The only thing that sits between you and success is you. You are your biggest enemy.

I often hear my clients complain and blame others for their situation, their problems, or not believing in themselves and feeling that they have failed in life. We all know that success takes hard work, and perseverance, as well as mental and emotional strength.  But one of the most common obstacles to working towards a goal is the fear of failure.

What if I start on a new path and am not able to accomplish what I intended?

Could it be just a waste of time or energy or money if I failed?

Would I/my family/relatives get disappointed or looked down on me if I don’t succeed?

I remember battling these very thoughts initially when I was about to quit my full-time high-position job decades ago. Back then, my goal for my new path was just to be able in control and be more flexible with my time so that I could take care of my growing kids, and became financially independent sooner, at the same time. Somehow I was very laser-focused on my goal and I succeeded.

Before the concept of financial planning was introduced in Malaysia, the financial industry was focused primarily on the sales of investment products and insurance. The standard sales approach was to conduct a gap analysis to see if there are needs that the financial professionals could implement whatever products to address those needs and earn a commission in the process. Then this needs-based approach was shifted away towards a more aspirational “goals-based” approach where the clients engage a financial planner and commit to pursuing the recommended strategies to achieve those goals.

This is fiduciary financial planning and it’s applaudable!

Yet, in practice, the biggest challenge is that most of our clients are clueless about what their goals are, and they are unable to articulate them effectively!  So, often the clients don’t have good answers and sometimes they even have wildly unrealistic expectations. Worst, their actions such as spending habits and the use of the capital and their goals are not in alignment, at times!

There are 3 strategies that you can get closer to your goals and bounce back quickly when you face obstacles:

1. Get in the right mindset

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of motivation and is a professor of psychology at Stanford University. In her book Mindset, she explains that the way you view yourself can impact how you live your life, from the goals you set and the decisions you make to whether you can achieve what’s important to you. Her research found that people think about their abilities with either a fixed or growth mindset. People with fixed mindsets believe their skills, intelligence, and talents are set in stone. A growth mindset refers to the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and solve problems. The ability is to be developed.

Dweck says that people are most likely to succeed at a task with a growth mindset because they focus on growing and learning, rather than trying to prove themselves repeatedly, which the ability is to be demonstrated.

Why is this so important?

It’s important because, in order for you to take action on a goal/vision, you will need to develop new skills. You will start, you will fail and you will push forward, but only if you believe that you not only deserve something more but also you can learn how to improve.

To pursue a bigger vision is to take risks and to believe that you can learn to do things differently, rather than accepting failure as an indictment of your future.

For example, being layoff would often damage our confidence and self-esteem- signs of a fixed mindset. But with a growth mindset, instead of blaming a terrible outcome, we would see it as a learning opportunity that would help us eventually to reach our goal of greater career satisfaction.

2. Think differently & act differently

Albert Einstein said insanity is when you do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results.

If you want to live in the world of wild success and profound fulfillment, then you will not only need to act differently but also think differently. This is what makes the advisors successful being able to envision a different future open to the possibility of something greater for themselves, and not the challenge of hard work that holds them back. There are many reasons why we stop ourselves from being open to possibility:

1. Reaching for a bigger life opens up the possibility of failure. If we don’t articulate the goal/dream, we never fail. Nothing ventured, nothing lost.

2. A distinct lack of imagination about what is possible. Humans in general are not wired to envision a future that’s substantially different from what we experience today.

3. Many of us are trapped by a misguided sense of responsibility and interferences, one that keeps us from moving in the same direction toward achieving success in life.

3. Remove the obstacles

Performance = potential – interference. I love this performance equation from The Inner Game of Work by Timorthy Gallwey.

Your performance is equal to what you are capable of when you remove obstacles.

Perhaps the most important starting point of every great vision is removing the obstacles that we put in our way. Ask yourself, what obstacles are holding you back (creating interference) in life, career, or the company or superior that limit your potential and prevents you from achieving your goals or performance you are truly capable of?

Interference can be in all shapes and forms including lack of knowledge, personal bias, competing priorities, pressures at home, a bad boss, or your own procrastination.

Personally, I believe that making the change towards achieving your goals is only possible if you:

• Learn to let go and stop allowing the past to create your direction in future
• Open your mind to the possibility
• Identify the need for alignment between what’s important in your life and how you run your business
• Assess the possibility that if you focus time, energy and attention on the things for which you have the most passion, you’ll significantly increase your chances of success

Getting started may be as simple as asking yourself if any of these obstacles are real for you and addressing your own behavior.

If there are no apparent obstacles, you know that you need to improve your skills.

If you know how to do it, but are somehow blocked…..then your solution will be in managing those obstacles or get help from a certified coach.

What are your obstacles that keep you from achieving your goals?

If there is none, what upskilling and reskilling do you intend to do?