Jan 3, 2012

 

As a manager, and a coach of young men, I witnessed the various types of successes and failures within numerous individuals. The people with whom I had and have close relationships with and others that worked with me for years, most likely tired of my statements relative to, “people not taking the necessary actions to continually enhance themselves, will never see improvements in their lives.”  Simply stated, if you are not taking any actions to improve your current circumstances, then one can expect no improvements will occur in their lives. Nothing will change. That is, unless a wealthy relative passes and leaves you a fortune.

I have witnessed people who worked for me and the young men I coached, remain in the same position and at the same level for many years without advancements and improvements in their in their status.   I can recall no case where these individuals took actions to improve the potential for promotion and advancement. They simply become complacent with the current position they occupy and continue going through life without any actions to better themselves. Most of these individuals will retire at a position they occupied for greater part of their working life.

Simplistic as this may sound, many people do not improve their lives simply because they are lazy or lack the willpower to make simple changes. A young man played baseball for me for many years and was an outstanding athlete. He excelled in every aspect of the game without much effort. A few major league scouts were very interested in him and often approached me with questions concerning his personality traits and ability to learn quickly. At one point he was suspended from school for taking an illegal substance. With the suspension, he was intelligible to play. When the baseball scouts found out the reason for his absence, he was immediately dropped from any further consideration for a major-league tryout. While he did eventually graduate from high school, he bounced through several menial jobs, often stating his desire to enlist in the military and take advantage of various vocational and other training programs. I agreed with the advantages of military service for him considering the discipline and training for a quality occupation once service ended. He never did enlist because he was unwilling to give up smoking marijuana. Ten plus years out from high school, he is still bouncing around from job to job and often seeks a place to live for a week or two. Although an assumption, success for him is having a place to sleep, a few beers and an ounce of weed.

The sad truth is that major improvements in his life would have occurred if he simply quit smoking the weed. Often, the choices permitting one to succeed are relatively simple.

Utilizing a few people whom I’ve worked with and coached through the years, I will attempt to illustrate the reasons for the lack of success and why their plight in life did not improve. Their names will remain anonymous and considerable obscurity will be applied so personal identification will not be possible.

Any discussion of success first requires a definition and even border, an explanatory discussion. If you ask someone how they would determine whether another person was successful, money or wealth is the most common response. In fact, the bulk of the literature supports the theory that most people define success in terms of money, although other characteristics usually apply. If money is the answer, then someone who inherits a considerable fortune without effort, a college education or even a high school diploma would be considered a success.

According to the literature, most most people fail for the reasons stated below. They are presented by frenquency and signif

1. Motivation: No matter what the source, it is obvious that the most significant rationale for the inability to succeed or improve one’s self motivation or simply laziness. Most individuals were complacent, lazy and in general did not have the motivational drive to improve themselves. They often blame everyone and condition around them for their lack of success. Every failure is due to someone else  and they never are at fault or accept blame. They will blame their friends, co-workers and even family. They are not goal driven and lack commitment to create the essential goals for improvement. We all know people like this and eventually try to avoid them at all costs.

2. Knowledge: Even when people have a desire to improve themselves, ignorance is often an impediment to success. Time and effort is required to obtain the knowledge necessary to improve your chances of success. For many, the continued failure is simply the lack of motivation to obtain the information necessary to improve yourself. With the advent of the internet, knowledge is at your very fingertips.

3. Fear: There must be volumes of books and other publications noting that fear is one of the major components leading people to fail. In most cases, the fear is related to failure. We will not overly elaborate on the ancient premise that you cannot succeed without numerous failures. However, that long-standing philosophy remains a consistent theme for why people do not have greater successes.

There are other types of fear that prevent people from achieving their goals. The most notable one involves the impression we believe others will have of us when we fail. When I was a child, a friend who lived behind me, could jump rope without missing 500 or more times. While I often took up his challenge to equal his number without a miss, two other of my friends rejected the competition.

The actions and potential to improve one’s current circumstances, does not necessarily require a herculean effort or an outlay of substantial money.

 

 

Every few months, I will expand on the reasons for failure, and success.

 

Updated: 1– 22 – 2012

1 –30 – 2012

2- 20-  2012