In this article, I will explain 9 obstacles to success avoiding which, every one of us can taste the sweetness of success.
The Patanjali Yoga Sutras are an ancient set of teachings that provide guidance on the path of yogic enlightenment. They provide a framework for living a life of balance, peace, and connection, while also emphasizing the importance of mindfulness and meditation.
Maharishi Patanjali has outlined 9 obstacles to successful practice of mediation. They are surprisingly applicable to success in any field.
If you take conscious efforts to overcome these obstacles in life, you will keep improving your chances of success. After a point of consistent practice, success will start coming easy to you.
Patanjali Yoga Sutras , Commentry by Swami Vivekananda
1. Disease – the first obstacle
A healthy body is the first and foremost requirement for success. One cannot focus on his work if his body is not healthy.
You must take all efforts to ensure that your body is healthy if you want to achieve success in life.
2. Mental Laziness
All the energy we have is first produced in our mind – through our visions and dreams . In order to focus and get what we want, we must ditch all the mental laziness and make up our mind to work towards the goal.
Mental lethargy is one of the first obstacle to success that does not even let us start the journey.
3. Self-Doubt – a big hindrance to success
99% of the people give up their dreams because of self doubt. They get discouraged with one small failure and stop attempting itself.
If you are determined to take up the journey to get what you want, you need to stop doubting yourself.
That said – doubts will come if you are on such a journey. Happens to everyone.
But every time a doubt comes, think of your dream, your ambition and the your reason for pursuing this journey, and keep moving.
A friend’s dad once expressed his concern to me as I was working with startups to learn as fast as I can. He thought that it was a risky move. When I tried to explore the reason, he told me that he had lost a lot of wealth because of a business that he tried. He had spent the rest of his life till then fretting about that loss and never attempting any business again.
From my own experience
4. Carelessness
Ignoring details makes you fall into unnecessary traps. Detail-orientation is a great habit that we all must work on till we master it.
Carelessness can be a big obstacle to your success irrespective of the kind of endeavor.
For example, if you are applying for a job, and you are making grammatical mistakes in your resume, there is no way you can succeed. You will be rejected in the first round itself. And luck cannot be blamed for this. You would be creating that situation if you are careless.
Similarly, if you bomb a meeting with your client because you did not prepare for it, it is completely your mistake.
One of the worst career advices someone has given me is this – Half of the work should be done by you, and the other half by your boss. Never worked for me. If you present a half cooked thing, people are never going to trust you again. Especially with important tasks – and that can never be good for your career growth.
5. Physical Laziness
Tomorrow is your exam, or probably the most important meeting of your career till date. If you are not able to get out of the bed to prepare for it in the night, you should be prepared for a loss.
Success requires good old hard work, and if you are not able to give it what it wants, it will not come to you.
6. Indulgence into distractions
Whether you are on your journey to success or you have achieved some milestones already, distractions are inevitable. Controlling our senses is a hard task, and that causes us to get into pitfalls again and again.
Distractions may come in many forms is a strong obstacle to success. It may be as simple as a party that you decided to go to just the night before an important event in your life. It may be more grave that that – an unethical choice you decide to make to get a temporary advantage.
At multiple occasions in my career, I had to make a strong call to let go of some of my best performers. These top professionals got involved in unethical means to expedite their journeys. It is all about your choices, and choices you make today will reflect in your life sooner or later.
It is best to think with a clear head and try to avoid as many distractions as you can. A single minded focus with a strong belief often leads to astonishing outcomes.
Delusive thinking can distract us to any level. Such delusive thinking has made many brilliant people lose all their wealth while speculating in the market.
We must deeply think about what is delusion and what is the truth.
A general principle that I have observed and learnt is that anything that promises fast returns in the shortest time – is a delusion.
For example, double your wealth in a month, or sharpen your memory in a week – these kinds of promises are not based on a clear success pathway and are delusive.
8. Loss of Concentration
Another obstacle to success is loss of concentration. For any success, concentrated efforts are needed. If you are not able to fully devote yourself to your goal, chances are that you will miss your chances of success.
There are some people who start really well and reach a certain point in their life. Then they fall away from their focused efforts and lose their position. When you have obtained your focus and concentration, you must maintain it till you reach your goal.
There will be milestones before your goal, and you must learn to differentiate between milestones and goals.
I personally found this aphorism from “Yoga Sutra” very relevant.
I will be practicing to curb these obstacles to success myself. Join me in my journey.
I will update if I find any more learning in this context.
Let me know in the comments if you find anything interesting that I can add.
