8 OBSTACLES SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE CONQUERED TO REACH THE TOP!

8 OBSTACLES SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE CONQUERED TO REACH THE TOP!

Your world view is unique to you and mostly based on your background, education, experience and temperament; the good news is that you can change it if any particular part of your make up is not working for you. You may notice that successful people approach problems with a different mindset. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they see challenges to embrace and obstacles to overcome.

Their confidence in the face of hardship is driven by the ability to let go of the negativity that holds so many otherwise sensible people back.

Some researchers found that success in life is driven by one critical distinction: whether you believe your failures are produced by personal deficits beyond your control or they are mistakes you can fix with effort.

Success isn’t the only thing determined by our mindset.  My book ‘Goldmine of your Mind-Your Fast Track to Abundance addressed importance of mindset in everything we do. It was found that pessimists have higher rates of depression in people who attribute their failures to personal deficits. Optimists fare better; they treat failures as learning experiences and believe they can do better in the future. Ayo Benson Olarewaju FCCA FCA MBA is the author of the great book Goldmine of Your Mind-Your Fast Track to Abundance

This success mindset requires emotional intelligence , and it’s no wonder that, among the million-plus people tested, 90 percent of top performers have high EQs.

Maintaining the success mindset isn’t easy. There are eight things, in particular, that tend to shatter it. These challenges drag people down because they appear to be barriers that cannot be overcome. Not so for successful people, as these seven challenges never hold them back.

 Age

Age really is just a number. Successful people don’t let their age define who they are and what they are capable of.  You are capable of doing anything at any age! The man who started MacDonald at the age of 53 created a worldwide phenomenon and the founder of Facebook started it at 19! Wherever you are today, age shouldn’t be a barrier! Successful people follow their heart and allow their passion—not the body they’re living in—to be their guide.

2. What Other People Think

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own destiny. My rule is that I don’t regard praise from others as validation for my work or action; likewise I don’t allow criticism to define my work or my person! In my great book I   talked about how Coach John Wooden trained his basketball players to take both defeat and victory with equal calm and dignity; no excessive celebration or dejection –win or lose! They won 12 championship in a row! No matter what other people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain: You’re never as good or as bad as they say you are

3. Toxic People

Successful people believe in a simple notion: You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Think about it: Some of the most successful companies in recent history were founded by brilliant pairs. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple lived in the same neighborhood, Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft met in prep school, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google met at Stanford.

Just as great people help you to reach your full potential, toxic people drag you down with them. Whether it’s negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome or just plain craziness, toxic people create stress and strife that should be avoided at all costs.

4. Fear

In my great book ‘Goldmine of Your Mind – Your Fast Track to Abundance’ there is this chapter called ‘CONQUER FEAR’ it shatters the notion that you have no control over fear! You may feel the fear and still go do whatever you want to do anyway!  Fear is nothing more than a lingering emotion fueled by your imagination. Danger is real. It’s the uncomfortable rush of adrenaline you get when you almost step in front of a bus. Fear is a choice. Fear is simply the anticipation of pain and the acronym False Evidence Appearing Real is very true! Successful people know this better than anyone, so they flip fear on its head. They are addicted to the euphoric feeling they get from conquering their fears. Don’t ever hold back in life just because you feel scared. I often hear people say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to you? Will it kill you?” But death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing that can happen to you is allowing yourself to die inside while you’re still alive.

5. Negativity

Life won’t always go the way you want it to, but when it comes down to it, you have the same 24 hours as everyone else. Successful people make their time count. Instead of complaining about how things could have been or should have been, they reflect on everything they have to be grateful for. Then they find the best solution available, tackle the problem and move on. Your mind operates on a frequency just like a radio based on your thoughts. This is the flow –> your thought generates your emotion->your emotion directs your action -> your actions determine your status! Read more about maintaining positive mindset in chapter one (The Mind is Everything) of my book ‘Goldmine of Your Mind-Your Fast Track to Abundance’.

6. Worry

Similar to fear, the past and future are products of your mind. No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future. Successful people know this, and they focus on living in the present moment. It’s impossible to reach your full potential if you’re constantly somewhere else, unable to fully embrace the reality (good or bad) of this very moment.

To live in the moment, you must do two things:

•             Accept your past. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will never leave you and it will create your future. Successful people know the only good time to look at the past is to see how far they’ve come.

•             Accept the uncertainty of the future. Don’t place unnecessary expectations upon yourself. Worry has no place in the here and now. As Mark Twain once said, “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

7. The News and Negative Context 

Keep your eyes on the news for any length of time and you’ll see it’s just one endless cycle of war, violent attacks, fragile economies, failing companies and environmental disasters. It’s easy to think the world is quickly headed downhill.

And who knows? Maybe it is. But successful people don’t worry about that because they don’t get caught up in things they can’t control. Instead, they focus their energy on directing the two things that are completely within their power: their attention and their effort.

They focus their attention on all the things they’re grateful for, and they look for the good that’s happening in the world. They focus their effort on doing what they can every single day to improve their own lives and the world around them, because these small steps are all it takes to make the world a better place.

They focus their effort on doing what they can every single day to improve their own lives and the world around them.

Procrastination

No one accomplishes anything of significance without conquering this monster. It creeps up on you without your knowledge and you postpone your success through hesitation, indecision and creating perfectly logical excuses for not doing what you ought to do! Successful people would start regardless of the circumstances; sometimes they may not get the desired outcome but there is power in pro-active actions which more often than not grant them good fortunes for taking the initiatives.

Your success is driven by your mindset. With discipline and focus, you can ensure these eight obstacles never hold you back from reaching your full potential.

Your Mind is a Goldmine! Use it!

Ayo Benson Olarewaju FCCA FCA MBA (Oxford) is the author of the great book ‘Goldmine of your Mind-Your Fast Track to Abundance’