We all want to reach our full potential. We all want to blaze a trail that is our own. What hinders that from happening? Why do we seem to veer off the road to success down a side road of mediocrity? Dirt roads (which are few these days) are notorious for developing ruts in the places where people drive the most. Before long they become so deep that the only way to drive on that road is to drive in them. One sign in Alaska states, “Choose your ruts carefully, you will be in them for the next 200 miles.” If you expect success you have to chart your own course. You have to set the bar higher than those around you and not quit until you reach it.

1- If you want success, you have to put the work into it. Life is an adventure and everyone is given opportunities. You may feel that you don’t have the same opportunities as others. That may be so, but what about the ones you DO have. As you take advantage of those, others will begin to appear. Someone once said, “Success is never guaranteed, but failure is automatic if we don’t try.”

2- Let go of things you can’t control. Stop and think about it, lots of things happen around us that we cannot control. Why stay awake and night and worry about the weather, you can’t control it. Practice this thought: If you can’t control it, let go of it. You may have enough wisdom to see what is happening, but if you have no control over it, there is no sense in wasting energy worrying about it.

3- Don’t let your circumstances determine your effectiveness. Circumstances should have no control over laziness, procrastination, excuses, or even failure. Failure is not final. It is simply a stop on the road to ultimate success. There will always be uncertain circumstances so if you allow them to stop your progress, you are doomed for failure.

4- Never stop learning. Leaders are readers. There are so many places to learn. The written word is the mind of the author. Certainly, book knowledge can help us. There is another way to learn that is even more effective though, and that is studying the lives of others. We learn more not by what people say, but by what they don’t say. Another thought is to learn from your own mistakes. Why would you want to go through the process of completing something, only to fail and never learn from it.

Get yourself out of the rut you are in right now.  No one is going to do it for you!  The road ahead becomes full of vision and promise because someone else is not plotting YOUR course!

Question: What are some personal or professional ruts you would like to get out of in life? What can you do to change that?  Leave a COMMENT and start a discussion