Working to get better every day of our lives and striving to reach our full potential should be a major life goal for us all. Whether it’s complacency, the fear of failure, bad habits and plenty other factors that come into play as to why most never fulfill that major goal — that doesn’t have to be the story for you.
You can increase your chances of making sure that’s never going to happen to you by being intentional in your approach and understanding what’s holding most people back in the first place.
Here are three things that will always rob you of reaching your potential.
1. Having a limited vision.
A very sad but hard truth is that one of the main reasons that robs so many of reaching their full potential is the limited vision that they have for their lives. They let their failures, heartbreaks and misfortunes throughout the course of their lives dictate what’s in store for them and cloud their vision as to what’s really possible.
Any great organization, individual or even team that went on to achieve an incredible accomplishment all started with expanding their vision and being able to see it all take place in their minds before it happened in reality.
Expanding your vision consists of constantly going to work on your mind. Read uplifting and inspirational books to help rewire your current level of thinking. Set big and challenging goals that excite you — and then look at them every single day. Adopt positive self-talk as a daily habit and start to picture yourself as a healthy, accomplished and positive person. Visualize yourself winning and accomplishing whatever major goal or dream that is deep within your heart.
2. Associating with negative and toxic people.
We end up becoming who we hang out with the most. Over time, we begin to adopt their habits, talk like they talk, dream like they dream and embark on the life journey that they embark on as well.
I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of the most talented athletes in the world throw their career down the drain all because of who they associated with on a regular basis. I have seen hundreds of entrepreneurs who had a great idea and even begin to take action moving that idea forward, but ended up falling flat on their face all because of who they let hang around them.
I have seen incredibly talented teams that were expected to dominate the market in business or win a championship in athletics, but the few negative and toxic team members ruined it all for everyone. The bottom line is that who you choose to have around you absolutely matters — and has a large determining factor as to what the final outcome is.
3. A lack of fight and resolve to persevere through the challenging times.
Things will never be perfect for any of us. We will fail, lose focus from time to time, get discouraged, lose self-confidence and maybe even think that where we currently are is all there is.
Every great achievement to ever take place in history was all because of someone who possessed a ridiculous fight and resolve to persevere through the challenging times to end up getting to their final destination that labeled them a champion. You are going to get knocked down throughout the course of your journey.
That’s just a non-negotiable. However, the one thing that you determine is what happens after you get knocked down. You have the decision to either stay on the ground and accept defeat — or get back up and fight every waking moment to get to where you want to go.
Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com