A Killer of Success

If you were to start a business today from scratch, how long would you work to see a profit until you would decide to just quit? Of course the time line would depend on the business, but I would imagine your answer to be something that was at least a year. The reality is however, many people would quit well before the year is up. So what is one of the main causes and killers of success? The answer is impatience.

With all the hype and advertisements enticing us to give into our instant gratification urges, it seems that more and more people are getting a bit impatient when it comes to producing results. Think about people who go on a weight loss program and quit after a few months. The only reason they quit was because they weren't seeing the results they wanted quick enough.

Have you ever done this? Have you ever set a goal and only after a few weeks or even months of working on it, you decided to quit? I realize that sometimes people are just doing the wrong things, but many times, they were just expecting too much too soon. If you want to be able to stick with your goal until you achieve it, then you must be patient. Anything worth obtaining will take time.

So how do you deal with impatient feelings? You get knowledgeable and plan it out. You must do a bit of research to find out about how long it would take to accomplish your chosen goal, then plan out your actions and expectations accordingly. Too often people will throw themselves onto the path of achieving a goal without know how long it will actually take.

If you wanted to lose 50 pounds, for example, you must find out how many pounds a month you should expect to lose. That way, when your first 30 days is up, and you step on the scale and see that you have lost 8 pounds, you will be motivated to keep on going. Suppose you didn't know this piece of information and expected to lose all 50 pounds the first month. If you see that you've only lost 8 pounds, you will most likely get discouraged and quit.

Being patient just comes down to knowing what to expect. If you expect to be in your car for an hour in traffic while driving home from work, you'll be more patience with the slow moving traffic compared to the guy who thought the drive would only be 20 minutes. So the next time you set a goal, take the time to find out how long you should expect it to take to obtain that goal. This will help increase your chances of not quitting too soon. Just be careful not to buy into promises from people who are trying to sell you something since many tend to exaggerate.
By: Kevin Ngo
Source: Motivational Well Being