Success Advice

5 Ways to Ditch Your Bad Habits that Undermine Your Success

Published

6 years ago

Feb 28, 2018

No one can be a bigger critic than you. Your brain is wired to value negative information more than positive information and to gather the evidence to support your thinking. Negativity bias affects all. You hold on to, cogitate and recall negative experiences more quickly. It serves to undermine your progress, keeps you stuck and stagnant. Self-confidence is compromised and when the pattern remains unchecked, failure is imminent.

Life is a matter of priority and decision. Rather than burying your head in social media day in and day out, wasting hours staring idly at the screen, invest your time in strengthening something of value, like you. When you believe you are worthy of success and commit to executing ideas, you position yourself to exchange self-sabotage for success.

Here are 5 ways to ditch self-critical patterns that undermine your success:

1. Happiness facilitates success

Most people believe that they must have something before they can do what they want to do, resulting in them being something. For instance, if l have time, then l can start a business and then l will be content. Somehow you have managed to have this back to front. The have-do-be paradigm must be reversed to experience success.

To experience happiness, you first must be whatever it is you want to be, you then begin to start doing things that you love from this space and then what you are doing will bring about the things you want to have.

“Identify your problems, but give your power and energy to solutions.” – Tony Robbins

2. Define what you want

Being able to define what you want in the present tense highlights who you are being to inform what you will do and ultimately who you become. One way of doing this is handwriting affirmations or your goals as if you have already achieved them. Napoleon Hill ‘s book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ encourages you to write down on a piece of paper the amount of money you want to make and identify a timeframe.

Jim Carrey not only dreamt of his future, he wrote himself a check for $10 million and put in the notation line “for services rendered”. He dated the check, placed it in his wallet and time lined his success within five years. Just before the end of the 5-year journey, he was paid $10 million for Dumb and Dumber.

3. Be your own inspiration

When you step into becoming your own hero, you stop looking for external validation. You preserve your energy as opinions and perceptions don’t matter. You stand in your truth and choose who you want to be at any moment. You stop waiting for someone else to believe in you enough to act and invest your energy into your strengths. The pitty patter of self-misery will never unlock your potential.

4. Turn impossibility into possibility

Successful people today aren’t shocked when things are off course. Instead of complaining, going into overwhelm or drowning in misery, they look for the opportunity as a chance to grow. Expansive thinking creates a mindset of being able to develop you out of any pain. Observing your circumstances differently and working to develop you, creates a solution focused framework that is ecological for all.

When you believe that your pain is caused by your circumstances, rather than your circumstances exposing where you need to develop or adapt next, you can get angry when things change, blame others and panic that you don’t have all the information. You become critical of others for not giving you all the information. Overwhelm kicks in and you are drowning in the quicksand.

Your mindset has everything to do with your success. People tend to believe that pain comes from increased expectations and demands and rarely consider that it may be coming from your response to those demands, your lack of growth and readiness or perhaps your fear of failure or success.

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. A victim mindset espouses they don’t have enough time, on the other hand an accountable person acknowledges they are not using their time wisely, learns to re-prioritise and looks for the possibilities to grow and develop out of the pain. Turn mistakes into teachable moments.

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” – Confucius

5. The loop of self-sabotage

Have you ever witnessed another person sabotage themselves because they are afraid of succeeding? They are over-committed to their identity, they discard what is working or not and playing safe far outweighs the risk. They will take a few steps forward, make progress toward their goal and right before breaking through that goal, they emotionally withdraw.

A clear cut example of self-sabotage is someone who is trying to start their own business. It doesn’t matter if they want to start an online course, consulting, or e-commerce business; self-sabotage loops can occur. You have to be mindful of this loop if you want to get out of it.

People will pull themselves back because they are driven by certainty and more comfortable with their past self rather than their future self. On a deeper level, it is easier for them to be unhappy than uncertain. Staying the same requires no effort. This mindset will keep you on the hamster wheel indefinitely.

To reverse the process and create long term sustainable happiness, you need to learn to dance with uncertainty and breakthrough the gates of unhappiness. When you expand your unfamiliar zone, you place yourself in challenging situations and that is where the growth comes from. You expand your thinking and strengthen your own internal belief. It’s your choice.

Distractions are part of everyday life and often, our thinking processes are distracted or constantly interrupted, leading to shallow rather than deep thinking. If our thinking is shallow, then it’s safe to say that perhaps our living is as well. Your ability to invest in deep thought, energy and time is being compromised by your choices you make in a distracted world.

When you invest your energy into everyday routine tasks of emails, meetings, calls and do not allocate time energy into immerse you into deep work where you create something of value, you are not tapping into your creativity and possibilities for innovation. Just a few seconds could change your whole life.

What are some negative habits holding you back? How will you get rid of/change them moving forward? Comment below!

Related Topics:awesome epic Goals greatness Habits Happiness Inspiration language Life mindset negative habits positive habits Positivity Self-Sabotage Success Vision

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Angela Kambouris

Angela Kambouris used to work with high risk kids in the streets of Melbourne, now she has her own consultancy business and writes for large publications. As a leadership coach and business leader having spent over 20 years in the field of vulnerability and trauma, she has built a high-level career as an executive and transitioned into a business owner. She has spoken on stages and worked with thousands of people in self-development, leadership, mindset, human behavior and business. Love to travel, experience difference cultures and mastermind with leaders and expert authorities in personal development and business all over the world. Connect with her through her website http://angelakambouris.com/ or through her Facebook.

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All of us come to this world with our own reserve of magic unfortunately, not everyone can unleash it

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Success Advice

How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity

Published

3 weeks ago

Nov 16, 2023

Jamelle Sanders

Image Credit: Midjourney

In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.

I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.

I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.

As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.

I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.

Everything legal must come through the matrix

I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.

The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.

Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.

The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.

Every matrix has an incubation process

While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.

In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.

What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.

However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.

Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.

“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier

You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time

When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.

The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?

First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.

In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.

For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.

For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.

Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.

You must manifest your greatness

As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.

I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.

Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.

When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.