Worldwide Success

In the article The Trouble with Success we started a discussion about the highly acclaimed book What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful in which author Marshall Goldsmith describes how the delusion of success keeps you from making improvements in your life.  In that article we shared with you the 4 beliefs of successful people and how the same beliefs that took you to a certain level of success can keep you from reaching the next level of success if not kept in check. 

But the book talks much more about what keeps people from achieving success than we were able to share with you in a short article.  In fact, the book lists 21 habits that hold people back from the top.  In this article, we will share our favorite list of habits of unsuccessful people so you can learn what not to do.  To make it more fun, we decided to draw a parallel to the legendary book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by choosing our favorite 7 habits out of the 21 listed in Goldsmith’s book.  That is why we called the article The 7 Habits of Unsuccessful People.  To learn the other habits we would encourage you to read the book. 

Without further ado, here they are: 

Negativity, or ‘Let Me Explain Why that Won’t Work’ 

People that have a negative attitude attract negativity and rarely achieve success.  If you are always talking about why things won’t work, be careful.  No only will you  be perceived as a negative unsuccessful person, your negativity will become a self-fulfilling profecy, and things will not work when you are involved. 

Claiming Credit That You Don’t Deserve 

Giving credit to others even when you deserve the credit enhances your credibility and makes people more willing to sing your praises.  Taking credit that you don’t deserve does just the opposite.  It creates resentment and discourages people from giving you credit, even when you deserve it. 

Making Excuses 

Excuses, excuses.  We have all heard them.  Some people may think they can get away with excuses, but many don’t realize that people know when your excuses are just that: excuses.  Don’t come up with a bunch of excuses for your failures.  Take responsibility, say you are sorry, learn from your mistakes and move on. 

Clinging to the Past 

Living in the past is an illusion.  If you keep referring to your past to make up for your shortcomings in the present you need to let go of it.  Beware that people get tired of hearing about your past successes very quickly, specially when you are not succeeding in the present. 

Punishing the Messenger 

No one will be willing to bring you bad news if you always shoot the messenger.  You need to be open to hearing bad news so you can quick address the issues at hand and move on.  Punishing the messenger will only keep you in the dark and lead to failure. 

Passing the Buck 

Successful people take responsibility for their actions, even when the results are negative.  Blaming someone else will always come back to haunt you.  If you are trying to blame someone else for your failures the only person being fooled is yourself. 

Withholding Information 

Some people hang on to information as if it were a treasure that cannot be shared with anyone else.  Withholding information leads to mistrust, fear and suspicion.  If you want to inspire loyalty and respect, share information with others and always be truthful.  

If you have any of the seven habits of unsuccessful people, get rid of them now.  Ask a trusted friend if you display any of the characteristics above.  If you do, ask this person to point out to you every time you do.  Then make a conscious effort to eliminate the habit.  This alone will go along way towards making you a more successful person.    

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