The One Thing Holding You Back From Success

I’m going to show you the one thing that’s holding you back from success.

The one thing that’s stopping you from achieving the goals that you want to achieve but most importantly how to overcome it.

What is that one thing? What’s the one thing that’s stopping you from gaining the success that you want? It’s action. I

We all have big dreams, we all have big visions and at the same time we all know what we need to do. The only thing that’s stopping us is the work that we’re putting in.

As a short course lecturer at the London College of Fashion I’ve probably taught over 200 to 300 students on how to start an online retail business. Now I teach every student exactly the same thing but some have been successful, where others haven’t. The simple reason why that’s the case is because some have worked, some have acted upon what they’ve learned, where the others simply haven’t.

Everyone thought of Uber before Uber existed.

Everyone claims that they’ve had an idea that someone’s then gone and used, and made it into a success… but the only difference between those two people is the person who claims that they had the idea spent time thinking, where the person who invented and made the idea successful spent time working.

Although knowledge is power, action is more powerful.

You need to spend more time taking action, doing the work, if you want to start becoming more successful.

So how do you do it?

How can you start taking more action to become more successful?

1. Be Honest With Yourself

The first thing is to be honest with yourself. If you’re complaining about not having time, if you’re saying that you’re working hard, but you’re not getting the success… be honest with yourself for a moment.

Are you truly working? Are you truly being productive? Are you truly putting in the effort that you need to put in?

Or are you simply lying to yourself, and saying that you are, when really you’re not?

Everyone claims that they’re ‘hustling’, that they’re working hard and feeling exhausted from the effort they’re putting in. Everyone claims that they’re working hard to become successful.

But ask yourself this question: Are you truly using every hour, every minute, every second of your day to its full potential?

Because if you’re not, then you need to stop pretending and start doing something about it.

I remember when I first started working for myself online. I used to work 16 hour days, well that’s what I thought. I’d get up, I’d get on the computer, I’d work throughout the whole day and then I’d shut off at midnight. The next day I’d wake up, again, repeat the same process and I used to think I was putting in a lot of effort.

But in reality, looking back now I wasn’t working to my full potential. I was spending a lot of time being distracted by reading articles, reading better ways of doing things, I was getting distracted by social media and my phone and I really wasn’t working to my full potential.

Even though I was sitting behind the laptop all day and trying to get things done I wasn’t working smart. I was acting on the things that I’d spent time learning. I was looking for more, I was hunting for a quicker and easier way to do things when this simply distracted me from the task I needed to do.

The first thing is be honest with yourself. Are you truly putting in the effort that you need to?

2. Go On A Knowledge Detox

The second thing is quick and simple, go on a knowledge detox. I’m a huge advocate of reading daily, listening to audiobooks and Podcasts and I truly believe knowledge is king. But at the same time we can easily follow into the knowledge trap where we just continue learning and learning but never act upon the lessons.

When I teach my course at the London College of Fashion people always ask me what course should they do next. It’s obviously good to expand your knowledge and develop your skills further but why not apply what you’ve just learned first?

Time, effort and money has been dedicated to listen to me for 2 days straight and they’ve now got the knowledge they need to get started, so taking action rather than learning more is a better approach.

For me, it’s more about applying that action immediately and then go and learn more. So I love to read, I love to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, watch educational YouTube videos, go to events and invest in mentors but sometimes we can learn too much. Gain that knowledge, act upon that knowledge, and you’re going to see results a lot quicker.

Every time you read a book, every time you learn something new, put the book away and apply the knowledge. That is going to get you the results a lot quicker than if you continue to just keep learning, and learning, and learning.

3. Find Motivation From Your Why

The third thing is find motivation from your why. Motivation is hard. It’s very hard for us to consistently stay motivated to do something that’s going to make us successful.

So you need to have a strong purpose, a strong reason behind why you’re doing this. Because when you know why you’re doing it, you’re going to be constantly reminded of why you need to put in the work.

Sometimes you can’t be bothered to put in the work, but when you have that strong why, that strong purpose, you are reminded of that and it will help you get motivated to put in the work.

What is your why?

It could be your children, your parents, your wife or partner, it could be your looking to provide to the people around you, to overcome adversity… that reasons behind why you might do something are endless.

Think for a moment of why you want to be successful, what’s your purpose? Then use that as fuel for motivation.

4. Follow A Schedule Or Plan

The fourth thing is follow a schedule or have a plan. If you haven’t got a plan in place how do you know what steps to take to achieve your goal and become successful?

A goal isn’t a goal without a plan… it’s a dream.

If you want to own a Lamborghini but you haven’t got a plan in place on how you’re going to own that Lamborghini, it’s simply a dream. It’s a fantasy. But if you know that you want to own a Lamborghini and you know the exact steps you need to take to own it, you’re going to get there a lot quicker and most importantly it’s a goal not a fantasy.

You need to have a schedule in place. Every single day, what are you going to do? What goals and what action do you need to take that’s going to get you to that place where you want to be successful? That place where you’ve achieved that goal?

Write down everything that you need to do. Have a plan in place. Have a daily schedule. For me personally, I’ve just got the book from Dan Meredith, it’s called “Get Shit Done”. There’s a lot of daily planners out there (The Self Journal is great too) but for me personally this is definetely my favourite. It cuts out the BS and makes creating daily plans and schedules easy.

What I do is simply brain dump everything I need to do in this week. These tasks are business related but also personal. I’ll write down the three goals I want to achieve in the next 3 months and then every single day I’ll write down the top five tasks that I need to do which are most in alignment with my goals. I’ll also write down other tasks that need to be completed alongside scheduling out when I do those tasks in the hourly planner.

It might sound a bit too much for you, but you need to have a schedule in place. You need to have a plan in place because if you don’t, you’re not going to take the action that’s needed.

5. Use The Deep Work Principle

Deep Work is all about getting in the right mentality to sit down and get some work done. A lot of the time we sit down we go to work and then we easily get distracted.

Now Deep Work is a book that you can buy. I read it a few months ago and it goes into a lot more information, but the biggest takeaway that I had from reading the book is avoid distractions.

How many times have you sat down to do some work and then your phone starts to off? Then you’ll check Facebook, Instagram and dive into your inbox which makes you react to unread emails.

Deep Work is all about focusing on one thing. Focusing on one task. Get yourself in a deep work mentality and get the tasks you need to do done. Make sure you avoid distractions at all costs and If you want to learn more about the Deep Work Principle, you can find it here.

Time Isn’t An Excuse

I want to end this with something important. Time isn’t an excuse.

The biggest reason why people won’t achieve their goals or hit the levels of success that they want to get to is because they’ll typically complain about not having enough time.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day.

The most successful people, the people that you look up to, your role models, your idols have the same amount as time as you.

So having no time is just an excuse. It’s you blaming something else other than yourself for not achieving the things you wanted to achieve

It comes down to priorities. If the goal that you want to achieve is a priority in your life, you’ll make time for it. You’ll find time for it. You’ll get up earlier or go to bed later.

If people say they haven’t got time to work out or they haven’t got time to go to the gym, it isn’t that they haven’t got time it’s just going to the gym or working out isn’t a priority for them right now.

So time isn’t an excuse that you can use. Do not say that you haven’t got time, rephrase that sentence and say that you’re not making it a priority right now.

When you make things priorities you will find time to do them.

I always use this as an example: If you was working from home on an important project and your children came up to you and asked you to play, you’d probably tell them you’d be free later on. Work at that moment in time is more of a priority than playing with your children. But what happens when your child runs up to you whilst you’re working and tells you they’ve fallen over and cut their head open? Blood is dripping down their face and they’re in urgent need of your help. Would you tell them to come back later after you’ve finished work?

Shift your priorities and you’ll find time to do anything that you want to do.

So what goals do you want to achieve? Make them a priority because you’ll find time to do anything once it’s a priority in your life.