Maintaining a positive attitude while you are taking the journey to success will make your path more enjoyable and will help you to reach your goal faster. But when things are uncertain or do not go the way we expect, we often experience self-criticism, over-think things, or play the “right-wrong game”. Below, I describe these pitfalls and what you can do to help overcome them.

The Right-Wrong Game
The “right-wrong game” stems from a disappointment in ourselves, in someone else, or a certain situation.

1. When we are disappointed, we might place blame on ourselves with thoughts like: “I’m not good enough or I’m not smart enough.”

2. We might also place blame on others with thoughts such as: “My employees are lazy, my customers are idiots.”

3. The third possibility is placing blame on the situation with thoughts like: “The economy is bad, outsourcing is the problem.”

Negative thoughts such as these put breaks on your progress and waste your time and energy on bad feelings. So, instead, focus on finding solutions. Stop and catch yourself whenever you find that you are experiencing any of the above three pitfalls.

Over-Thinking
Over-thinking can result from self-doubt or failure. One of the biggest problems with over-thinking is that it can reduce your time and opportunities. It is also related to perfectionism. For example, when starting a new online business, some people will spend months on creating a site and tweaking everything to try to make it perfect before opening their business. But in reality, a couple of weeks would have been enough for the launch and they could have spent the rest of the time on finding clients.

The Self-Critic
When you stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone and focus on creating bigger things, your self-critic will start letting go of limiting beliefs and forming new beliefs as you break through barriers you once thought were impossible.

“When the problem you are working on challenges your self-esteem then you know that the problem is big enough! Success is enjoying the process of living and creating the solutions to the breakdowns that lead to your Intentions.”