7 Lies you Tell Yourself that Steal Your Success

Most people long for success and feel frustrated because they don’t know what is keeping them from achieving it. Of course, no one’s life circumstances and environment are perfect. But there are some who appear to enjoy more success in all areas of their lives than others, so what makes the difference?

What makes the difference are the lies we tell ourselves that we think are true. What you think determines how you will react to situations in your life, as well as your behavior. The way you react to situations in your life depends on how you perceive the world and how you perceive the world, is determined by how you think. Yep, sounds like a vicious circle and it is.

As humans, we are meaning making machines and what ever meaning we give to a situation, or think about a situation determines our emotional response. For example, if someone raced past you speeding in a car you can think, Boy are they rude, dangerous, or inconsiderate, they deserve to be locked up!, or if you knew that one of their children had just been rushed to the hospital after a very serious injury you might think, I would be driving faster than they were. or Get out of their way!


If you believed the outcomes in your life are a direct result of the way you think, would you want to change some of your thoughts? It is so much easier to pretend, or believe the lie that how we feel, and where we are in life is because of someone else. It is easy to blame others like our annoying boss, out of control children, nagging wife, no good lazy husband, etc. But all of your feelings are actually caused by what you TELL yourself, in other words, the meaning you give to events and outcomes in your life.

Believing the lies that your current situation in all areas of your life is the fault of anyone else but you keeps you stuck, frustrated, angry and hopeless. That is why recognizing the lies you tell yourself is very important.

These lies that steal your success are.

1. Good things happen to everyone but me.
What you expect is usually what you get, so if you want to believe the lie that good things happen to everyone but you, guess what, good things will keep happening for others but not you. If you really want success, you must see it, believe it, dream it, taste it but especially talk it and think it. Expect success. Believe that success can be yours and your chances of achieving increase significantly.

2. Complaining is normal, everyone complains.
If you complain, you will attract more complainers. Birds of a feather flock together. When we complain, we focus on the very things we don’t want in our lives. The law of attraction tells us that what we focus on we give power and energy to in our lives. The more time you spend complaining, the less time you have to celebrate and appreciate the great things in your life. Stop complaining and stop giving yourself permission to complain. It makes you miserable and it makes the people you are complaining to, miserable.

3. Nobody really knows or understands me.
Winners recognize that it doesn't always matter how the a problem came to be, as it does to find a workable solution to the problem. If you believe the lie that nobody understands you, chances are you are continually doing, thinking and justifying things that aren’t working in your life. Everyone understands success. Most people don’t understand when someone keeps doing the same behavior and getting the same terrible results. If nobody understands you chances are, you really don’t understand yourself. If you want to succeed, we have to be willing to take a real and honest inventory of where we are and how we got there. Listen to your friends and family that love you. They could see that hole you keep falling into and help you walk around and past it.

4. All that is important is great desire and a dream.
How many have wished they could be a doctor, or dancer, or actor, CPA or a writer, but never created a plan about how to achieve those dreams. Dreams are great. Wishing upon a star is inspiring and hopeful, but if you are not willing to put action behind that wish, if you are not willing to create a plan and have the discipline to follow your plan, you end up only with an unfulfilled wish. Those who don't plan and create their future must live the reality of the future that created itself out of their inaction. Powerful results come from creating a plan and following through with persistence and discipline.

5. No one will pay me to do what I really want to do.
So often we convince ourselves that our choices in our life are limited. They are not. Find what you love doing more than anything and then get busy finding ways to get to do it. Let your strengths and talents guide you in choosing your vocation. You will discover that the true successes in life are those who have discovered their passions, married those passions to their talents, honed their skills to excellence and acted with persistence. You can do what you love to do, all you have to do is take the time to discover what it is you love and then how to benefit the lives of others by doing it.

6. I can’t . . .
This is one of the most powerful lies of all. Anytime you believe you can’t, you’ll find you’re right. If you refused to allow yourself to use the phrase I can’t and expected more of yourself so that your only option was to figure out how you actually could, you would be an astounding success. If you can only discipline yourself to stop believing one lie, this would be the lie to stop believing.

7. What I do doesn’t really matter in the big scheme of things.
This is a lie that will not only stop you from making your life a tremendous success; it will keep you from making the difference in the world you were born to make. We are each here for a purpose. We were not born just to take up space and use up resources. Unless you have the courage to stop believing this lie, you can never contribute to the many things in the world that need the very best of who you are. It does really matter what you do. Thousands of people are affected by what you do. When the world needs something, you could be the miracle, you could be the catalyst, the leader, the person who inspires others to join you in making a great and powerful difference. For your benefit and the benefit of the world, I ask you to give up believing this lie.

Dawn Billings, CEO & Founder of The Heart Link Network, women's networking at its best, The Heart Alliance, a no cost, online women's networking community for women around the world, Link to Success Business Networking, a business networking community for both men and women and author of 15 books including Entitled to Fail, Endowed to Succeed: America's Journey Back to Greatness