The number one enemy of progress

Unfortunately, there will always be people in your life who do not want to see you succeed. These are the people who will try and speak negativity into your life. They will cause you to doubt yourself and even lead you to give up on your dreams.

Enemies of progress (or EOPs as I like to call them) are essentially your haters – people that for some reason just don’t want to see you do well. They could be anyone from your family and friends, that person who you’ve never gotten along with or even someone you barely or don’t even know at all.

Of course you would never want to think badly about your family and friends, but the reality is that not one everyone is truly here for you, despite whether they are your blood or the next best thing. I could go into so much more detail, but that’s a whole nother blog post. This blog post is about who I believe to be the number one enemy of progress.

Late one night on the tube (metro/subway for y’all that don’t know about the London tube lol) going home, I was thinking to myself about some advice I had received from one of my customers that day. One of the key things he said to me was “don’t take no for an answer.” So on the tube while I was struggling to not fall asleep, it just clicked. The number one EOP that we all share, the one who has the most influence over of our lives, is none other than ourselves.

Confused? Don’t worry I got ya’ ?.

Here are four ways that we can be the enemy of our own progress:

Lack of self belief

We all have our own insecurities and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we are continually striving to overcome these and not enabling them to prevent our progress.

Unfortunately this is easier said than done for people who suffer from low self-esteem. A low self-esteem can make you believe that you are not good enough, not smart enough or not talented enough. When you are in this mindset, you are holding yourself back.

I found this quote that says what I wanted to say perfectly: “What you focus on, you manifest, what you speak about, you perpetuate, what you dwell upon, you create.” If you go into something believing that you are going to fail, then it’s very likely that you will fail. I’ve always believed that negativity brings negativity. If you want to go somewhere in life, if you want to succeed then being positive and believing in yourself is key.

Building up your self confidence is not an easy or quick process, it will take time and perseverance. You just need to find what works for you. So if that means standing in front of the mirror every morning and telling yourself that you are beautiful, smart and good enough, then do that. If the thought of speaking in front of a group terrifies you, then sign up to a public speaking course. If you’re socially awkward and avoid social situations, then step out of that comfort zone and say “yes” the next time you are invited to a social event.

Whatever you do, just find something that works for you and do you boo (lol)!

Fear

Fear can be so powerful; it can cripple your growth and development if you let it.

Fear of failure. Fear of not being enough. Fear of the unknown. These are just a few of the fears that stop us from trying to reach our potential.

Fear of not being enough has already been addressed in the lack of self belief section.

In my opinion, failure is just a stepping stone in life. It is an opportunity to learn and better yourself. On your path to success you may stumble a few times, but in the end it’s so worth it when you get to your destination and you look back and your realise that despite the odds you did it, you actually succeeded. It’s should a wonderful feeling. All those points in your journey when you thought you had failed, they were just learning opportunities. The real failure would have been not trying at all.

Fear of the unknown is when you become way too comfortable in your comfort zone. Your comfort zone may seem like a way to protect yourself, but the reality is that you are just imprisoning yourself. You are preventing yourself from living your life, reaching your potential and experiencing all the beautiful things that life has to offer you.

My favourite quote and life motto at the moment has to be “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” That’s what I now say to myself every time I feel afraid to step out of my comfort zone. It definitely isn’t easy, but the more you do it the easier it becomes and it’s so worth it in the end.

Content in mediocrity

Some times we can become comfortable in being mediocre. These are the people who don’t aim high, they just aim to get by. An example of this is people who just aim to get that C grade rather than an A or A*. It’s quite sad really, because by doing this you are limiting yourself and you will never really know or reach your full potential.

This is can be linked to a lack of self esteem and fear, as you may be content to be mediocre  because you don’t believe you could do better and would rather be mediocre than “fail” to achieve better. As I said earlier, overcoming this mindset will take time and perseverance, make sure to seek support and encouragement from close family and friends.

Laziness/procrastination

Meanwhile, some of us want to succeed and we believe in ourselves, but we just lazyyy! We just so lazy and procrastination is our middle name.

Yes I put my hands up, my name is Debbie and I’m a procrastinator.

I actually hate procrastination with a passion! As a student, I procrastinated all of the time. This either went one of two ways: I would either thrive under the pressure and produce really good work or I would not have enough time to produce as high quality work that I would’ve been able to do if I had not procrastinated. I seem to go through this vicious cycle of procrastination. The part that annoys me the most is when I realise how counterproductive procrastination is and then I say to myself that this is going to be the last time, only for the cycle to be repeated all over again.

Procrastination, I believe is the main reason I am my own EOP. I definitely have improved, but it’s still something I’m working on. Everyone is different and has different ways of tackling things, I’m just trying to find what works best for me. If you have any tips on overcoming this, then please do share, it’d be much appreciated.

 

I hope you enjoyed my first non-travel related blog post; it’s the first of many to come. I plan to have a few blog posts every now and then about my journey to self improvement and some tips and advice, so watch this space lol. Let me know what you think in the comments and if you have any advice on how not to be your own EOP then feel free to share! ?