The People Responsible for Your Failures

There are people whose politics you find deeply offensive. You are consumed with these people, and spend your time posting about them on Facebook to make sure that everyone knows that these people are why you can’t get ahead in life or be happy. You argue with people who profess that the people whose politics you  support are really to blame for the circumstances of their lives. These people are the source of your problems.

You have to deal with some challenging people at work. These people do things that make it more difficult for you to do your job well. You gripe and complain about them to anyone who will listen. You spend a bunch of time complaining to yourself. You believe these people are responsible for your unhappiness at work, as well as your lack of performance.

And then there are those clients. You know the ones. They are always complaining, even though most of their problems are of their own making. They’re never satisfied, even when the work you do for them is as good as the work you do for the rest of your clients. Worse still, they make their complaints personal, like you’re not trying to help them in any way. These people are responsible for your lack of fulfillment.

Your competitors sell on price alone. They only win because they are willing to go where no one else can follow when it comes to pricing. They lie and promise the companies that should be your clients that they can give them the supernatural value proposition that is better, faster, and cheaper. If it weren’t for these salespeople and their sketchy companies, you’d have more clients. They are the source of your poor results and your lack of income.

Vote for the candidate you support, give them your money and volunteer to work to elect them. But know that there is no political outcome that is going to change your life for the better. That’s up to you.

There are challenging personalities in every workplace, and yours is no different. They inconvenience you for sure. Your work, however, is your own. Your complaining only deepens your negative state. Changing jobs will only bring you new challenging people.

Unreasonable and demanding customers are not why you aren’t fulfilled at work. Their complaints have very little to do with it, and personal attacks are evidence of someone with little ability to improve their own circumstances.

You don’t lose deals because your competitor has a lower price. You lose because you didn’t create a compelling reason for your client to pay more or you didn’t recognize and disqualify a buyer who only cares about price.

None of these people or groups of people are your real enemy. Your real enemy is the voice that tells you they are. None of these people or groups have anything to do with your current state. It’s your belief that someone or something outside of you is responsible for what you want to change that keeps you from what you want.

Rohn said, “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”