by Marissa Meleske

Created on: April 13, 2011

Denis Waitley once said, "Your attitude is either the lock on, or the key to the door of success." You are your own worst critic. You can be given all of the praise in the world sometimes, and still feel that you didn't do your best. Your brain may only register the negative in what people say about you and what you do or what you are striving to do. All too often, your mistakes will stand out to you much more prominantly than your many accomplishments. That can definitely get in the way of, and even sabotage your belief in your true potential and ultimate success in reaching your goals. But where do those negative thoughts come from? They come within and from not enough outside encouragement.

One of the most common reasons we are so critical of ourselves in everything that we do, is due to our fear of failure. There is an age old saying, "Some people would rather stay miserable, than risk being happy." In life, everything is a risk, the only difference is that some things are a bit more of a risk than others. It's entirely up to you which steps you take, which doors you let close on you and which windows you choose to open when others slam a door in your face. You cannot let fear stand in your way. Not only will you have failed to try, but you will constantly wonder "What if I did it? Could it have worked out?" and, at that point, it will have been too late. The time to start living your dreams is now. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never have tried to succeed."

We also may sabotage our own success, because of self-doubt, which actually goes hand in hand with fear. When you doubt yourself and your ability to be happy and successful in your goals, you are essentially letting fear of the unknown stand in your way, along with the chatter of others, and many times your own nonsensical mind chatter. We really are our own worst enemy. We often stand in our own way because of what we assume other people will think of us based upon what we are going to do, and whether or not they think we will succeed. The truth is, you don't know how anything is going to turn out, unless you try. You should never stand in your own way, and never ever let anyone else stand in your way and tell you that something is impossible. Turn that doubt and fear into strength and the will to succeed.

Because of the fact that fear and self-doubt often first surface as mere little voices only heard in our subconscious minds, you have to wonder what fuels them to the point where they are strong and loud enough to sabotage our success and scare us away from doing what we truly feel we were born to do? The answer is, you do. You choose to believe and buy into your own fears and self-doubt, which are also sometimes fueled even bigger by others doubting you. Rise above that and have faith and belief in yourself and your own potential. After all, if you don't believe in yourself first, no one else will.

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