THE GREATEST OBSTACLE TO YOUR SUCCESS THIS YEAR

It's a new year! A new beginning! A fresh start! I welcome you, my esteemed readers, to this New Year that is filled with new opportunities and possibilities, and my sincere desire is that it will be a prosperous year for you, your family, and your loved ones.

Indeed, I believe strongly that this year is filled with a lot of opportunities which if properly utilized can take each and everyone to a level of success that is far beyond our imagination.

Dear reader, this year presents an opportunity for you to change the status quo: to discover yourself, to experience growth in every area of life, to take your career and business to the next level, to excel in all your undertakings, and to experience that sense of fulfillment that only comes with true success.

There is certainly a lot you can achieve this year despite the challenges and obstacles that may come your way. However, there is one obstacle that could hinder you from achieving your much-desired success, and that obstacle is YOU.

Yes, you read that correctly. You could be the number one obstacle to whatever goals and plans you have for the year. That is because you can easily get help from others to overcome all other challenges and obstacles but self-imposed obstacles cannot be dealt with by others—it is a thing you must do yourself. In other words, self-imposed obstacles, brought about mostly by your inaction are the greatest obstacles to your success. Without you having the mental toughness to deal with these obstacles that come from within you, you might not be able to achieve that which you desire for the year.

 Related: Wait:Did You achieve Your Goals For 2018?

Here are some of the self-imposed obstacles you should deal with:

1. Apathy

Without the needed enthusiasm and interest in a particular undertaking, achieving true success in such becomes impossible. You must be very passionate about whatever you do to be able to make a success of it. Venturing into a business or career you do not have a passion for would only lead to frustration and poor results.

The solution to this obstacle is for you to engage only in things you have a great deal of passion for. It is that deep interest you have in an endeavor that will motivate you to continue with it when challenges come your way, and continuing with it will surely get you your desired results.

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2. Procrastination

Postponing or delaying what needs to be done is a challenge a lot of people are facing in their lives. It is a self-imposed obstacle that must be put away before any meaningful level of success can be attained. Look around you and study the life of anyone you know who has achieved success in his or her endeavors, you would see that such a person does what needs to be done at the right time, and that is one of the secrets of success you might not know or might not have seriously considered.

To deal with procrastination, do not postpone till tomorrow that which you can do today.

3. Excuses

Many people could have reached the top in life if only they had shunned giving excuses and found a means to get the needed job done. One fact about excuses is that when you form a habit of giving them, you would always find an explanation for not doing that which you ought to have done.

Those who give excuses tend to blame others for their predicament. While it's possible that someone else might be responsible for a predicament, a person who is truly committed to his cause would look beyond that and seek for ways to overcome his challenges and achieve his goals.

You can prevail over excuses by renewing your commitment to that which you do and accepting the fact that you and you alone, are responsible for your success or failure.

4. Laziness

This is perhaps, the greatest of the self-imposed obstacles which can hinder a person from attaining success. When a person is lazy, he or she would usually dream and wish to be successful but such a dream may never come true; that is because success only comes when series of actions are taken and not merely by wishing for it. Debbie Ford did justice to this fact when she stated that: "often, psychological laziness will have you switch your life over to autopilot and fall asleep at the wheel rather than stay awake to what will fulfill your heart's deepest desires and your soul's purpose."

The way out of laziness is for you to always remember that actions must be taken before success can be achieved and that should make you work hard in all your endeavors.

Related: 7 Things Being Diligent Will Do for You

5. Ego

While a healthy ego is good and needed by everyone, an over-blown ego is a very big obstacle to success. We all need others in life. You cannot attain your goals all by yourself without the assistance or input of people around you or others that you meet in your day to day life. However, when an over-blown sense of self-importance sets in, you'd tend to look down on people, especially those you feel are not in the same class as you.

Ironically, in many cases, it is those people whom you have looked down on in the past that you'd find in strategic positions in the future where you cannot but need them to help you out. The help you'll get from them would then depend on how you treated them in the past when you exhibited your exaggerated sense of importance.

To attain success this year, you must deal with your ego. Give humility a chance in your life and it will attract your helpers to you.

6. Lack of Discipline/Self-control

Self-discipline is all about your ability to control yourself and your actions, that is, the things you say and do. It is about you denying yourself the pleasure you can enjoy now in favor of the pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment you will enjoy in the long term. An undisciplined lifestyle would make you think only about the present and that is a big obstacle because success is long term in nature and you need to sacrifice a lot in the present in order to eventually enjoy success in whatever you do.

In this year, the sacrifices you are willing to make through self-discipline will greatly determine how far you'll go in attaining your goals for the year.

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I believe that a critical look at the six self-imposed obstacles I discussed above will reveal to you that you are the only one who can deal with them yourself. In other words, dealing with, and removing these obstacles is a responsibility you owe yourself, and you'll have only yourself to blame if you do not take any action and any of these obstacles eventually hinder your success in the course of the year: that is why I stated that YOU could be the greatest obstacle to your success this year. It is all about the choice you'll make: deal with the obstacles and rise to the top, ignore them and stay down. It is that simple!

What other self-imposed obstacles do you think can prevent one from achieving success? Share them in the comments below.