5 Warning Signs That You Wont Succeed
You've made some great progress and things are going swimmingly. But then your progress starts to slow despite you believing you're still doing all the right things. You don't feel like you're doing anything differently, but has your mindset started to slip?
Here are five warning signs that you won't succeed.
1. You procrastinate your success.
You started brightly. You took the first few steps and now you feel good because you've taken action. Having felt the immediate relief of taking action you start to procrastinate your success, putting it into the future. There are many more steps to make but you keep putting them off. You tell yourself, "I've been so good, I'll do the rest tomorrow/next week/next month". Your goal date starts to slip further and further back.
Ask yourself: "Has my goal date gone slipped backwards?"
2. You stopped tracking your progress
When you first adopt new habits you have to think about them consciously. You measure and track every little thing to make sure you're sticking to your plan. You weigh every ingredient, count every push-up, track every run. At the end of each week you know how you're doing. Over time you become complacent and stop tracking. Close enough becomes good enough. You give yourself credit for more than you have achieved and turn a blind eye to deviations.
Ask yourself: "Do I KNOW if I'm on track? What measures am I using?"
3. You avoid taking personal responsibility.
You might have started out owning the problem and by putting yourself in the driving seat but as you face new obstacles you stop looking inward and start to blame others for your lack of results. In the beginning you created time and space for your goal and were protective of it, but now you allow other things to steer you off course. You tell yourself 'stories' about your inaction and you cast yourself as the 'victim'.
Ask yourself: "How have I contributed to this situation?"
4. You avoid conversations about your goal
When you first set yourself a goal you tend to tell people about it. Perhaps a partner, friends, family and colleagues. Usually, they'll ask how you're getting on when they see you and you're normally happy to bring them up to speed with your progress or, at the very least, it doesn’t provoke an emotional reaction. However as time goes on, if you've stopped making progress or you're finding it harder, you desperately try to avoid the topic and people stop asking. You bury your head in the sand and stop talking at the very time when you really need to be opening up.
Ask yourself "Am I avoiding the topic?" "Can I admit when I'm struggling?"
5. You stopped focusing on the why
When you really commit to something it can easily start to take over your life. What was once a process to achieve a better life becomes the end itself. We start to focus on the boring mechanics of the process and beat ourselves up with what we haven't done, meaning we completely lose sight of the motivating, fun reason we started in the first place. As a result, our motivation begins to wane and we feel bogged down by the day to day grind.
Ask yourself: "What is my purpose for doing this and what small steps can I take today to get there?"
Anything else?
Recognise any of these?
What signs tell you that you are starting to slip into bad habits?
How do you spot them?
What do you do about it?
Let us know below or on the facebook page