10 Psychological Reasons Why You Are Still Unsuccessful and Broke
We all have dreams.
At least, most of us have.
We are self-determined, passionate, and ready to fight against the whole world to achieve what we desire the most.
Every year we make resolutions after resolutions, plans after plans, work hard, or plan to work hard, and despite all these, we still don’t see significant changes in our lives.
Of course, the credit card debt is more than before; we gained 10 pounds extra to our body weight and started losing the only thing that kept us feeling alive for so many years; hope.
What went wrong?
Is it because of the environment where you grew up, or is it because of your parents who scolded you for every little mistake you made?
Is it your lack of motivation, or is it your lack of discipline that still stops you from achieving greatness?
Whatever may be your reasons, here are 10 psychological reasons that I have discussed that shed light on why we are still unsuccessful and broke in our life.
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1. Principle
This may be the most important reason why we are still unsuccessful and broke.
We don’t live according to our values and principles.
We live according to our emotions.
If something feels or seems pleasurable, we go for it despite a part of us knowing this is not the right thing to do.
For example, if we start a weight loss journey, we cannot eat junk food, right?
Not eating junk food is our principle, but what happens is that, sooner or later, someone will come and offer you a packet of crisp or chicken rolls, for example.
He will explain why eating one packet of crisp, or one chicken roll will not affect your weight loss program.
Ofcourse, it doesn’t affect the program, but it corrupts your values and principles.
That someone may not be a person, that someone may be your mind, and most of the time, it is your mind telling us to do things we regret later.
This mind is none other than our subconscious mind.
It prefers things that we are habituated with.
This is why we fall into our old patterns despite some progress in our lives.
Anyways, once you start living according to your values and principles, you will not fall for that old trick of your subconscious mind.
You will do what is right, different from what your emotions tell you to do.
The more you do this, the better you will become.
2. Basic and priority
But how to live according to our principles?
We sometimes do things, despite knowing that they will bring negative consequences in our lives, yet we still do it.
For example, playing video games a lot affects your work schedule, and it becomes very difficult to control that habit.
You promise every day that you will be more productive and play less from tomorrow, but you fail to do that.
This is because you fail to apply your principles to the basic things of your life.
When we think about improving our lives, we always focus on priorities like becoming more productive, eating healthy, etc.
We apply our principles in the areas that matter most but neglect the basics.
The basics like making your bed in the morning, cleaning your dishes, keeping the clothes in their proper places, or arranging your shoes and all the other small things that don’t matter much in our lives are ignored.
But, you may be thinking, what’s the point of wasting our time on these unimportant tasks?
The answer is developing our character.
Our actions generate from our character.
If your character is hard working, able to take the stress, and likes to progress despite hurdles, you will do the same in your day-to-day life.
Again, our actions shape our character.
It means if you start neglecting the task at hand, despite the importance of it, you will keep neglecting other tasks because that is what your character is.
So, if you try to apply your principles to your priority and not to your basics, you will fail sooner or later because you cannot have dual characters simultaneously.
3. Goal and Process Oriented Mindset
Most of us have goal-oriented mindsets, and nothing is wrong with that.
Since childhood, we were constantly taught to focus on our goals or results.
If we did something, it was only because we were supposed to achieve something.
After all these years of conditioning, it becomes impossible to do anything without reason.
If we play guitar, we want to practice every day because someday we will play fluently and perhaps play and sing in front of others.
If we join the gym, someday we will have a great physique.
If we sit down for our study or try to write a paper or something else, we first create a blueprint that we will work eight hours, practice twelve hours, etc.
Of course, this mindset makes sense, and in our society, this mindset to achieve our goal is prevalent.
Many self-help books and motivational videos preach that if you visualize your goals every day and imagine that you already have them, you can achieve anything in your life.
But, this goal-oriented approach has many disadvantages.
First, a person with low self-confidence and low self-respect will only generate stress and guilt through this mindset.
The visualization will only give temporary happiness or motivation to that person, but it will wear off sooner or later.
Once it wears off, he will stop working because he doesn’t love the process much, only the goal.
Secondly, there will be shame and other negative emotions once he fails to work daily to achieve his goals.
Third, their goal-oriented mindset is always living in the future, where he achieves things and have a good life.
He misses the ‘Now’ moment, where he can do anything he wants.
The process-oriented mindset loves the process, not the end goal.
Of course, he has goals, but goals only give him direction, not a reason to work.
He works because it is the right thing to do and aligns with his principle, not only because he wants to reach somewhere desperately.
There is a great difference between the two.
The process-oriented mindset doesn’t sit down at his study table and think about working eight or nine hours; he focuses on the present work and keeps going because he likes doing it.
The process-oriented mindset is here, not in the future, where he is achieving his goals.
He focuses on the present.
4. Mental barriers
I cannot be successful because I have never achieved much in my life.
I always have bad luck whenever I try to start a new project.
God doesn’t love me.
Why does it happen to me every time?
I am too old to do that.
I always have negative thoughts, and I can’t stop them.
I can’t think positively all the time, which may ruin my progress.
What if I tell you that having negative thoughts are natural, like failing the exam or failing to achieve your goals?
You may be surprised if you pay attention to the voice in your head.
It will tell you the most logical and appropriate things based on your past events and memories.
But guess what? Nothing is true except the action you take at this moment.
If your brain thinks that you can’t do something you like, it’s okay to think that way.
You don’t need to fight against it.
Perhaps it’s true that you couldn’t achieve what you wanted, but that doesn’t stop you from taking action at this very moment.
You can take any action because you are not taking it in the future or the past.
You are taking it right now.
The more you do it, your mindset will start to change, and you will stop thinking about the outcome.
You will only focus on the now.
Mindfulness meditation helps us realize the present moment.
I suggest you further study mindfulness meditation and include this practice in your daily schedule.
5. Humility
We already know most things and are always better than the other person.
We don’t want to listen to others because we are better or think we are better.
The world is leading to a narcissistic society daily, and it becomes very difficult to have humility in this age.
We are so busy praising ourselves in front of others that we forget to understand what others are trying to explain.
A person who has humility can learn not only from his seniors but also from his juniors.
His action speaks all the words for him, and instead of relying on self-praise, he believes in hard work and effort.
A humble person is always eager to learn and respect others and himself.
A person possessing humility cannot be shadowed by his ego.
He knows the right thing to do, and you will always find him doing it.
Humility doesn’t mean being dragged by others and not raising your voice; it’s the opposite.
Humility means respecting others’ thoughts and ideas but accepting what you think is best.
You don’t need to follow others blindly.
You can hear their ideas and thoughts and keep doing what you think is best.
Once you have this quality, you will focus more on learning and working hard rather than dreaming of a fantasy life.
Everyone thinks highly of themselves, despite the turmoil in their life.
They cannot accept the reality that the image they have for themselves is fake; this person they thought they knew cannot achieve much in life, cannot follow a weight loss diet, make less money, and gets angry at others who try to harm this image.
They try to defend it; they try to protect it because they think this image is valuable.
But it’s not.
Once you accept the flows in your image, it is only then you start improving.
If you don’t find any flows in your image, there is no room for improvement.
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6. Self-image
Did you have someone in your childhood who said or made you feel directly or indirectly that you were not good enough and couldn’t succeed in anything?
The person could be your parents, who criticized you for all your little mistakes, or your teachers, friends, and relatives.
Whoever that could be, they successfully install an image of yourself within you that you think is true.
Your actions and drive are derived from your self-image.
If you have a healthy self-image, you will believe in your goals with convictions and do everything in your power to achieve those goals.
Setback and failure cannot demotivate you; you will take them as a challenge and move forward to achieve your goals.
But the opposite is also true.
You start doubting yourself when you view yourself negatively and don’t know if you are as worthy as the other person who is already successful.
You may have big goals and dreams with a negative self-image, but there will be no conviction.
You can try to achieve those goals, but soon you will lose interest and cannot remain disciplined for long, and once you hit a barrier, you will give up.
But, self-image is not fixed. It can be improved and degraded over time.
How to improve your self-image?
That will be a topic for another article.
7. Belief
Belief generates from imagination, but that’s not enough.
They say you have to imagine your goals every day, visualize them as clearly as possible, and soon you will achieve your goals.
But that’s half true.
If there is no conviction that you can achieve your goal, no matter how many times you visualize it, the desired result will not be achieved.
What is conviction?
Conviction is a state of mind when there is no room for self-doubt.
For example, imagine a moderately difficult goal, like not watching social media for a week, to reset your brain.
In that case, you can achieve it because you know the benefits and want to avoid social media for a change.
Now, it may be difficult for some, but by visualizing the end goals, you start believing that you can do it.
After completing your 1-week goal, you feel good about yourself and improve your self-image.
But what if you visualize having a fit body with 10% body fat?
Assuming you are obese and have failed multiple times in the past, only visualization cannot help you to reach your goals.
You can visualize that fit body every day to motivate yourself, but your belief is different deep down.
Deep down, you believe that it’s not possible; you cannot have that fit body because you failed before, and you will fail again.
There is no conviction within you that you can do it.
Ofcourse, consistency is the key to building that conviction, but on the other hand, you need conviction to have consistency.
It’s a cycle.
8. Chaos and Focus
You jump to anything that seems profitable to you.
Today you want to create youtube videos and earn money, but tomorrow when you see your friend making money on trading shares, you switch your mind and want to learn to trade too.
One of the biggest reasons for being a failure is your non-commitment toward your goal.
People commit to things for a week, a month, or a year and when they don’t see results, they quit.
Success comes from a focus-oriented mindset.
You do it not because of overnight fame and money, which comes on its own; you do it because you deeply believe in it.
But, if you dig deep, you will find that you don’t believe in your dream, which is why you keep switching your goals.
Deep down, you know that you have failed in the past and will fail again in the future.
You cannot lose weight, you cannot go into a relationship, you cannot build a successful career, and more.
But, ofcourse, these are lies, and you know that too.
So, how to believe and have a focused mindset.
By taking action.
Take action despite having any negative or positive emotions for it.
If it is time to go to the gym, then you have to go to the gym, regardless of whether you feel like it.
If you think a cold shower is beneficial for you, you have to take it, regardless of whether you feel like it.
The point is to have a single mindset, a focused mindset.
Take action; it doesn’t matter how small or big your action is.
Just do it.
9. Action before emotion
When you depend on motivation, inspiration, or to feel good to take any action, you will never complete your tasks on time, nor will you achieve any goals in your life.
Moreover, movies, videos, social media, and books have set negative expectations regarding loving your job.
They say if you love to do something, you will keep doing it and never get bored.
If you feel bored and have to push yourself every day, it is probably not for you.
These statements cannot be more wrong.
You cannot love your work for the whole day, for a whole month, for a year, or a lifetime.
At the end of the day, you have to take your work as a job no matter how much you feel good, inspired, and motivated in the beginning.
Any new things feel good initially, but as you keep progressing and don’t see many results, you don’t find that joy.
It doesn’t mean you have to cry yourself out or feel measurable while doing it.
Rather you feel freedom and build self-belief once you complete your work voluntarily.
You have a goal, a vision of it, and that’s why you will take action.
You are disciplined because you want that work done despite having negative emotions or demotivation.
Once you take action before emotion, you truly enjoy your life because you know discipline is freedom.
10. Visualization
Visualization is very helpful and also dangerous at the same time.
How can visualization be dangerous?
Of course, you have read or seen videos about the visualization technique on the internet.
It will help if you visualize your goals as clearly as possible.
Suppose your goal is to have a good physique; then you need to go to the gym 4-5 times a week and have a healthy diet plan.
So, you start visualizing yourself as having that physique.
You close your eyes and see yourself in the mirror.
You can see your biceps, chest, and strong shoulders posing in front of the mirror.
How does it make you feel?
Good, right?
You go to the gym and work out because of that good emotion.
You keep doing this, and sooner or later, you don’t feel any good once you visualize it because you are not seeing any progress in your body.
Of course, you cannot have that good physique because you have failed in the past before.
You cannot have that good physique because you don’t have the genetics, you lack time and money, and you don’t have enough strength.
Can you see all the excuses that started to surface?
But you still try to visualize, but rather than feeling good, you now feel demotivated because you believe this is something that cannot be possible.
Once the visualization is not accompanied by faith, you have set yourself up for failure.
Visualization has to be accompanied by conviction.
Once you believe your vision will come true, no matter what, you work more because you have faith in it.
How to have faith?
By taking action.
Summary
In simple words, our brain has been conditioned for failure since childhood.
They say it’s all in our brains, and it’s true.
You have to shake your belief and realize that whatever your brain says is not true, and you will get better and ahead in life.
If you plan to write a book, you must write every day.
Once you don’t feel like writing, it is that day; you need to understand that your brain has started playing tricks.
Why does the brain do that?
Because, it believes that you are a failure and that’s how things should be.
You need to prove your brain wrong.
Once your brain starts to believe that you are not a failure and can do whatever you put your mind to, you will start seeing the wonder in your life.
Best
Ahbab
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