4 Thoughts You Need to Overcome to Be Successful

You’re feeling motivated and you want to start your journey to success. The fire has been lit in you and you start working on the projects that will help you achieve your goals. After a few days, negative thoughts will fill your mind. You will doubt your success, you will be afraid of failure and you aren’t sure if it is going to be worth your time.

The objections will build and you will start to walk away from the work that you are doing. That’s a waste of good effort, because you have invested a lot of your time and resources for a project that you won’t want to finish. At the same time, the doubts and thoughts in your head are understandable. No one wants to waste their time, look silly or fail.

If you can’t fight against your objections, it will be difficult to motivate yourself to do anything worthwhile. Thankfully, overcoming doubts can be done if you are willing to take the time and think through each one. Your motivation won’t return overnight, but you can get it back.

Here are 4 thoughts you need to get rid of to succeed:

1. I’m Not Going To Succeed

Everyone is afraid of failing. It means you didn’t succeed at what you set out to do. It also looks like you’re not as good as other people who tried the same task and succeeded. However, you’re right in that you’re not going to succeed. Not in the beginning at least. Very rarely has anything worthwhile been successful on the first try.

You can learn from the mistakes of others, but you will inevitably make your own. Not everything you do will be a success, that’s why you learn to appreciate success. That’s not to say that failing for the sake of failing is productive. What it does mean is that every success has a few failures behind it. If it’s going to happen anyway, accept it and keep working. The success you achieve in the end will brush away all the feelings you had about your failures.

“I love it when people doubt me.  It makes me work harder to prove them wrong” – Derek Jeter

2. I’m Wasting My Time

You’re working on a project that is meaningful to you, but other people think that you’re wasting your time. Eventually you might look at your work and begin to believe you are wasting your time as well. It feels like other people could achieve success faster than you could, and you must be doing something wrong.

Is that really true? Success rarely occurs overnight. While you might see stories of people who have achieved overnight success, the stories never cover the hard work that happened behind-the-scenes. Success doesn’t have a time limit either. It’s not a race.

If it takes you 3 years to become successful instead of 2, that’s still better than not being successful at all. As long as you aren’t working without a purpose, you’re not wasting your time. You’re just approaching success at a pace that is right for you.

3. It Will Fail In The End

Some doubt may take the form of a pessimistic prediction. You know you’re working hard, you are dedicated to what you are doing, but you have encountered a lot of failure before. While you want this to succeed, deep down you have a feeling this won’t work and are trying to protect yourself from disappointment.

It’s understandable, as facing the full brunt of disappointment can be hard to swallow. However, betting against yourself before you’re finished doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you believe it won’t succeed, why would you put so much time and effort behind it? If you want to prevent yourself from feeling the pain of failure, do everything you can to make it a success.

Could you fail in the end? Yes. But rather than approach your work believing it could fail, pour your heart and soul into making it successful. If you do that, no matter what happens, you can stand up again with your head held high.

4. I’m Too Late

You might have had a great idea that was revolutionary and amazing a few years ago, but now it looks like it’s no longer special or someone has beaten you to the punch. Timing is important when it comes to success. It is very difficult to succeed if your ideas and plans haven’t kept up with the times.

While your idea might be amazing before, you feel that time has caught up and your idea isn’t as interesting anymore. That doesn’t mean you can’t make changes or update the idea. There are many products and services that are similar, and yet they still compete with each other. Maybe all your idea needs is a bit of new information to make it viable again.

Remember, success doesn’t have a time limit. If your ideas are out-of-date, update them. You can still catch up and be successful. Just don’t try to solve future issues with past solutions and you should be fine.

“Waiting patiently for the fatest bone is a dog’s lifestyle.” – Michael Bassey Johnson

It’s not easy to fight against the doubts in your mind. Everyone is scared of not doing their best, wasting their time or worrying about the future. Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a step back and think. Think about why you are scared and have answers to help you overcome those doubts. Then you can slowly regain your motivation and work hard again.

You can overcome the doubts in your mind. They are valid concerns, but ones that can be addressed. As long as you address them, you can fully dedicate yourself to the challenges ahead. When you have an answer for your doubts, you gain the confidence to keep moving forward.

Which one of these thoughts holds you back the most? Leave your comments below!