If you’ve read our previous post on success and mentality, then you’ll know how essential your mental approach is to being successful. Approaching a goal or task with a positive and focused mindset will mostly like yield success. If you have not read our previous post, I suggest starting there:
https://patienceconsistency.com/success-and-your-mentality/
In our previous post, we covered four main ways we effect our own success with our mental approach:
- Not Setting Yourself Up For Failure
- Being Responsible (Not blaming others)
- Being Open to Suggestion & Critique
- Not Being Afraid of Failure
All of these are directly related to our thoughts about ourselves. Our mental approach can drastically change when we add other people into the mix. For some reason, other people really have a way of getting in our heads and reinforcing our insecurities. That is, if you let them get inside your head. Let’s take a few minutes to discuss how to handle our mental approach when other people get into the mix.
1. Don’t Compare Yourself Yourself to Others
Comparing yourself to others, especially those who have more success than you can be a negative trap to fall into. If you are just starting out at something and you compare yourself to someone else who is extremely successful it can be disheartening and discouraging. If you fall into this trap, you may start to think its impossible to get where they are and want to give up.
Instead of letting other peoples’ success get you down, switch up your mental approach. Start thinking of that person as a role model or someone you aspire to be like. Read about what they did to become so successful and try to follow in their footsteps. You can even reach out to them and ask what they’ve done. In short, don’t compare yourself to others because nothing good comes of it. We are all on our own journey and moving at our own pace.
2. Don’t Worry About What Other People Think
This one is a doozy. Don’t let what other people think get to you at all regardless of who they are. Sometimes, the most judgmental crowd can be the crowd that knows us best like our family and close friends. If you really want to be successful but are afraid of what others are going to think it will deter your progress. If you are afraid of other’s opinions, you will not be successful. You will spend too much time overthinking things instead of progressing.
If there is something you really want to achieve, why would you let other’s people judgments slow you down? I think this is one of the most challenging mental hurdles to overcome. Sometimes other peoples opinions and judgments can be highlighting the very insecurities that you were already working through. As hard as it may be you have to not let them get to you. Keep focusing on you, your goals, and your progress.
3. Don’t Let Other People Deter You
Don’t let your friends, family, coworkers, etc. take you off track. For example, its a Friday night and your friends want you to go out to bar. You decide you’d rather stay in, get a good night sleep and wake up early on Saturday and go to that class at the gym. You’re really focused on your health and fitness goals, and want to keep seeing progress. I’ve been in this situation before and I can honestly say my friends have guilted me, called me lame, or something along those lines. In this situation you have two options, go out and make everyone happy or stay in and make yourself happy. I’m not saying to isolate yourself, but you can always counter offer with plans for the following day or maybe even see if they want to check out that class with you.
Other people can try to deter us for a lot of reasons. Maybe they don’t want us to be successful. Maybe they’re afraid of changes. Whatever the reason may be, just remember what your end goals are. Its easy to always want to please people and put ourselves last. If your truly focused on your goal and achieving success, you’re going to have to put yourself first.
4. Don’t Let Others Tell You What You Can & Can’t Do
I saved the best for last. There have been so many times where other people have told me that my goal was stupid, that I wouldn’t be success, that I was wasting my time. I don’t know about you but that does not discourage me at all. If anything it ignites my fire. Regardless of what your goal is, if someone tells you you’ll never succeed DO NOT LISTEN. I know it can be hard sometimes, but seriously don’t listen. Keep working and making progress. Let nay-sayers motivate you even more.
It can be so hard to juggle our own insecurities, our mental attitude and other people all at the same time. Try steadily making adjustments to how you mentally handle various situations. The more positive and sound your mental approach is, the more success you will have. There are so many other ways to work on our mental approach, we are just getting started! Stay tuned for Part 3 dropping next week.
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