Why you aren't successful despite being talented and hardworking

You are talented, hard working and a people’s person. Yet success seems to evade you. You feel you are wasting your potential. You are torn between enjoying your life and working to achieve your goals. Why then are you not succeeding in doing what you dream of?

It is often said hard work is the only one way to succeed. Well, turns out you need more than just hard work. Here are some potential mistakes you are making unintentionally that are holding you back from utilizing your true potential.

You are too anxious about succeeding

Anxiety prevents you from working to your potential. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. The most successful of people have made plenty of mistakes in their careers. But they did not give up, which is why success was theirs.

You are not true to yourself

In this world, one of the biggest challenge is to be yourself. Being part of the crowd brings you acceptability, which is why you give in to it easily, sacrificing your own identity.

How many times have you agreed to something only because the whole group wanted it and you did not want a confrontation by suggesting the opposite? Do not be afraid to stand apart from the crowd. You'd be lonely for a while but you'd be true to yourself.

You crib too much about work

We all love a good cribbing session over a few beers with friends after work, but whining about your work life all the time impacts your performance negatively without you even realizing it. How we feel, speak and think affects our state of mind. Happy thoughts bring about positive outputs. If cribbing is all you do, you will subconsciously start hating your job, your life, your boss.

You are not listening to your heart

There are often times when we keep doing things not because we like doing them but because it’s probably the right thing to do, the in-trend thing to do. That’s when we enter the herd. And you know what they say about the herd? That it kills creativity and makes you mediocre.

You constantly compare yourself to others

Getting demotivated comes close on heels with anxiety. You look at others, smarter, sharper, fitter and happier than you and you instantly feel bogged down by all that glitter around you. If you focus too much on other runners, you are probably going to trip and fall in the race yourself. Don’t compare and berate yourself all the time. A little healthy competition is good but jealousy will take you nowhere.

You don't have a plan

While it’s okay to be spontaneous and take life as it comes, it’s absolutely necessary to plan your career. Not in a ‘By-40-I-want-to-be-CEO’ kind of way, but in a ‘I-need-to-master-this-skill-in-the-next-year’ kind of way. You love your job but you are moving ahead aimlessly. You are not tracking your personal growth.

There's lot of negativity around you

Does your family respect the work you do? Do any of your friends criticize your work in an unconstructive way? Steer clear. When others around you make you feel bad about the work you do or the person you are, it not only affects your confidence but your productivity too. The lack of faith and positivity can subconsciously prevent you from giving your work your best.

You waste the first half of your day

Oh yes, mom was right. The early bird takes the worm. Sleeping in late, eating brunch instead of breakfast, skipping exercise (of course, because you are late) and starting your work day late is not good for your success graph. Some of you might argue you are an evening person and the morning just doesn’t agree with you.

If you can’t work or study in the morning, then don’t, but don’t waste the first half of the day doing nothing. Schedule tasks that require the least of your effort in the morning. And keep brainstorming for the evenings!

You are low on energy

In the hustle of everyday life, one thing that takes the most beating is health. From skipping breakfast to binging on junk food in office to those endless cups of tea and coffee, we leave no stone unturned in ruining our health.

Don’t think one hour of intense gyming will undo all the harm done by those 5 cups of coffee and smoke breaks you take in the day. We might not realize but most of us are low on nutrition and deficient in vitamins. That headache you get after driving back home is not because of the traffic; that’s our body telling you something’s wrong.

You are not selling yourself well

This one’s a bitter truth to gulp down. Despite being talented and hard-working, you somehow keep falling short. You fail to get recognition for your efforts and appreciation for your talent. Been there? You’ve been selling yourself short. It’s not enough to just be talented and hard-working; you need to believe in your worth so strongly that the world starts believing in it too.

Repost from Mensxp - The Economic Times