Kick off these habits holding you back from future success

Who doesn’t want to be successful? It would be nice to live our dreams, wouldn’t it? But, do you wonder sometimes why some things happen for certain people, and not for others?

One of my relatives is a super talented videographer. She’s been meaning to start her production company for years. It is all she ever talks about and I have been waiting to hear the good news from her, but years have passed and I am yet to hear of the opening.

I finally caught up with her to have a chat and find out how far away is she from materialising her dreams. We met over coffee, and I asked if I could look at her plans and feasibility studies. She laughed and said that she never sat down to draft a plan, and that things always seemed to come in the way.

I knew then that she was creating hurdles in her own success without even knowing, and that she wasn’t the only one doing so. Many keep talking about their dreams, but they virtually do nothing.

You might argue and say, well, not everyone has enough finances. A valid argument, but if your dreams are really important to you and you really want to pursue them, wouldn’t you at least try to find ways to finance them?

But before you do that, there a few habits you need to kick off and you’d be on the right track:

Don’t procrastinate

What I know for sure is that the best way to kill any project or dream is to procrastinate, thinking that it’s not the right time to do something. Here’s news for you: there is never a perfect time. There’s always a risk involved and if you don’t make an effort and take the time out to chalk out a plan, you will run the risk of coming in the way of your own success.

To be successful at what you do, it will require commitment and dedication, meaning you have no room for excuses. This also means that sometimes you will have to cancel plans with friends and attend to phone calls late.

Break down your project into tasks, set a deadline, and go for it.

Talk is cheap

Talk is really cheap. We could talk all day saying that we will do this and that, but what good will that do us if we don’t go and do something about it? The bad thing about talking is that when we talk so much about something, sometimes we feel too lazy to do anything about it. Dedicate the passion that you put into explaining your dreams, to actually going and doing something about it.

It’ll get tough, don’t quit

We read successful entrepreneurial stories of X and Y, and we love where they are right now, but what we may not know are the struggles that they had to endure to reach where they are. Depending on what your dream business is, starting it may not be a piece of cake. Financing it and finding the right place to sell your products or services may be an even bigger challenge. You need to set your mind to expect that hardships will come and things may get really, really bad.

Comparing yourself to others

The worst thing you can do to yourself is to compare yourself and where your business is at with someone else’s. Just because one person believes they are successful doesn’t mean that should be the yardstick for you as well. What you would mark as a success has nothing to do with someone else.

Not improving yourself

You may be great at doing a certain thing, but no matter how good you are, you have weaknesses, and if you don’t work on them you will fall behind. Videography for instance was my weakness, but in my field I needed to know more about it to be able to work with my team, and I did. By working on my weakness, I was able to elevate my business more.