When it comes to pursuing world class ability, or just your personal best at your art, skill, sport or business, you know it takes the usual suspects… talent, work ethic, practice, perseverance, overcoming adversity, taking risks.
What you may not realize is that there are a number personal traits that may be keeping you from achieving the success you would otherwise attain.
Are the following traits holding YOU back?
The reasons people fall short are manifold. Here are five I believe many people do without even realizing they do them.
- Inability to complete things. Successful people finish! And, 98% done is not done… DONE is done. How many people have novels they’ve begun and are collecting dust? Song ideas they’ve jotted down but never written? Businesses they talk about, play around with, even invest in… but never launch? Finish already.
“The measure of your success in life is the measure of your ability to complete things.”
- Excuses and blaming. Anyone who is successful takes full responsibility for every outcome in her life. Period. And even when you’ve been successful you must remain vigilant for little ways you may still be blaming. I’ll confess one right here: I tend to blame technology when something on my computer “just changes.” That’s on me, not technology.
- Doing something you have a talent for but don’t love; or something you love, but don’t have a talent for. The alignment of these two factors is critical for longterm success. For instance, I am good at math. But I hate math, so I’d be miserable. On the other hand, I love endurance sports… cycling, running. I’m also partially flat-footed. So, I can enjoy cycling as a healthy hobby, but I’m not headed for the Tour de France. When I combine the things I love and have a knack for, the planets align. What is it you LOVE and have a talent for?
- Being uncomfortable with repetition. Repetition is the mother of skill. Kobe Bryant would not leave the gym until he had 800 “makes” (shot’s made)…every day! Good sales people go over and over product details, rehearse presentations. On guitar I play through scales and patterns over and over for hours. James Clear said it simply, “…top performers in any craft figure out a way to fall in love with boredom, put in their reps, and do the work.”
- Being lazy by being busy. One big way people avoid getting in the game is by being too busy to get in the game. Always preparing, never launching. This includes working on tasks that look like they matter, but don’t, constantly refining the details when there’s no business. For instance, if you want to be a speaker write your speech and start booking it. Don’t worry about your social media, writing your book first, getting your business cards printed. That’ll come. Just freakin’ do it.
Be honest… are any of these holding you back?
The first and biggest step in ridding yourself of these plagues is admitting you have them.
How you get rid of them permanently is one program in my VIP – Virtuoso In Progress – Community membership site. More about that soon.
Please share this!
Live Truly, Truly Live,
Rayburn
PS If you are in Las Vegas come see me at Verve this Friday, Sept 7th, 2018. Email info@vivalaverve.org for tickets on me, just tell them you’re part of Rayburn’s Virtuoso Community.
PS: Both my What IF Challenge mindset transformation program, and my VIP (Virtuoso In Progress) Membership site are coming. Details soon.
Rayburn… Member of the Speaker Hall of Fame, member of Speakers Roundtable and Transformational Leadership Council, a featured artist on Sirius/XM, a Carnegie Hall headliner (3X’s), a Las Vegas headliner, and voted America’s Campus Entertainer of the Year three times in four years.
