Seven Habits That Ruin Your Chances Of Success
Success doesn’t come overnight. A lot of time and effort goes into laying the groundwork of any successful venture. Therefore, you need to make sure you don’t have any bad habits that ruin your chances of success, or you won’t get there at all.
There Are No Overnight Successes
There’s no shortage of snake oil salesmen selling books and courses to gullible people who believe there’s a secret or shortcut to success. If there is a secret, it’s to stay on track and focused on your plan, even when confronted with problems and setbacks. Changing course and adopting a new plan every other week is a recipe for failure.
6. Spreading Yourself Too Thin
Do you embrace the 80/20 rule? Known as the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule is the notion that eighty percent of our results come from twenty percent of our actions. The easiest way to boost results is to understand which tasks fall into the twenty percent category. Focus on those and delegate the rest if possible.
7. Taking Too Long To Make A Decision
It isn’t wise to make decisions too quickly. It can be catastrophic to put off a decision that needs to be made now. In some cases, a decision that isn’t ideal is better than no decision at all.
Seven Habits That Ruin Your Chances Of Success
1. Skimping On Research There’s no substitute for quality research and it should go into every important decision you make. The time and effort spent on research should be proportional to the scale of the decision. A ‘flying by the seat of your pants approach’ could end up costing you in a big way. 2. You Don’t Question Your Beliefs A successful business leader needs to be an innovator. To be an innovator, you need to question the beliefs you’ve inherited along the way and eliminate the ones that are incorrect. Not that long ago, many people thought that things like clothes and shoes would never sell online. Some people have made a lot of money by questioning that belief. 3. Lack Of Confidence It can be nerve-wracking when success seems to be just out of reach. This can lead to second-guessing yourself. Questioning your decisions fosters a lack of confidence and weakens your commitment to your plan. 4. Fear Of Failure Fear of failure can paralyze you. You need to remember that even when you don’t get the desired result, something positive happened. The road to success isn’t always a straight line and failure can be a great teacher. 5. Procrastination Do you tend to over-prepare? Too much preparation leads to unnecessary actions that don’t move you closer to your goal. Here are a few signs you might be procrastinating rather than preparing:- Postponing tasks rather than completing them
- The need to have all your ducks in a row before you start anything
- You keep doing research when you have enough information to make a decision
- Letting emails and phone calls bog you down
- Spending too much time on social media when you should be working on your project
6. Spreading Yourself Too Thin
Do you embrace the 80/20 rule? Known as the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule is the notion that eighty percent of our results come from twenty percent of our actions. The easiest way to boost results is to understand which tasks fall into the twenty percent category. Focus on those and delegate the rest if possible.
7. Taking Too Long To Make A Decision
It isn’t wise to make decisions too quickly. It can be catastrophic to put off a decision that needs to be made now. In some cases, a decision that isn’t ideal is better than no decision at all.