Do you feel like you are successful in life? If today was your final day in this world, would you be proud of what you have accomplished? If you’re not where you wanted to be at this point, what is holding you back? The only thing stopping you back from realizing the life you seek is yourself, and all of the reasons you think justify that are merely excuses.

     First of all, know that you don’t need to be “a success” in order to be happy. What can even be considered ” a success”? The very term is completely subjective, and thus creates an imaginary end goal that will never be obtained. Usually the term is based upon being wealthy. Someone with a healthy family, a house and a great job will look up and say “If only I could be a millionaire, then I would be happy.” A millionaire will look up and say “If only I could afford a private jet and a third vacation home, then I would be happy.” If you base your happiness on a subjective term, you can always view that term as the next higher socioeconomic position, and thus never achieve your dream. And as Bob Marley said, “Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end.” Happiness can be achieved now, it is always a choice, regardless of your achievements or monetary value.

     Does this mean I shouldn’t worry about accomplishing anything? I should just focus on the moment, be happy, and stop worrying about contributing anything to the world? Of course not, regardless of the fact that we need to work to survive, polls show that we derive feelings of well being from working, contributing to society, and providing for ourselves and our loved ones. The pleasure that comes from work is closely tied to the type of work we do, and the level of autonomy (control over our work duties) that we have with our careers. Obtaining a high quality job, one in which we have autonomy over our actions, make enough money, receive benefits, are allowed adequate time off, and generally feel like we are contributing positively to the world doesn’t come easily. It takes education, determination, hard work and perseverance. As difficult as getting a high quality job can be, making a living off of fulfilling your dreams can be even harder than that!

     The drive to want to be successful doesn’t have to be tied to your self-worth or your happiness. You can be happy and love yourself even if you haven’t achieved your dreams. Instead of telling yourself “I will be happy and believe in myself once this happens” tell yourself “This will happen because I am happy and I believe in myself!” Your drive for success and achieving your dreams should be fueled by your optimism. Your hard work should be made easier by constant happiness and concrete knowledge of your ability to succeed.

     When you think of reasons as to why you haven’t achieved your goals, or why you have given up on your dreams, what do you hear yourself say? I bet those thoughts are littered with reminders of your past failures, demeaning mentions of your shortcomings, and a million other excuses that make it absolutely impossible to ever get to where you want. What does that tell me? That tells me your current unhappiness, low self-esteem and pessimism are trapping you in a cycle of self pity and underachievement. Your failures made you unhappy, and your unhappiness makes you fail.

     You need to first realize that you can be happy right now regardless of your past failures and current position in life. You need to tell yourself every single day that not only are you worthy of happiness and success, but that you are capable of achieving amazing things! Tell yourself you are beautiful, intelligent, hard working, creative and kind. Be mindful of your thoughts, your words and your actions so that they reflect this positive view of yourself and you can change yourself along with the world around you. This change in mindset will propel you to unending possibilities.

     As you develop and practice this mindset, you will see opportunities open up in front of you. You will see the mountains of impossibility breaking apart in front of your newfound strength. All of your past failures will stop being hindrances to you and instead you will appreciate them as moments where you gained priceless experience and knowledge. All of your real or imagined shortcomings will stop being reasons as to why you can’t achieve and start being reasons as to why it will be that much more impressive when you overcome them. All of those millions of little excuses that you make day in day out will be revealed for what they are, tiny bumps in the road that you have been pointing to and saying “I can’t drive over that! I should just give up.”

     Since I can remember I have always loved writing. I pursued a degree in journalism at the University of Illinois, but for many reasons, that path didn’t work out for me. The full story of my financial, emotional and psychological shortcomings that kept me from finishing college is a story for another time. Since then, I switched career paths, went back to school, worked constant overtime along with my classes, and continued to push myself to succeed for several years before I realized my childhood dream of becoming a firefighter paramedic as well as completing an associate degree in emergency medical services. Through hard work and belief in myself, as well as help from my amazing mother, I dug myself out of a financial and professional hole that at one point I didn’t believe I would ever be able to climb out of.

     Through all of those years I told myself that I was putting my writing on hold to focus on my career. Year in, year out I let my talent decay and my dreams of becoming a published author wither away. I limited myself to one childhood dream at a time, and so I almost lost a passion of mine, something I had worked for years to develop. I kept making excuses for not writing, whether it was not having enough time, being tired from work and studying, or that lingering thought that my failure to finish college meant that I wasn’t good enough. I thought about how it seemed like the entire world was working against me in college and that maybe that was a sign that I wasn’t supposed to write.

  
  One day I was looking through my old papers from my journalism class and I was astounded to see how many papers I had turned in late. I couldn’t believe how many small formatting errors I had made that brought my grades down. Instantly I started to remember how often I spent my free time in college drinking, or sitting outside my dorm smoking cigarettes with friends instead of studying. I remembered how I always seemed to have money for another pack of smokes even though I barely had money to eat. I remembered how I didn’t fill out every scholarship I could find. I remembered how I wouldn’t save my money over the summers. I remembered having so many reasons why I didn’t push myself to succeed. I lived all this time with a million excuses as to how the world was against me and why I failed when the only thing that kept me from succeeding was my own mindset and my own actions.

     At that moment I realized that even though I have come so far with positive thinking, self motivation and obtaining happiness over the last couple of years, I was still covering myself with excuses, weighing down my possibilities with a litany of reasons why I couldn’t succeed as a writer. I knew right then that there was nothing that would hold me back from achieving whatever dreams I wanted anymore. That week I finished my first short story, began working on my novel, and started this website. I made the decision to be done with excuses.

     Limits are things you set upon yourself. They are a choice. However high you think you can climb is where you will end up. Stop giving yourself reasons why you can’t and start coming up with ways in which you can. Your mindset will determine what you can achieve, your self worth will determine your strength and your positive mindset will determine just how far you will go, and how many times you will bounce back from failures, to fulfill your dreams. Stop living a life of self pity, stop constantly being a victim. Ignore those who tell you that you can’t become your childhood dream, or that you can’t beat the odds and become successful in whatever field you choose.