8 Obstacles in Life You Must Overcome to Succeed
Whether we plan to make a public speech, attend a birthday party, or whatever, our intentions tend toward success no matter what we seek, and no matter what success we seek, obstacles are likely to emerge that we must face. When these obstacles occur, we can either hesitate and miss the opportunity or face these challenges knowing and ready for them.
Although obstacles may make us feel like the outside world is conspiring against us, they are inside us. They may be memories or beliefs about ourselves that negatively affect us and slow our pace, and we can be trapped inside the spiral of self-destruction.
But what would happen if you knew about these obstacles and prepared yourself for them in advance?
If you know what you're going to face, you can have the right tools to get through anything that threatens your chances of success, and you can count any obstacle you face as something simple that can be addressed.
Eight obstacles you must overcome to succeed:
1. Idealism:
One of the most common obstacles we face is the need for perfectionism. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear writes that her mother always said, “Work is better than quality, and anyone who tends to perfectionism will find it harder to continue success if they want everything to be perfect all the time.”
Idealism kills creativity, activity, and discoveries. There are many cases in which people have discovered things that we use daily, and if they are very interested in idealism, they won’t enjoy the success they have achieved due to their mistakes. In addition, we learn from our mistakes how to develop and grow, so idealism will not give us a direct chance to succeed.
How to stop striving for perfection? Just as it takes many years of exercise to master a skill, it takes practice to eliminate perfectionism.
Do the following:
- Try new things and ignore your expectations.
- Only do some things on your to-do list. Watch what happens when you put it off for another day.
- Learn how to prioritize.
- If you're feeling particularly cocky, send an email with a spelling error.
Enjoy it, learn to deal with things with fun, and live your humanity.
2. Fear:
Fear occurs when we have an idea or perception that we are not safe, and it is quite a useful tool when there is a real threat to our safety. However, when a threat is imaginary, fear can prevent us from doing the work we need to do to achieve our goals.
As with idealism, the best way to deal with fear is to be more aware, and here are some tips you can try to overcome fear:
- Think about the feeling of fear, notice where you feel it in your body, and identify the thoughts that accompany that feeling.
- Ask yourself what you fear will happen and write down your answers.
- Imagine yourself facing your worst fears. How would you feel when you imagined them happening?
- Ask yourself- when did you feel this way before, and how did you deal with it then? What strengths can you draw from your previous perception?
- Imagine- yourself- using your strengths with your worst fears. How do you feel when you know that no matter what happens, you have the tools and means to deal with them?
In this exercise, we try to deal with feelings of fear. Fear actually tries to help you by keeping you safe and reminds you of things that have made you feel threatened in your life, but when we spend all our energy trying to prevent the feeling of fear, we work to promote it. We deprive ourselves of thinking about the memories in which we face our fears and win.
Allowing fear to exist in our lives, and remembering everything we have faced during our difficult times helps to convince us that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” as the late President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, put it.
3. Lack of clarity:
Imagine you're going on a trip, and you need to pack, but you don't know any details about the trip, and you haven't decided where you're going, how long you're going to stay, or what you're going to do.
If we're trying to manage our professional or personal lives without clarity, it can be nearly impossible to know what to do to succeed. So, how do we get clarity?
Author and speaker Simon Sinek gives some excellent advice to companies on how to get clarity, and this advice applies to any area of life according to “Sinek”: “When clarifying your message, you should start with the reason; in other words, why do you do what you do? Once you are clear about the reasons, it will be easy to figure out how.”
To return to the example of the trip, perhaps the reason for taking the vacation is to get the rest you need because you have been stressed recently, and this trip is better than a tourist vacation because you do not want to wander a lot, but you want to take care of your body, mind, and soul, and this may be by spending a few days in a nearby spa.
Notice how easy it is to identify these details once you've explained the reasons, and imagine the success you could have once those reasons were revealed.
4. Comparing yourself to others:
It's natural to compare ourselves to others. It is how we know whether we're doing things right or not, and how we can continue to improve ourselves. When we get used to making comparisons all the time and feel bad about not being as good as others, it can lead to a decrease in our energy. When our energy decreases, our motivation to achieve our goals decreases.
As with idealism, you need to think about how important it is to keep up with what you believe everyone around you is doing.
Do you want to stop comparing yourself to others?
Do the following:
- Notice the emotions that come into your mind when you compare yourself to someone else.
- Ask yourself, “What do you benefit from this comparison?”
- Keep the helpful parts of these questions and leave the rest.
Remember that when you compare yourself to someone else, you will be able to see the potential within you truly.
5. Negative self-talk:
How do you talk to yourself? Do you tend to say things that uplift and encourage you? Or is your self-talk negative? Negative self-talk can be a big hurdle for many people.
Many people grow up on the idea that negative self-talk is what drives us to become good people. We treat ourselves harshly to stop being lazy or lax, and if you don't check, your inner self-talk can become negative. Despite our desire to improve ourselves, this constant habit of highlighting the wrong things we do can drain our energy significantly.
According to the Mayo Clinic Medical Group, overcoming negative self-talk is helpful for our health. Some benefits of maintaining compassionate inner speech include lower levels of depression, enhanced immunity, and improved coping skills in stressful times.
Activities that help raise awareness about your inner conversation and make it more compassionate include:
- Keep a diary.
- Reframe negative self-phrases neutrally or sympathetically.
- Ask yourself what a friend you trust would have told you.
- Think about what you would say to a friend if they were in your place.
- Use psychological freedom techniques or repeat motivational phrases.
- Follow your inner critic to anticipate the worst-case scenario when faced with something.
6. Lack of clear boundaries:
So far, we've talked about several ways that internal boundaries are essential for success, including monitoring your fears, reducing your need for perfection, missing clarity about what you want, comparing yourself to others, or negative self-talk.
But what about the external boundaries that should be made clear to others in our lives? To be clear, the boundaries are not about rejecting everything and isolating yourself from everyonee, but about clarifying what you want for others, how they treat you, and what your plans are.
If we have blurred boundaries with others, we will only succeed by accident, if we achieve it at all.
People, who are happy and empathetic, know how difficult it is to set boundaries with others, and the desire for harmony can be so strong for some people that they convince themselves that it's easier to let others make decisions for them than to risk provoking a disagreement.
The problem is that no matter how hard we try to avoid disagreements with others, we will create a conflict within us that will create obstacles that affect our success, and if you have trouble setting clear boundaries with others and want to be a successful person, start building this skill slowly.
Here are some steps:
- Identify the little things you like and want.
- Tell people what you love and what you want in your life, and observe how you feel in your body when you say this out loud.
- Identify things you don't like or want, and observe how you feel in your body when you think about these things.
- Tell people, whom you trust, what you don't like or don't want, and notice how you feel in your body when you say this out loud.
- Practice rejecting the little things you don't want and striving for bigger things.
7. Set unreasonable expectations:
It is essential to dream big, as it is how we allow inspiration and big ideas to emerge in our consciousness, but if our dreams are not based on reality, we may experience some disappointment, or worse, the loss of our dreams.
Setting reasonable expectations is the foundation of success, and if you haven't figured out how to set smart goals at this point in your life, it's a good idea to try them.
It may not always be possible to know whether something is reasonable or not, especially if you are trying a completely new project for you, and if the expectation is that your new project will succeed without any obstacles or mistakes, this is likely to be unreasonable. The consequences of this experience may lead to a loss of motivation to succeed.
If the expectations for a new project you are working on include the idea that some obstacles and gaps help you learn and grow, then even perceived mistakes will turn into success. It has the positive benefit of strengthening your motivation to continue working towards more success.
Think carefully about your expectations so they are neither too high nor too low.
8. Unreasonable definition of success:
What is your definition of success? Or what perspective do you seek success from?
It's easy to think that success means achieving the goals you set for yourself, but there are many ways to look at success that you may miss out on some opportunities in your life to excel.
A narrow definition of success may lead only to one specific outcome. If we do not reach that outcome, we will not achieve success, but if we allow for several definitions of success, we may find that it is much easier to attain than we previously thought.
To broaden your definition of success, ask yourself the following:
- What needs to happen to feel successful?
- What can you do to feel successful?
Continue with the brainstorming sessions to determine what results you may experience to feel successful.
In conclusion:
Success requires overcoming many obstacles, and most people will fail at some point. The solution is to address these obstacles step by step. Success is a state of mind; if you want to achieve it, start thinking of yourself as a successful person.