Stopping Short of Success

Many of you like having control. This condition is so prevalent that you establish comfort zones that may or may not be conscious to you. Unfortunately many of you build protective shells around yourselves in such a way you often sabotage your own lives. In particular, this article's attention sets the spot light on you that do.

When you start projects that might lead to reaching some goal and you draw close to the outskirts of your realm of control, you withdrawal and abandon what you had achieved thus far. You seem to do this whenever you approach those special achievements you always wanted, but always fall short of accomplishing them. Either you are afraid of failure or you fear success. There are perhaps a multitude of reasons why you have built either of these behaviors, but ultimately it is because it will take you beyond what you have allowed yourself to be accustomed. You are paranoid about being outside of your barriers, your familiar territory. So as a result of this fear, you let go what you had a firm grip onto, often never seeing your dreams and/or desires come to fruition.

There are no great formulas or cures for these behaviors. You have to know that they are there and make a decision that either you will control them or succumb to their control; I know you really do not want the latter condition.

The Fear of Failure

Early James Bond movies featured a criminal mastermind Blofeld, who did not tolerate failure, i.e. a mistake in his organization resulted in death for the person in err. Some of you have similar expectations about failure, but not with the same consequences. Some feel that if you fail at attempting to reach certain goals, you are worthy of a form of death in a psychological sense.

The reality of our lives is that all of us have failed in the past and will certainly fail again in the future with some aspects of our lives; there is no escaping it. Another reality about our existence is that failure "does not" mean the end. In fact in many cases failure leads to a new beginning…if you allow it. We, and I stress WE, because I make mistakes too as you do. If you have taken notice during your life, while we were being educated we often made mistakes. It is by the understanding of what those mistakes were we learn what are the correct answers. Yes, we learn by our corrections. Some of us get it right after a few mistakes, while others might struggle a little longer; unfortunately this is how the education system typically measures each of us.

Failure serves a purpose when we can learn from our mistakes. Yet, the fear of failure is given so much importance by many of you that you will allow this to halt your attempted achievements before you may witness their actual outcomes. For some of you the fear of possible loss is greater the anticipation of potential gain. Many of you will quit before you really begin.

The Fear of Success

Often times you will make excuses for why you did not do what you set out to do, but all of those explanations fall short of not having the courage to get it done. What is the point of starting something and not finishing it? This is a waste of your time, your energy and your life. Yet, you may do this over and over and over again, a multitude of times. Why? Because whether you are conscious of it or not, you fear what may be lurking beyond this new trail you blaze, a new territory of achievement…success.

The fear of success is prevalent among many people. This fear is why many come short of their dreams and others after they have attained great achievements squander it away.

Fear is the anxiety of anticipation of what we imagine may happen. In reality, fear has only meaning to what we give it; if we give it no meaning or if we allow something else to have greater meaning, then fear has little or no influence upon us. Such is faith, which opposes fear.

What Do You Want to Do?

With all these issues emerges the question, how important is your cause?

To accomplish any task you must be devoted to laying plans and diligently working on them. Yet, before you begin with the labor, you must have a foundation of thoughts; a vision of what you wish to do.

Your success or your failure greatly depends on what you see…for yourself. Your persistency will be directly motivated by the strength of your cause. If you truly believe in what you believe then the labor you will put forth will inspire you to act upon that belief. This is faith.

I have included some Commandments you should insist upon yourself to follow. These will help you like a mirror to see an image of what you want to accomplish with your life. They are some practices you should take into action. As you do them, I am certain you will create some of your practices to compliment these:

Commandments for Success

• All success requires faith, without faith I will not succeed
• I must have a vision of what I want to do. I can not accomplish anything without any direction.
• I am not afraid of failure
• I am not afraid of success
• I will see my projects completed to the end, no matter what the outcome.
  • I will plan my projects from start to finish
  • I will not back down from road blocks, because they give me an opportunity to learn which way I should turn
  • I will focus on one project completion at a time (this does mean I can not take notes on the plan for others to come) until it has been completed
  • When I achieve some level of success before my project has ended, I will not reward myself until the project is completed
• I must come to accept that if I am unable to do what I want to do, then it is an opportunity to learn how it needs to be done
• I will respect the opinion of others, but I will not stop my vision based on what they see. After all, their view is an opinion from their perspective. They do not see what I see.
• There is a cycle for success, in order to succeed I must understand how I must flow in that cycle (be a part of it)
• I can never accomplish success on my own; I rely on the support and resources from others
• I understand that success can corrupt my vision, I can not success to stand in the way of my ultimate goals