5 Things You Should Never Start Doing

1. Doubting yourself — There is honestly no point in doubting your own abilities. For either you can do what you set out to do or you can’t.

If you can’t do it, you will find something different to do. And if you can do it then there is nothing to worry about either!

The point is that life will go on for you until the moment it does not, whether you believe in yourself or not.

The only thing that doubting your own abilities will do is make you too scared to try. It will keep you from trying out the things that may actually get you to succeed in the way you want or make the journey there horrible if you do succeed without believing in yourself.

Understand that somewhere, sometime, you will at least be okay. You will find a way. You always have.

Build that belief in yourself.

You can figure things out in the end, one way or another. You will live your life and it will be okay somehow.

Make it a little less stressful and give yourself more opportunities by believing in yourself.

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” — John Lennon

2. Blaming others for your misfortune — Worst case scenario: They actually are to blame. In the worst of cases you actually have a right to blame someone for your misfortune, in that they take a large part of the responsibility for getting you here.

But, even if that is true, you are still the one that has to live with the consequences. It is your life that is affected, and no matter whether you blame them or not that will not change. You are where you are. Period.

You cannot change that retroactively.

So let me ask you: What good will it do you to blame those around you? What good will pointing the finger do?

It will not make things better now. It will not change things in hindsight. It will not make a difference in the moment.

But you can change where you will be in a minute, in a day, and in a year as long as you keep facing forward. What’s in the rear-view mirror is gone. All the things that happened in the past happened and you cannot change that.

Focus on your action going forward.

Look at what you can do, what you can change, affect and where you can make a difference in your life, even if it’s just taking a step.

Regardless of who got you here, you can get yourself back out. Don’t waste your time pointing fingers.

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” — Robert Anthony

3. Worrying about things that are not real — So much of the fears, worries and anxieties we have every day are all only in our heads.

We fear what may happen and almost always find something we never even thought of. We worry what others might think when they often have not wasted a single thought on the same. And we get anxious over so many random ghosts in our heads that are not based on even a single fact.

A large part of what we experience in life is just in our heads.

Make sure you grab hold of what is actually real and make a reality check every once in a while. Look at the facts; the simplest, most basic truths and don’t interpret anything into them.

Leave the facts standing as they are. If you have not asked others what they think, you cannot know for certain. If you have not tried, you cannot know you’ll fail. And if you have not given it your all, you cannot know you won’t succeed.

None of those fears are based on anything real. They are formed by old experiences of long-outdated situations that hold no power in the current moment with the current you.

Make sure you understand the difference between the things that are real, the facts of life, and between what is make-believe and just an interpretation. For if you don’t you’ll drive yourself insane chasing ghosts, fairy-tales and running from monsters that don’t exist.

Life is not as scary or stressful as you make it out to be. All you have to do is open your eyes.

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted. One need not be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place.” — Emily Dickinson

4. Shrinking your Dreams — Meaning: If it is not what you truly want then do not ask for it. Do not hold onto a dream you do not want!

You want what you want just like you like the foods you like. There is no benefit on shrinking those just to make them more realistic, because even if you get it it won’t make you happy!

If you want the body of a bodybuilder, loosing 5lbs isn’t going to do anything for you. If you want to live in a mansion with 3 separate swimming pools, asking for a home with a small pond outside won’t make you truly happy. And if you want to be successful, happy, confident or whatever else you want then you want just that.

Keep your dreams as big as they are and adjust your actions to fit them; not the other way around.

Yes, it will be hard, but working for what you truly want is going to be a lot more rewarding than realizing you got what you thought you wanted and not feeling any satisfaction.

Too many people choose the comfort of a smaller dream over the difficulty of a hard-fought one, only to find themselves years later down the line holding something in their hands they never wanted.

The truth is that whether you want to get the body of a bodybuilder or lose 5lbs, you still have to hit the gym. You still have to workout, grind, eat healthy and try.

But when your motivation fails in one scenario you see the body of your dreams in front of you to motivate you, while in another you see your body with 5lbs less.

Now for which one would you work harder? Which one do you think will lead to more action? Which one will make you happier having gone for in the end?

“Don’t downgrade your dream to match your reality. Upgrade your faith to match your destiny.” — DeVon Franklin

5. Giving Less than your All — If you are not absolutely certain you truly tried you won’t be able to go to bed satisfied. You will keep thinking of what could have been, keep dreaming about what you could have done, and you won’t be able to take what you did do and feel proud of it.

Do not do this for your dream, your partner, your family or anyone else but yourself. Give your all so you can sleep soundly at night, so that you live a good life and so that you do not live to regret the days you lived.

Train until your body cannot do another repetition. Work until your mind cannot form a coherent thought. Commit fully to everything you do, invest whole-heartedly, fall far into the abyss and rise to even grander heights.

Because, at the end of it all, life works out completely differently than we expect anyway. It will give us twists we never saw, throw us for loops we never wanted to go through, and will make us go up and down more often than we can count.

What will happen will always be unexpected, but we can at least take control over the short days we do have and make those days we won’t regret. We can give life our all, truly try to make it great, and, when things do eventually take a twist for better or for worse, we will at least won’t have missed the chance to live.

“Give it your best shot. Go for it. If it’s what you really want to do, go for it. Even if you don’t make it, you will never look back and have regrets. You can always say, ‘Hey, I went for it. I tried my hardest. It was an awesome experience.’” — Carmen Rasmusen