20 Dream Killers
1. Fear of failure
“What if I fail? All that work and time for nothing."
The Truth: So your proposed alternative is settling for mediocrity? Life is not as simple as you think. There is rarely true failure. Sure, there is no guarantee that your next business venture will succeed, but you are discounting the valuable insights and progress you'd make even if you failed in the short-term. You're looking at failure in a completely unresourceful and limiting way. Failure is how the best people in the world succeed. You fail, fail, fail... then you get success.
2. Stuck in comfort
"I've got a decent life already. It's not perfect, but I can tolerate that."
The Truth: Then you will never be truly happy. You will never truly tap into the greatest joys in life. You will also feel a background hum of discontentment because:
1) You know you're capable of more but refuse to heed the call.
2) You will grow tired of tolerating things.
Minor discomforts fester into major resentments. Comfort is good, but you can't even fathom right now how amazing you are capable of feeling. Feeling comfortable is selling yourself so short. You are killing off all the greatest peak experiences in life.
3. This isn't me
"This is not who I am. I'm not that type of person. I'm not a type-A personality."
The Truth: "Who you are" is a greatly misunderstood concept, as are personality types. Who you are changes every day and your personality type does not dictate your future. There is no eternal, immutable "you". Your brain is rewiring itself all the time. Who you are today is not who you were 10 years ago. Who you are is going to change in the next 10 years regardless. The question is, will you direct that change consciously or follow media, friends, and co-workers? Living a life of vision and passion is not merely for some people, it's for everyone. Everyone gets joy out of having something meaningful to work towards.
4. Setting small goals
"I'll set 'realistic' goals. After all, I don't want to disappoint myself."
The Truth: The danger is not in setting your goals too big, but setting them too small! You MUST create a compelling vision of your future. It must inspire and excite you or it's not bold enough. Most people fail at their goals because their goals are not inspiring. Having the courage to come up with a bold vision isn't easy, but it is the key to creating an extraordinary life. Don't get caught up in "but-how-will-I-do-it?!" thinking. Generate some courage.
5. Fear that you are not enough
"What if I'm just not good enough to rise to the challenge?"
The Truth: Your potential — everyone's potential — is nearly infinite. You can't even fathom what you could accomplish in your life if you just set your mind to it. This is not just wishful thinking. Think of all the immense challenges you've overcome throughout your whole life. Really! Think about how much you had to summon of yourself. While you can't rise to meet every challenge, you are far more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. Unless you have a physical disease, you can do it, and certainly so if there is at least one other person in history who has. The only question is, will you try? Will you give it your all?
6. Lack of time
"I'm too busy with work and family. I don't have time for this."
The Truth: You're too busy to strategize and design an extraordinary, influential, and rich life? Nonsense! You are too busy with the wrong things. In reality, you simply don't know how to manage and prioritize your schedule effectively. Stop living other people's agendas and start imposing your own. If you've got to hold down an existing job, that's fine, but you've got time to work on this during your evenings or weekends.
7. Lack of capital
"I'm barely paying my rent. Finding a purpose is a 'luxury' I can't afford."
The Truth: That's exactly why you are struggling! You think too small. Living an extraordinary life isn't a luxury, it's the best strategy for achieving financial independence. There are opportunities out there that don't require a lot of start-up capital. You can simply get more income from your current job by building yourself up to the point where management sees that you have more value to offer.
8. Too old
"I'm too old. It's too late for me to make big changes."
The Truth: This is a flat out excuse. Total nonsense! Everyone feels this way at times, regardless of their biological age. I've felt "too old" when I was 25! What a load of bullshit my mind was feeding me! Other people only start to feel "too old" in their 40s or 60s. Unless you've got a serious disease, neuroscience shows that we are fully capable of learning new things and changing everything about your psychology up until death. There is no reason why you can't make a big impact and create an extraordinary life in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. In fact, studies show that creative people, and people with a purpose, live much longer.
9. Too invested
"So everything I've been doing up to now has been wrong? I can't throw all that away!"
The Truth: It can be hard to admit that you've been going down the wrong path, especially if you've been going down it for a long time. This takes courage. Unless you're about to die, imagine how much time you still have left to live and how much better that can be if you decide to shift tracks. Also, don't discount the experience and wisdom you've developed with that "wrong track". You will advance much faster in your new endeavours because experiences are transferable.
10. Fear of success
"Success won't be that great anyways. I'll have more responsibilities and more stress."
The Truth: It depends on what you mean by success. I'm talking about feelings — the ultimate goal. You have no idea how much better you can feel when you're living a fully engaged life. It's not a matter of having more money or a prestigious position. When you're on purpose and living your vision, you will feel a deep sense of pride, satisfaction, joy, excitement, and gratitude. Your fear of death will melt away. These are the greatest feelings in the world and cannot be bought with any amount of money. This level of success IS much more than it's cracked up to be. If you're just after money, then you're probably right, it won't be that fulfilling. As far as stress goes, 95% of stress depends completely on your inner game, not external circumstances. There are many ways to deal with stress.
11. Up to fate
"If it was meant to be, it will happen 'naturally' on its own. I shouldn't force it."
The Truth: Total defeatist, fatalistic nonsense! Successful people are self-made. Be proactive! People who want something must go out and get it. Rarely does something valuable just fall in your lap. Stop putting yourself at the mercy of luck, circumstance, or God. If you have a compelling vision of your life, you will be so eager to jump into action that you'll have a hard time sleeping. God helps those who help themselves. Afterall, you don't pray for God to fill up your gas tank or to do your dishes for you. You do it yourself. Neither should you pray for success or happiness.
12. Maybe later
"This is great! But I'll start later..."
The Truth: While there may not be an immediate rush, the real problem is procrastination. You are just using this as a veiled excuse for not getting started. You simply have resistance to getting started. Acknowledge your resistance, don't hand-wave it off as "what's the rush?" The fact is, you could die tomorrow. What is the point of not starting to live up to your full potential today? Right now!!! If you can't summon the discipline to start right now — while this information is fresh in your mind — let's face it, when will you?
13. I can't change
"I can't change. I've tried so many times in the past and failed."
The Truth: This is perhaps the worst limiting belief of all time! The fact is, the past does not equal to the future. We've all been there. We've all tried and failed to make changes in our lives in the past. But we've also all made changes successfully. Make sure you're giving yourself credit for the big changes you have been able to make. If you keep struggling to make a change, it's probably because you aren't using the right strategies or simply don't know enough about the topic. Change is always possible.
14. Fear of work
"It's going to be too much work."
The Truth: You can't be sure exactly how much work there will be or what the work will entail. Actually, it's not really work that you fear, it's the pain of work. But pain is a relative thing and depends entirely on your mindset. If your mindsets and skill levels change, what seemed like painful work can become the greatest joy. Too often we blow the pain of work out of all proportion. Once you're on track with your greatest vision, the idea of grinding through work melts away. That is in fact why pursuing your dreams is so important. You will work x5 harder but feel like you're working half as much as you are in a boring, dead-end job.
15. This is wishful thinking
"Living your dream is a fantasy. The real world is harsh and you gotta kill to live!"
The Truth: The real world can be harsh, but it can also be beautiful and easy. Millions of people right now are living extraordinarily engaged, happy lives. If that's not you, if you're struggling to survive and having to "kill" just to make a space for yourself in this world, and you live in a 1st world country, you are doing something wrong. With a different strategy you can work yourself into a place where life becomes easy. Don't be discouraged if life is hard for you right now. And don't think that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is!
16. Lack of talent
"I'm not talented or gifted like others. It's easy for them, it's really hard for me."
The Truth: Talent is a myth! This has been scientifically proven. Most of the people we think of as "great" or "talented" were no more pre-disposed to greatness than others, they just put in more hours. Talent is a matter of diligent effort. It takes about 10,000 hours of experience to grow yourself to a world-class level in any domain of life. If you're willing to put in the hours, you are virtually guaranteed to become excellent. And developing expertise is challenging for everyone. No one has it easy. All the world's greatest experts went through really difficult growth situations.
17. Success won't last
"Even if I succeed, it won't last any ways. It will be impossible to maintain."
The Truth: This is simply a limiting belief and often a self-fulfilling prophecy. While some achievement may require continual maintenance work to keep, the problem can be entirely overcome or greatly reduced by using the right strategies. For examples, maintaining a healthy weight isn't as hard as it first seems because your tastes and thoughts about food change. While many fail at making sustainable changes, that is only because they use the wrong strategies.
18. Obligations
"I have important obligations at work and at home. This is selfish and irresponsible."
The Truth: You have an unhealthy, socially-conditioned negative belief about selfishness and responsibility. You are biologically wired to be selfish. This is a good thing! Counter-intuitively, taking care of yourself first and giving your agenda and happiness top priority is going to make you a better provider for others. Most people cannot help others for extended lengths of time because they are unhappy themselves, or don't have the emotional capacity, or don't have the resources. Once you have an exciting, happy, abundant life, you will naturally want to help others and you will have the resources and knowledge to do it much more effectively.
19. What will people think of me
"None of my friends or family is doing this 'personal development' stuff. I feel weird talking about it."
The Truth: That's probably the chief reason you're not more successful right now... because no one has ever shared these strategies with you. Be open-minded. This is a HUGE opportunity for you to grow and disseminate your findings to friends and family. Once you use these strategies to get results, your friends and family will take notice and support you. You will also get more and more comfortable as you use them and prove their power to yourself. And, sometimes you have to go it alone too, and that can be very rewarding and pleasant.
20. Fear of change
"But this means I will have to radically change my life around!”
The Truth: Yes, you probably do have to make some big changes in your life, and they will probably take lots of time and effort. But, change is good! Your life is too boring, too dry, too mundane as it is. When you bite the bullet and start making these changes, you will feel a sense of relief, and a sense of pride for acting on your dreams. Your best memories in life will be of these times of big change. You will be so happy and thankful a few years from now that today you decided to really invest in yourself. Just picture how amazing your life will be in a few years after you make these changes.
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Oh no, that sucks! Sending you positive vibes ✨ ? ✨
