What's Holding YOU Back?
Everyone has a story. A story inside their mind that explains why they do what they do. Somewhere there’s a reason you still aren’t pursuing your goals or haven’t taken action on that one thing you’ve been planning to do.
Chances are you have a product idea that you’re waiting to create. You’re holding on to it like a lottery ticket. You think, “well, there’s always THAT project if things get really bad…”. Guess what? If you’re not living the life you want then things are really bad. It’s best to pursue whatever idea you’re holding on to and see if it wins or if it flops. Then you can either have that success or move on to the next thing. The problem is that failure is scary. It hurts to invest time and energy into something and have it not work out.
Emotions are powerful chains holding us back from what we want. Fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of “what will people think?” are all strong opponents to overcome.
Comfort. Comfort is amazingly powerful. The mind says, “I’m feeling pretty good TODAY drinking beer and watching football and playing Xbox…I’ll change my life tomorrow…” But tomorrow never comes. So we chose the comfort of TODAY over the success of TOMORROW.
For me, comfort and fear both held me back and continue to especially when I’m stressed. My solution is to focus on tomorrow rather than today. It’s so easy to take the occassional comfort in place of working hard for tomorrow.
What do you feel is the main thing holding YOU back?
Hi Luke,
I have just purchased an amazing WSO from you and now I visited your blog! WOW! Amazing content I like this post especially it speaks to alot of us getting started. The fear of will it work has been holding me back from a few products, now I will start and complete them...thanks!
Shane
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LikeHi Luke, I said to myself that I didn't really have time to get into more philosophical debate (on a blog) about inaction but your email had a sincere quality about it so I took a peek. When I read your article I thought it had the makings of great content for a personal development site I'm trying to get going.
Then I read Cisco's comment and thought "YEP" and then he mentioned his age and here I am 60 years young in a few days and suffering the same sort of information addiction that leads to, as you say in your reply, "inaction".
I'm also still quite capable of learning new "stuff", in fact I can baffle just about anyone I know with BS when it comes to most discussion about the internet and it's opportunities.
I guess it might be my technical design background that drives me to keep gathering knowledge and doing very little with it; I have a lot riding on my ability to get things right the first time in my J.O.B./career.
Lately though I have found my direction, I have been actually taking action bit by bit and have some WP based and XSP based websites I'm quite proud of. That has motivated me to keep on track and I'm using my SEO knowledge to try to beat the rankings game.
So I guess my number one demon is balancing my thirst for "the latest" knowledge with the need to take action and utilise that knowledge. (What if I've misinterpreted it?)
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LikeHey Josh,
I'm nearly in the same situation. The pressure on me is that I must prove to my family that making money online is real, so that I can invest more of my time and capital and even sacrifice my day job to focus 100% on my IM journey. As a result, I have to find a way to make some money instantly. That's my problem because it's made me not being able to focus on one thing and always chasing for the miracle to happen over night. And the more I get stuck, the more I lose faith from my family. It seems like a circle and I can not get out. Can anyone help?
Rgds,
Lam
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LikeI feel like the main thing that holds me back is fear of failure and lack of money or capital to start. I constantly have ideas but never really do anything with them because I'm in a state in life where cash must come quickly and there's no other option BUT to succeed. I'm having a monetary crisis and I try one thing and hold it back for so long because i think it will not succeed and put me back another week or two in this time of my life.
I just hope i can find the courage to take as much action as possible and forget about failure and treat it as a learning process. But it's hard for me to do that when I don't have any cash whatsoever right now.
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LikeI hate to admit it Luke, but you pegged me. Yep, I holding myself back. Not because I want to, but because the learning cycle never ends...there's always, and I mean ALWAYS something else to go see, go read, go download, etc., etc. As you can see, I've got a blog...but, in all shameful honesty, I don't have one friggin' clue what to do with it...AND, not only is that disgusting, I have an incredible product - already developed and preparing for launch - that I don't have a clue on how to start marketing it...I'm not that old (63 in June) to learn new tricks, but I swear this the closest thing to being lost in a giant maze that I can imagine...so, Help Please...!!!
cisco.biscoe
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LikeAt some point you just have to launch and let what will be happen.
Remember, while the opposite of success in a literal sense is "failure", the real opposite of success is inaction. Failure isn't so bad, it gives you a chance to correct your sails and head in the right direction.
I sort of think this video might apply: http://vimeo.com/5895898
"What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do is ship"
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