Top Ten Reasons People Do Not Succeed

I’d like to be able to tell you, like some motivational speakers I’ve heard say, that there is no reason why you cannot succeed, but the sad truth is that there are many valid reasons why people do not achieve any great measure of success in life. In fact, there are so many reasons why people fail to achieve the success they imagine they want that I could not possibly list them all; so I present only the top ten for you to ponder.

#10 Lack of opportunity. This is not, for you who are reading this, a valid reason.

Perhaps it is possible to say that a child born into extreme poverty, with severe handicaps, in a small impoverished third world country, does not have, and may not ever have, the opportunity to succeed; but this is not you. The mere fact that you are reading this puts you into a privileged group of people with boundless opportunity to create a successful, prosperous and fulfilling life. If you ever think, or are tempted to say, that you did not have the opportunity, then you are making up excuses, not providing a legitimate reason, for your failure to create a successful and fulfilling life.

The cold hard truth is not that you do not have (or have not had) the right opportunity; it is that, when the many opportunities that have already come your way were open to you, you were not the right person to take advantage of these opportunities. Right now, all around you, opportunities abound. You may like to pretend that they are not the right opportunity for you, but the reality is that you are not the right person for whatever opportunity is right in front of you. Fortunately, whenever you want to, you can become the right person in the right place at the right time for the right opportunity. Yes, whenever you want to finally and definitively decide to choose success, it is right there just waiting for you to say yes.

#9 Bad influence. Here are two tough but enlightening questions for you…

First: Who are you hanging around with - winners or losers? Many people suffer from being in the wrong peer group. There is a perverse comfort in hanging around with other losers, but it will do you no good to associate with people who affirm paucity and struggle or who have adopted the societal groupthink of mediocrity. Winners hang around with winners so that they can mutually affirm their own right to success. If you are really determined to create a successful life, then you will need to learn to choose your friends and associates carefully.

And second: From whom did you receive your basic education and/or fundamental attitudes about life? I know that it is likely that your parents loved you and that your teachers were probably well-intentioned; but, be honest with yourself… if they really knew how life works, then why were they not successful? Did you pick up a bunch of inappropriate information about how life works and are thus subconsciously programmed to be, to do and to have less than you deserve? If you truly desire to be successful, it is probable that you will have to re-program your mind to expect success.

#8 Fear. This is the big crippling inhibitor that prevents many from succeeding.

The primary fear that stops many from even attempting to achieve outstanding success is the fear of failure. This is truly ironic. People do not attempt great things for fear of failing; yet the simple choice to not make the attempt actually guarantees failure. So you shoot and miss. Big deal. Every shot not taken misses the goal. Babe Ruth may have been the home-run-king of baseball, but he also struck out more than any other player. Do you imagine that when he stood up at bat that he was focused on the fact that he was the strike-out-king of baseball? Everybody fails sometimes. Winners know that they will fail often. Some extremely successful people that I have interviewed have told me that the only reason they were able to achieve more success than others is simply because they failed more others or were more willing to accept the possibility of failure than others.

Strangely enough, the second biggest fear that prevents people from attempting to go for the gold is the fear of success. They may fear that success will change them and change their values. They may fear that success will cause them to lose their friends. The fear of success then, when clearly seen and understood, is the fear of change. This is another of those infamous good news/bad news things. The bad news is that, yes, success will change you. It will change your values, your perspectives, your lifestyle and your attitudes. It is also likely that your unsuccessful friends will drift away from you; because they will seek comfort and reassurance that their own choices are ok by hanging out with other losers, instead of winners like you. That’s the bad news. The good news is that your values, perspectives and lifestyle will change- for the better; and you will end up hanging around with new successful friends. You’ll be ok with that. In fact, you might be deliriously happy about it.

#7 No faith. Belief — that big lurking monster in the closet. I could give a week-long seminar on belief and how it shapes your reality.

I will, in this case, keep it short and simple. Much of what you believe does not serve you and has been imposed on you to keep you enslaved. You need to adopt some fundamental new beliefs about life, about yourself and about success. If you do not adopt these beliefs, you will not likely succeed; and, if by some chance, you do manage to create some measure of success, you will probably find a way to sabotage that success by losing it or by being unable to enjoy it.

Here are those basic core beliefs: 1. You deserve success. 2. The universe and/or whatever you choose to call divinity desires your success and is all set up to provide you with the success you envision and desire. 3. Success is not related to morality or spirituality. It is not morally superior to be poor and it is not spiritually pure to forsake material success. 4. It is your own method and quality of thinking that will bring you success or failure, not how things are in the world around you.

Have faith. It can move mountains. But be very careful where you place your faith. Have faith in yourself. Have faith in your ability to create a self-designed destiny. Have faith in your right to have the success you desire.

#6 Lack of education. Most folks, even the highly educated, don’t have the right knowledge or information to succeed.

I believe, quite strongly, in the value of formal education. In fact, I think that the classic, university-level, liberal arts education is a great foundation for anyone who wants to be able to live a fulfilling and contributory life. However, a person can have a PhD in any discipline offered in the best universities and still know diddly-squat about how to succeed. And you can have little or no formal education and still have figured out, like Andrew Carnegie or Richard Branson and many others, how to create enormous success.

There is a science of success. There is a technology of success. There is a specific knowledge set that is needed to create success. If you want to succeed, you will need to obtain that knowledge and then apply it to the way that you live your day-to-day life. You spend your coin on so many frivolous things to satisfy some passing fancy. You spend your time learning so many meaningless things like the game score or the date that some historical event took place. Make a wiser decision: invest your time and money into getting the education that will empower you to create a successful and fulfilling life. One way to do that is to buy, read and apply what is available to you in the Prosperity Paradigm website. It has worked for others and it will work for you.

#5 Fuzzy ideals. Most don’t know exactly what they want. Their ideals are not clearly defined.

Almost everyone will say that they want to be or to have success. Ask them what that means, however, and they will be unable to tell you with any exactitude. Fuzzy thinking. Whenever someone says to me, “I want to be wealthy.”, I ask, “What does that mean?” The common answer is, “Well, you know, to have lots of money.” Well then, “How much is lots?” ??? What does success mean to you? Can you define it in one written paragraph? Can you tell someone in a sound byte at a noisy cocktail party? If not, then you don’t know exactly what success means to you. Without that knowing, you have no clear vision of where you want to end up.

Undefined ideals are intangibles that seldom, if ever, become tangible. The simplistic statement of “I want to be successful,” is no more meaningful than, “I want to have a nice haircut.” Would you trust your hairdresser who has purple spiked hair today and blond streaked hair tomorrow with giving you an undefined “nice” haircut? Get exact. What do you want????? The universe has infinite possibilities. How can it know what you are asking for when you say, “I want to have success,”? Fuzzy thinking produces fuzzy results. Get clear about what you desire.

#4 No passion. The average person just plain doesn’t have enough desire to succeed.

Wanting success is not enough. You have to have a burning desire. This may be a crude example, but this point must be emphasized… You must develop the ‘tear your clothes off right now’ type of lust if you truly desire to create success. Wishful thinking does not make things happen. We all know that simple truth. Passionate desire, however, does have the necessary vibratory energy to bring forth things from the un-manifest into the manifest.

Become passionate. Light a fire in your belly, in your heart, in your mind for the realization of your ideals. Feed that fire with the fuel of belief and don’t let anyone put it out with negativity or words of caution or even reasonable doubt. The side benefit about being passionate about something is that you get to feel more alive. A life without passion is not a life; it is merely an existence.

#3 No resolve. Resolve, grit, gumption, tenacity, determination, persistence, discipline are major attributes of a winning attitude.

You might as well know in advance that when you embark on the journey to creating success, your tenacity will be tested. In order to succeed, you will need to develop a kick-butt attitude a firm resolve. Your results will be determined by your determination.

Fortunately, if you have clearly defined ideals that you are passionate about seeing realized, then your resolve to succeed will come easily. You may need to dig a little deeper in moments when it seems like nothing is going right with your plans. Which brings us to…

#2 No game plan. How can you expect to win the game if you have no plan to score goals?

The majority of people don’t have specific written goals. If you want to succeed, you have to define your goals. They are the specific objectives you must reach as you proceed to realizing your ideals. Goals are so critically important to your success that I won’t even try to summarize goal setting in a couple of paragraphs. Instead, I’ll point you to the article I wrote about the subject called The 11 Basics of Goal Setting.

#1 No action. The single biggest reason that most people do not succeed is simply because they don’t do anything about it.

People do all kinds of things. In fact, most people are so busy doing stuff that they actually don’t take time to examine why they are doing what they are doing. Look around you and you will see lots of frenetic action without any apparent purpose. Stop for a minute and ask yourself, “Why am I doing the things I do? To what purpose? To what end? What exactly is my intention in doing what I do on a daily basis?”

Assuming for a moment that you have the desire to create a successful life, even if your concept of success is not yet specifically defined, are you taking the actions that are necessary to create the results you’d like to have show up in your life? Everybody has dreams and desires. Not everybody does what is necessary to fulfill those dreams and desires.

In fact, most people do not even get started. They procrastinate. They make up excuses why they will start tomorrow instead of today; or they say, “I’ll start when the conditions are better, or when my financial situation permits, or when the stars are aligned properly, or when this current project, distraction, TV program, whatever, is finished, then I’ll start.”

NO. NO. NO. Start Right Now! Right now. This minute. Create a vision. Create a game plan to enact that vision. Start doing what is necessary. Keep going. Create momentum. Don’t stop.

Most people never get started; and then, sadly, most of those who are inspired to get started, quit too soon. They get distracted. They allow obstacles to deter them. They lose sight of their goals and ideals. They lose the motivation. They resign themselves to mediocrity. Do you desire success? Create a vision. Believe in its reality. Stay focused. Never give up. Never, never, never, never give up. If you persist, you will prevail. If you desist, you will fail.

Here’s what you do, right now.

Step One: Clearly and distinctly define your ideals.

Step Two: Write down your specific time-dated goals.

Step Three: Take the first necessary action. Then, the next.

Step Four: Persist.

Make the decision to become a success. Reach deep down inside yourself and find the gumption to act now. Develop the resolve to always continue to reach toward your goals. Affirm your right to have the success you desire. Educate yourself about the principles of success. Read my other articles. Read my books. Get excited about yourself, your life and your goals. Be grateful for the incredible opportunities that lie before you. Be grateful for all the blessings that you already have in abundance.

Yes, there may plenty of reasons why you may not succeed; but all those reasons can be made meaningless, invalid and inapplicable if you will only do one simple thing… make up your mind to create the success that you desire and that you deserve.