The Four Enemies of Success

By  Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

More wisdom from Brian Tracy from one of his self-development seminars.  Here are his four enemies of success that we must defeat and overcome to make our lives better and more exciting.

The Comfort Zone

The comfort zone is an area or thing in people’s lives that they are comfortable doing and don’t want to change.  Because it is comfortable and predictable people get attached to that activity or non-activity.  We human beings are creatures of habit.  We begin doing something and soon we become comfortable with it.  After a while we become reluctant to change what we are doing or the current situation we are in, even if we are not particularly happy or satisfied with it.  We become content, complacent and eventually we become afraid to change for any reason.  We are rotting and the longer we stay in it the deeper it grows until we lose hope of ever changing or improving our lives.  There is tremendous resistance to change in our society.  Eighty percent of the population finds reason not to change even if the change can be positive or beneficial to them (no wonder only few people are successful).

The remedy to overcome the comfort zone is to get into the courage zone.  Fear is what is holding us to not go to the courage zone and just stay in the comfort zone because the comfort zone offers predictability. We are afraid because fear is all about uncertainty of the future.  But the courage zone is where success is, it is where the adventure is (including the adventure of failing but learning from it), it is where life becomes exciting.  Resolve not to stay in the comfort zone, which is also called the dead zone because no change happens there and it is also called the boring zone, because there is no challenge there and therefore no excitement.

Learned Helplessness

Many people feel helpless.  They feel overwhelmed by so many things going on around them.  They feel that there is nothing they can do to improve their lives.  And the clear sign that learned helplessness has set in is when they often say “I can’t”.  They feel that they can’t lose weight, can’t get a better job, can’t improve their relationships, can’t increase their incomes, can’t upgrade their knowledge and skills, or can’t do anything that they want to.  They have tried something in the past (by giving it a number of tries) but failed and concluded that there is nothing they can do to change the future.

The truth is there is almost no limit to what we can accomplish in our lives.  By statistics, whatever anyone has done to succeed, you can do it as well if you just roll up your sleeves and get to work.  In fact, you also have some record of success in past. Recall for example something that you wanted something long enough and hard enough, that you eventually got it.  You have to believe that you are not helpless, you are not stuck in a rut or comfort zone except by choice.

Path of Least Resistance

It means always looking for an easy way to achieve a result.  But nothing worthwhile can be achieved the easy way.  Anything that is worthwhile and that matters in your life requires a long period of hard work.  There is no elevator to the top.  You’ve got to take the stairs.  Things are easier these days because of the internet, instant delivery of anything you order on the web whether it’s food or items, even relationships have become easier to develop because of on-line dating.   Our grandparents did not have this convenience but they had hard work.  Imagine if you can combine the work ethic of your grandparents and the wonders of technology, the sky would be the limit to what you can accomplish.

If Only

A prominent social psychiatrist in the U.S. who has worked for 25 years with unhappy people said, that the most common words with these kind people he has counseled, starts with the phrase “if only”.  These people would always say, “If only my father were like this, or if only my mother was this, or if only I had this much money, or if only I had this ability, etc.”  It is blaming something they don’t have or what others don’t have that they think is the cause of their present misery or the reason why they were not able to start on their goals.  Of course, we will always lack something we need in reaching for our goals.  It might be a lack of money for our planned business, it might be a lack of skill in our studies or career.  But there is always a solution to get those and it’s called initiative (to find sources of money) and hard work (to acquire that skill).  One resolution we should make is to remove that phrase “if only” in our mind. Once we stop blaming our circumstances or our past, and start with what we currently have, we will find out later that goals can be accomplished without these supposedly needed things, and they are just excuses that we invent.