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I knew I had all the skills and tools to be really, really successful. I had all those great ideas, and every business I created became a success in record-breaking time. But, for some reason, I always got bored of my projects and moved to the next best thing before my efforts fully came into fruition.
First, I thought it was my luck of how I couldn’t attract the projects that could keep me on my toes. And when I realized there was nothing wrong with the projects themselves, but rather something about myself, I blamed it on my work ethic. I tried to remedy my perceived issues through productivity techniques and many self-help books.
Unfortunately, this kept happening. It eventually started affecting my confidence in my career as an entrepreneur.
The motivational talks, “I can make anything happen”, just weren’t resonating with me anymore. I felt like I was a lost cause. My brain kept on falling into a spiral of thoughts afterthoughts. Maybe I am not cut out for entrepreneurship? Maybe I should’ve gotten a regular job? But what the heck is missing for me to be able to build a business that I will actually grow into an empire? Why can’t I move past the honeymoon stage of the startups?
The thought process kept cycling. And to make things worse? I realized that the same pattern was occurring in all of my relationships too.
Every time I dated someone, I left the person after a couple of months because I got bored. Even if there was absolutely nothing wrong with them or the relationship. Something was always missing. Once the initial excitement was over, everything else needed to end. I started telling myself that I had just hadn’t met the right person. But I had no clue what was making me go wrong every single time.
My thought process was bleeding into both business and relationships. And it was starting to bleed into every other aspect of my life such as fitness goals, friendships, personal goals and so on.
Then one day, it hit me.
I was in my own way. I was never invested. I was never 100% when it comes to my business or my relationships. I was looking for a way out. In fact, I was always expecting that I’d never stay that long.
What was really stopping me from success was that I never trusted myself enough to go 100% in.
So what was my limiting belief? That I wasn’t worth it. That I didn’t deserve it. That if I put my heart into something, it will die. That my past would define my future. And because of that, I was telling myself everything I do is pointless– and that everything I do, won’t matter because it’ll be taken away from me.
Where did that belief come from? Probably from the fact that I’ve lost my mother, lover, and business back to back in 2012 and I’ve had a hard time committing to long term decisions since. Afraid of being hurt, afraid of losing, afraid of burying another dream again.
Grieving is hard, but what comes after is even harder: To choose to love something again now knowing that one day, it will end. Now knowing how painful it is to lose. Now knowing that everything is finite.
If you don’t know WHAT is stopping you, you can’t work on it, therefore… you can’t move on to the next step.
The only thing limiting you from your success are your beliefs.
Whether the belief is expanding or limiting you, is your choice to make. And until you recognize which core beliefs are blocking you to get what you want, you will only get more of the same. Everything is reprogrammable, and it should be your priority to work on yourself. No one else can commit to yourself, only you can.
If you want a business to be successful, you need to work every day on it, whether it’s going well or not, and always invest in it (whether time, money, energy). You need to make the decision that this business is going to work, for it to work. You have to continue watering the business even when things are not going as planned, or are straight up going wrong. You have to continually fix what isn’t working and grow what is working.
If you want a relationship to be successful, you need to do exactly the same.
Realizing that I wasn’t doing it, made a world of difference for me.
Commit to choose that person every day and do what it takes. That will become the biggest game-changer in improving your life, relationships, business and anything else you want to improve.
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Previously published here and reprinted with the author’s permission.
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