can be manifested in many ways.
You can rationalize and make excuses. You can ask yourself the wrong questions and even talk yourself out of doing the right thing. You can compare yourself to others, thinking you can never be like them or worse you can listen to them rather than to yourself.
All of this means that a lack of self-confidence leads to self-sabotage and a life of mediocrity, a life of settling.
Lack of activity
If you do not take action, then nothing will change, it is as simple as that. So if you are not taking action, then of course you are holding back.
It may be that you keep procrastinating thinking you need more training, or more research, or more whatever before you act. This results in stagnation and there is never a right time, so don’t wait. Take action now!
“There are seven days in a week, and someday is not one of them. – Shaq O’Neal
You don’t seek help
Finally when things are not going the way we want, we tend to not seek help, either from business associates, coaches or mentors. We continue to go it alone.
This can cause us to keep doing the same things over and over again, but expecting different results. We become inflexible, lack innovation and intolerant to change. So we work harder at it. But the results do not improve. It’s insane!
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein
So if you are bogged down or just want some clarity, I invite you to book an appointment with me here and we can have a chat.
“What stands in the way, becomes the way” – Marcus Aurelius, 170 AD
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