Let’s face it – success is hard. It is extremely difficult. And this is why most people are not successful. While in school and when we are young, we often heard our teachers and parents told us that we need to work hard to be successful. And that our hard work will pay off for the most part. But is it really so?
As you grow older, you will slowly notice that working hard is not going to be the only answer to live a successful life. Working hard is simply just not enough in today’s world. You need much more than just work hard to achieve greatness in life.
You can work long hours and put in more effort than most people, but if you don’t have the right mindset, the right behaviors and if you’re not doing the right thing, you will produce little or no results.
And in this article, we will talk about why some people will never succeed in life, despite working hard for their goals and the things that they desire…
1. They are unsure what success looks like to them
First, success is about finding clarity. Do you really know what exactly you want out of your life? Most people don’t. Most people have no idea what success looks like and they have no idea what kind of life they want to live.
There is no point in working hard if you don’t know what you want. You must identify your destination before you start your journey.
Many people want to start their own business. They prefer to be their own boss rather than working for someone else. But, most people don’t do it. Why? The reason is that they have no idea what kind of business to build.
As a result, they don’t start. When you lack clarity, you’re not giving your mind a set of clear instructions to follow.
And if your mind doesn’t know what to do, it chooses to do something that’s comfortable and what you have always did.
Hence, find out what kind of success you want. Define your success. Envision the future that you want. Start with creating an empowering vision. Spend time to truly think about your future.
2. They don’t have a clear plan to stick to
I believe that success is not an accident. Success is science and it can be engineered. That means you can manufacture your own success.
Once you have identified exactly what you want to achieve in life, the next step you can take is to create a vivid plan so that you can execute and move yourself to your destination.
Sadly, most people don’t have a plan for the success that they want. They have plans for their vacations and weekend day off, but they don’t have a plan for their future.
And this is why they can never achieve the success they desire. When you don’t have a plan, you don’t know what to do. And if you don’t know what to do, you become reactive.
You become part of the crowd following wherever other people are moving.
When you turn on social media and you see your friend sharing his holiday trip photos in Bali, you tell yourself that you want to go to Bali too. When you see your friend change a better car, you promise yourself that you’re going to work hard and change an even better car than your friend.
You become distracted and you always compare. This is what happens when you don’t have a clear plan of where to go and what to do.
Thus, stop living a reactive life and start being proactive. Create an action plan for the goals and dreams you want to achieve. And more important, stick to it. You can learn how to create an action plan from my Goal Setting Formula masterclass.
3. They are not being consistent enough
Success isn’t going to come to you immediately. It is not something that you do once in a while that matter, it is what you do on a daily basis that counts.
A lot of people have the wrong perception and believe that success is such a big thing that comes immediately. No, if you read the success stories of extraordinary people, you will understand that it is their consistency that contributes to their success.
Rome was not built in a day. Kobe Bryant did not become a basketball superstar in days, weeks, or even months. It took him years of practice and improvement to get there.
The same goes for every successful business out there. It takes time to build and grow.
Many people want to build a successful blog, but most of them fail to be consistent and stick to their blog. They started strong, write and publish a lot of content in the beginning. But after a few weeks or months, they stop.
They get distracted. When they don’t see the results that they want, they started to doubt themselves and their goals. They started to lose interest and start looking for something new.
Like fitness, you can’t workout in the gym for just one day or two and expect to have 6-pack abs. It doesn’t work that day. You have to be consistent.
If you workout in the gym for just 30 minutes a day, consistently for 6 months or a year, you will slowly see the difference in your abs.
Therefore, be consistent with what you do. Stop looking for another new project or opportunity until you create success in the one that you’re pursuing right now.
4. They make excuses and are not willing to change
Another common reason people fail to get the success they want in life is because they make too many excuses and are not willing to change.
Successful people don’t make excuses. When they face difficulties in pursuing their goals, they don’t give lousy excuses and tell you why they can’t do it. Instead, they take full responsibility and make it work anyhow.
When you face a problem in life, do you say “why me”, or do you say “try me”? It makes a huge difference.
When you’re absolutely committed, you are willing to overcome the obstacles and solve all the problems you face. But if you’re not, you will make lousy excuses by saying things like, “it’s too hard”, “the competition is too high”, or “the market is not good right now”.
So, stop making excuses and start taking full responsibility for your own success and life. When you do that, you can make a change.
This is because when you believe that you’re the one that created the result, you can make a change. Instead of blaming your competitor, you can work on yourself or improve your product to achieve better results.
This is why it is important to choose to NOT make any excuses. Focus on yourself and where you can improve, and then make the necessary changes.
5. They chase the wrong things
Do you set the wrong goals and go after the wrong things? Only you can tell. If you chase the wrong things, you will find that it is difficult to come up with the motivation you need to work on the goal.
For instance, most people associate success with wealth. When you are rich and wealthy, it means you’re successful. While wealth is only one part of success, it is not the whole equation.
There is no point to be the richest person in the graveyard. You want to be successful in every area of your life – finance, career, relationship, personal, spiritual, love, etc.
What is more important is for you to align your life’s values with the things that you want to achieve. You don’t want to blindly build a business, spend 18 hours working on it, put in 10 years into it and only to find that the business is not what you want.
Stop chasing the wrong goals. Dig deep into your heart and ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?”
And if you find out that your goals are not what you really looking forward to achieving, perhaps, you need to refine your goals.
6. They choose instant gratification and avoid taking risk
People want things to be quick and easy. They prefer to enjoy the instant gratification rather than sacrifice their leisure right now to work for the better future that they want.
Many people have big dreams, but only those who are willing to put in real work can make a difference.
Don’t just say or dream about the success you want, do it. Take action right now. Delay gratification and work on your goals.
When people get to choose to watch a movie or to work on their dreams, they choose the easy and comfortable one – watch the movie.
This is why a lot of people are not creating the results that they want. They prefer to play games, to sleep, to have fun, and to enjoy life rather than taking the hard route and work on their projects.
When you choose to take action, there are risks involved. But don’t worry about the risk. Yes, you may fail. And yes, you’re afraid of rejection and the uncertainty, but you have to tell yourself to press on.
If you are not taking the risk and you continue to do what you have always been doing, you will get what you have always got.
You can’t build a multi-million-dollar business and want to enjoy playing golf for 4 hours a day. There is an opportunity cost involved.
We only have 24 hours a day. If you use 4 hours to play games, it means you lose 4 hours to build the success that you want.
Hence, learn to delay gratification and work on what is truly important to you and your life right now. It is alright to take a day or two off, but make sure you’re making progress and are moving forward.
7. They are not committed and determined enough
Some people can never succeed in life because they lack the commitment and determination. They don’t take the necessary action and whenever they face a problem, they choose the easy way out – give up.
If you read success stories of extraordinary people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Michael Jordan, Lionel Messi, etc., you will discover that these people face tremendous difficulties and setbacks on their journey.
However, they did not give up. They choose to hustle and press on. They are committed to what they want and are determined to reach their goals.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder. And if you are diagnosed with dyslexia, probably you will think that your chances of success equal zero. But that didn’t happen to Richard Branson. Instead of looking at dyslexia as his weakness, he looked at it as his greatest strength in building his business.
The same thing happened to Les Brown, who was labeled as educable mentally retarded. He thought he couldn’t amount to much in life until one of his teachers came around and told him these words that totally changed his life:
“Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality.”
No matter who you are right now, as long as you have the determination and are 100% committed, you can achieve success in life.
It may not be easy and it can be really hard, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible.
8. They don’t learn from their mistakes and failures
Yes, if you don’t learn from the mistakes you make and the failures you experience, you can never move forward.
The reason is simple. If you don’t learn, you will continue to make the same mistakes. And by making the same mistakes again, you’re bound to be stagnant at where you are.
Extraordinary people learn from their mistakes and failure. Like Thomas Edison. He understood that failures are necessary because he treated failures as feedback.
When you do something and it didn’t work out, there are only 3 ways to deal with it:
- You stop trying and give up on it.
- You continue to do the same thing and get the same failure again.
- You improve your strategy and try again until you succeed.
So, which one do you think successful people opt for? Of course, the third option.
In your journey to success, you will for sure make mistakes. And you will experience failures. If you don’t fail, perhaps, you’re not trying hard enough.
But that doesn’t mean you should shun away from failure. In fact, failure is important because it serves as the feedback to help you improve – to become a better person worthy of success.
Many people are afraid of failure. They worry that if they fail, they’re doomed. But that’s not often the case. Remember this quote from Tony Robbins:
“Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.”
So, as you can see, mistakes and failures give you experience. And the experience is what makes you better.
Therefore, don’t be afraid of failure. Instead, be afraid of not trying. Be worries about staying in the same place again next year. Have to courage to step outside of your comfort zone and do something different, my friend.
9. They don’t upgrade their skills and knowledge
If you don’t up your skills and knowledge, how are you going to win the competition? Imagine if Michael Jordan or Lionel Messi refuses to train and practice, do you think they can accomplish the amazing feat they did in life?
That’s not possible. But that’s exactly what is happening to most people out there. They wanted to be successful and they wanted to achieve greatness in life, but they refuse to up their skills and knowledge.
They don’t read books to expand their knowledge or keep themselves updated. They don’t attend classes or courses to upgrade their skills. Yet, they want to do better.
If you don’t improve yourself, you can’t produce better success than where you are now. You are exactly where you are now because of what you know and what you’ve done.
And to move to higher ground, you need improvement. You need to update your information. You need to boost your skills. And you need to do something different.
That’s how success is created. If you don’t improve yourself, you can never be successful. Period.
10. They give up and quit way too soon
Some people will never be successful in life because they give up and quit way too soon. You have to know that a winner will never quit and a quitter will never win.
And the reason people quit is that they don’t see any hope in reaching their goals if they continue on. They lose hope and interest in their plan, and that is why they choose to abandon their project and do something else.
Never let this happen to you. Don’t give up UNTIL you try everything else. And of course, if you did all you can, you will be successful.
Humans have climbed the highest peak in the planet, they have invented smart and powerful devices that allow people to connect with each other across the continents, and they have also traveled to space and landed on the moon.
So, what makes you think that you have tried everything else or that you can’t achieve your goals?
Before you give up on your goals and dreams, think about why you started in the first place. Plus, think about how far you have come.
Do you know that the moment you quit, it means that you’re going to waste all the previous effort and time you’ve invested in?
In addition, you shouldn’t expect success is going to come your way in the first attempt. You have to understand that most of the time, you will have to fight more than once to win the battle.
Michael Jordan said that he lost again, and again, and again, and that is why he succeeded. Things may not be going to be smooth and things may not work out as what you expected.
However, that doesn’t mean you should give up. More importantly, have faith in your plan and vision.
Constantly remind yourself of your purpose and focus on the rewards you want.
When you’re feeling down and no motivation, use these 15 tips to increase your motivation back up again.
Conclusion
These are the 10 most common reasons why some people will never succeed in life. If you want to achieve your goals and live your dreams, do NOT repeat these mistakes. Instead, learn from them and use them to grow yourself to greater heights.
Let me know why you think some people can never be successful in life. Do you think my 10 points here accurate? Share in the comment section below.
I have no skills, and was born with no talent,
Have learned a lot from this article. Thank you Shawn you have opened my eyes on how to succeed in my goals.will definitely put actionable plans to where I wanna see myself at.
That’s great to hear~! 🙂
I love your advise let almighty God reward you
I’m at the lowest, I realise.
The article just tells stuff is doomed for me.