Do Any of These 8 Mindsets of Failure Ring a Bell?

Here are eight Mindsets of Failure that might be blocking your joy and success:

1. You believe, whether cognitively or unconsciously, that success is extremely difficult, if not impossible for you. For some reason others are capable of success, but you are not.

2. You believe success is dangerous in some way. For example, that if you’re successful your friends and family will resent you, or that it will complicate your life in unexpected ways. Another common belief is that the higher you fly, the harder you’ll crash in the end.

3. You may believe you’re forbidden to enjoy success. For example, it’s wrong for you to be more successful than your parents, or you haven’t earned it yet, or that God has other plans for you.

4. You may feel you’re not ready for success. This is the entrepreneurial doozie, and I’ve seen it derail dozens of promising careers. It’s the belief that before you can start a meaningful project or build a new career, you need one more course, one more strategy seminar, one more certification, and so on before you’re ready. In truth, the best training comes from the experience you have on the job, and you’ll never have that experience if you don’t start.

5. You may feel that failure, or perhaps mediocrity, defines you as a person. For example, you may believe you simply aren’t born for success, so why even try? This is the fear that if you actually do achieve success, you’ll no longer recognize yourself and no one else will either.

6. You may feel that you’re not worthy of success. For example, you’re not smart enough, rich enough, of the proper heritage, not charismatic enough, and so on. This also involves comparison with other people – for example, you not as media savvy as Oprah, so you may as well give up now.

7. You may be unwittingly blocking yourself from success by living in resentment of people who are successful. I see this often in people with chronic money problems. If you hate or resent people who have something you don’t, you block yourself from achieving your desire because your subconscious mind will resist you turning into someone you will hate. In other words, envy tends to backfire.

8. You may have a fundamental misunderstanding of failure. Some people live in mortal fear of failure and suspect that if they fail at something they’ve never done before it will be deeply humiliating, if not soul-crushing. Most successful people fail their way to success. But please remember, this does not mean that you must fail in order to be successful.