“I longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.”
Winston Churchill
It doesn’t matter what kind of success you want to achieve in life, without the right behaviors, you’ll never get the results you want.
It is not what you say that matters, but what you do.
And many times, people are not living their dreams because they have self-limiting behaviors. They have bad behaviors that prevent them from living their full potential.
If you want to make your dreams a reality, achieve all your goals, and live a fulfilling life, your behaviors must be in harmony with what you want.
In short, you must develop yourself into the right person who will attract the results you want.
You see, you don’t get what you want. You get who you are.
Thus, developing the right behaviors is vital. And at the same time, you want to also get rid of self-limiting behaviors that stop you from moving forward.
You want to throw away bad behaviors that prevent you from living your best life.
So, what are the bad behaviors you should stop? Here are the 7 most common limiting behaviors you should eliminate…
1. Fantasizing without taking solid action
Dreaming is good but dreaming without taking any solid action is called fantasizing. And you don’t want that.
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we fantasize too much. We don’t take any action to turn our dreams into reality.
You can daydream about starting a business, earning a million dollars, and traveling the world, but if you are not putting up a plan and taking action, nothing will ever change.
Your dreams will remain dreams.
Do you know what separates the successful from the unsuccessful? Action.
Both successful and unsuccessful people have dreams. But successful people take action and turn their dreams into reality.
The unsuccessful choose to do nothing and continue to fantasize about what they want. Hence, they continue to live in their dreams while the successful are making their dreams come true.
Here’s a quote you should always keep in your head:
“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.”
Thus, stop living in fantasy. Don’t just daydream and then do nothing. Take action. Here’s a good guide you should read:
2. Think and play too small
Another limiting behavior that prevents most people from achieving great success in life is they think and play too small.
And why is that? Because most people are afraid of failure.
Plus, most people have the wrong perception and believe in thinking and playing big requires much more effort, which is false.
You see, we all have 24 hours a day. And it is not about how much effort you put in. It is about your strategy.
The strategy for earning $10,000 a month is different than the strategy for earning $100,000 a month.
And depending on what strategy you’re using, your results will be different.
For example, if you are earning $5,000 a month working in a company, how can you earn $1,000 more? You work harder, you work longer hours, and you tell your boss that you want to have pay raise.
But what if you want to earn $50,000 a month? You cannot reach this goal by using the same strategy. You need a different strategy.
To earn that amount of money, you cannot work for a salary anymore. You should start a business and become your own boss. You need an earning system where you can scale.
This is why it has nothing to do with effort, but everything to do with your strategy.
And since you are pursuing success, why don’t just think big and dream big?
The bigger your dreams, the more inspiration, and excitement your dreams become.
Oftentimes, too many of us are playing too small because we are afraid to fail.
And it doesn’t need to be this way. Since you are going to think anyway, why don’t just think big, right?
And since you are going to pursue success anyway, why don’t you play it big and make your dreams much more exciting?
Here’s a great article you should read:
3. Not improving yourself
Here’s another common limiting behavior that stops people from achieving success in life – not improving themselves.
Learning is one of the most important factors to success.
Imagine you are reading just 1 book a month. In a year, you will have read 12 books. What if you continue this habit for the next 5 years? You will have read 60 books.
And if each book gives you just one small idea for improving your life for the better, you will have 60 ideas to do better than those who don’t read at all.
Do you see how this creates an unfair advantage for you?
Successful people understand the importance of learning and improving themselves. This is why many of them are avid readers.
According to this article on HuffPost:
- Bill Gates reads about 50 books per year, which breaks down to 1 per week.
- Mark Cuban reads more than 3 hours every day.
- Elon Musk is an avid reader and when asked how he learned to build rockets, he said “I read books.”
- Mark Zuckerberg resolved to read a book every 2 weeks throughout 2015.
- Oprah Winfrey selects one of her favorite books every month for her Book Club members to read and discuss.
Here’s a saying from Robin Sharma, the New York Times best-selling author:
“Ordinary people have big TVs. Extraordinary people have big libraries.”
If you have no idea why reading is important, read my blog post here. And if you want to build a reading habit but don’t know what books to read, check out these 20 best success books.
4. Resist change and are not innovating
That’s right, if you resist change and are not innovating, you will soon become obsolete. This is why successful people make it a habit to constantly learn and improve themselves.
On the other hand, unsuccessful people have a limiting behavior of not innovating themselves. They choose to play games and watch TV than invest in themselves.
Things are always changing. And if you resist change, you will become outdated.
Think about the company that invented the mobile phone, Motorola. So, where is Motorola now? It has become obsolete because it doesn’t innovate fast enough.
The same goes with everything else in your life, including you. If you resist change, you will become obsolete, and your competitors will put you out of business.
Even if you are working for someone else, you must constantly improve yourself and make yourself indispensable.
Who knows, someone younger may come in and take over your job, right? So, there’s no guarantee.
The only guarantee you can get is by consistently innovating yourself so that you are at your best version.
Think about it, we update our phones all the time, so why don’t we do that to ourselves? Check out this blog post below to learn more:
5. Doubting yourself
No matter what you are trying to accomplish in life, don’t doubt yourself or your ability to do it.
This is one of the most common limiting behaviors that prevent most people from living their best life ever.
When you doubt yourself, you can never do a great job. It doesn’t matter what kind of projects you are pursuing, as long as self-doubt is there, you will never put in 100% and give it your best.
Self-doubt happens when you lack confidence, or you feel incapable of doing things. You will feel insecure and worry if things are not going according to your plan.
Getting rid of this self-limiting behavior can be challenging, but it doesn’t mean you cannot overcome self-doubt.
Here are a couple of suggestions of what you can do…
- Understand why doubt yourself
It could be because of your experience and mistakes. When you failed to achieve a goal, it can make you doubtful if you can achieve other goals. Understanding how your doubts formed can be a great help in overcoming them in the future.
- Comparison with others
It is natural for us to compare ourselves to others. When you are scrolling through social media, you can see how others are living a great life while you are living in mediocrity. This can easily make you lose confidence and envy others’ lives and think that you are not as good.
- Feeling of insecurity and uncertainty
This can create self-doubt because when you are trying new things or are venturing out of your comfort zone, you are afraid of uncertainty. You don’t know what’s going to happen because things are new to you. Hence, you created self-doubts within you.
Now you understand what causes self-doubt, but how can you overcome it? Read this guide:
6. Blaming others and making lousy excuses
Did you ever blame or make excuses? We all do. As human beings, we tend to blame others and point fingers.
The key is that you should stop doing this right now and start taking 100% responsibility for your life.
Blaming others and making lousy excuses are not going to help you succeed. They are the bad behaviors that will prevent you from moving forward in life.
You see, when you blame and make excuses, you are giving away the power to change.
Think about it, if you have just been fired, do you blame your boss or company for it? If you are broke or failed in business, do you blame the economy or make the excuse that times are bad now?
If you do, you are not in control.
Blaming others will not put you in control because it is not your fault, it is other people’s fault, right?
And if others are responsible for it, there’s nothing you can do about it. And this is why blaming and making excuses will make you lose the power to change.
If you want to change your life and live better, you need to stop playing the blame game and don’t make lousy excuses.
Instead, learn to take full responsibility for everything that has happened to you, both good and bad.
I strongly suggest you read this article to learn more:
Once you start taking responsibility and say, “I create my life”, you have the power to change because you are in control.
And change begins with taking full responsibility for your life.
7. Focus on the negatives
Let’s face it, as human beings, we tend to focus on the negatives. When things happen, we ask, “why does this have to happen to me?”
Thinking negative is normal. The key is to never let yourself succumb to the negativity that consumes you and your life.
This is bad behavior you must learn to overcome. When you think negatively, things can never get better because you are expecting things to turn out bad and the world is out to get you.
Here’s a great saying:
“You can’t litter negativity everywhere and then wonder why you’ve got a trashy life.”
According to this article on ClevelandClinic.org, negative thinking is bad because…
“Negative thinking makes you feel blue about the world, about yourself, about the future. It contributes to low self-worth. It makes you feel you’re not effective in the world.”
Imagine you want to start a business, but because of your negative thoughts, you don’t dare to begin because you are afraid of failure. You worry the economy is weak. You are afraid you don’t have what it takes. You doubt yourself. And you worry about what if you fail.
This is how negative thinking can prevent you from living to your full potential. So, learn to get rid of this limiting behavior now. Here’s a guide you should read…
Takeaway
So, these are the 7 most common limiting behaviors that prevent most people from becoming successful. If you want to achieve your goals and turn your dreams into reality, you must overcome these bad behaviors now.
What other limiting behaviors are stopping you from living your best life ever? Let me know in the common section below.