Success is not limited to the few.  It is something that can be obtained by those who put their mind to it, take action, and develop good behaviors.

When we aren’t finding success in our lives there is a reason or reasons we can’t get past the hurdles.  Sometimes we come up with excuses because, after all, they are the easy way out. However, it often boils down to behaviors. Our behaviors can be the reason why we succeed or don’t succeed. To be healthy we need good eating and exercise habits. To be great in business we need to have resilient behaviors to get over failures.

Many times we have developed bad behaviors which hold us back from leading successful lives. These behaviors hold us back from great careers, building businesses, cultivating relationships, and much more. Bad behaviors prevent us from achieving the success we desire.

If success is eluding your life, here are 6 behaviors that may be limiting your success:

1. Jealousy

Today it is easy to get caught up in jealous behaviors because we live in a social world. We get notifications when someone gets a huge promotion, we see every picture from our “friends” two week cruise, and we read the posts about fairy tale relationships.

The problem with jealousy is it can be consuming and ruin your life. It limits success because instead of working on your dreams, you are spending time being envious of others.

Instead of being jealous of others, be grateful for what you have in your life.  It helps you be more productive and happier.

2. Self-limiting beliefs

The behavior that keeps many people from achieving success is self-limiting beliefs. This behavior is when you hear that little voice start talking you out of doing great things.

Self-limiting beliefs includes thinking you are too inexperienced for a job, believing you shouldn’t take a risk because you’ll fail, thinking it is too late, or you don’t need more money because you are comfortable.

All of these thoughts keep us from success.  Don’t come up with reasons why you shouldn’t, think of reasons why you should do something great because you might actually succeed!

3. Living in the past

It is hard to drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror, but there are many people who live life like this.  They live by always bringing up the past and fail to move forward.

This includes living in the past by riding prior successes and past failures. We all see people who seem to be on the fast track to success, but hit a plateau because they are living on that one big sale they got two years ago. We also know people who can’t recover from failure or overcome someone who wronged them.

Whether you are living in the past from a success or failure, you need to move forward. Moving forward and setting goals is the only way to achieve and sustain success.

4. Gossip

If you are in business and have a bad behavior of gossiping, then you won’t be in business long. When we gossip to others and say bad things about others; it makes you look bad.

People will stop doing business with you, it will be difficult to rise higher in a company, and you will get a bad reputation. There is no reason to gossip because it can destroy all of your success and limit future success.

As the old saying goes, don’t worry about those who talk behind your back, they’re behind you for a reason.  If you want to get ahead, then talk positively about others. It goes much further than gossip.

5. Giving up too soon

Many people never achieve success because they give up too soon. When there is a bump in the road or an obstacle, they resort to backing down rather than persevering.

We must be willing to keep going. We need mind sets like Walt Disney, Abraham Lincoln, and Michael Jordan who all fought on through failures to achieve wild success.

We are wired to persevere. When we were younger and learning to walk, we all overcame obstacles. Many of us fell and got hurt while we were trying to go from crawling to walking. However, we all got back up and learned to walk.

6. Negative thinking

Negative thinking is a dangerous behavior because it can be detrimental to our lives. When we have a bad case of what Zig Ziglar calls “stinkin thinkin“, we limit our success significantly.

This behavior is bad because we start to think the world is out to get us, things will never get better, or we expect everything to turn out bad. Turn your negativity around. Think about what is good in your life and what you are possible of accomplishing.

Take a self-assessment of yourself and determine if any of these behaviors may be keeping you from success. If you are suffering from one of them, then change it.

When you make the decision to change any of these behaviors, you will start to experience more success in your life.