The 4 Cardinal Mistakes Keeping You Stuck (LR Podcast ep 5)

Would suck to be stuck out in that storm.

As I’ve been working and talking with people over the years, I’ve started to see patterns in what keeps people stuck. Most of it can be boiled down to four separate mistakes that keeps people where they are.

These sabotaging mistakes can either keep us stuck in place, or stuck in a loop, where we continue to grow before inevitably falling backwards.

Most of us hit at least one of these at one point in their lives. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of having hit all four at various points. (oops)

Once we can fix these four things, we’re ready to build and live a life where we can’t wait to wake up every morning.

So, without further ado:

#1 - Lack Of Vision

The first cardinal mistake is assuming that a better life doesn’t exist.

You see, there’s no point in striving if there’s nothing to strive for. If you’re truly at the pinnacle of what you can achieve and who you can be in life, then where’s the need to grow.

I find that these are the people who are counting down 30 years to retirement. “Life will get better, but only once the man is off my back” they’ll say. And of course, they’re not aggressively trying to get their freedom, they’ve just resigned themselves to whatever they have because they can’t dream bigger.

Or they can dream bigger, but it feels like someone else’s dream.

#2 - Procrastination

How many of you are waiting for something, or someone else, to save you?

Have you dreamed about winning the lottery as a way out? It can be a sign that there’s something more you want and you’re just waiting around hoping that it’ll be delivered to you. It has been to me (hell, I’ve figured out the odds of 649 and Lotto Max and know when they rise to the point where it’s “worth” taking a chance on).

And that’s only half of it. A lot of us are waiting for ourselves.

We’re waiting to learn that one new thing. Or to get passed this one current thing. Or to get over this one old thing.

I’ve found that one of the most dangerous words in the English language is “tomorrow”. This is because people think they’ve said “not yet” when in reality it ends up being a “no”.

#3 - Lack of clarity

Oddly, this feels to me to be one of the most insidious problems. This is when you believe in better, you banish procrastination and take responsibility for your life, but you end up following someone else’s life script and living their life.

You see, living their life still isn’t living your life.

One of the reasons this is so prevalent is that our culture strongly values certain things - money, luxury, big houses, fast cars. And so we chase those things (and more) thinking they’ll make us happy.

They say that the ultimate failure is having success after success, but still not feeling like a success. If that feels familiar, you may be stuck here.

#4 - Sabotaging mindset

What if you’ve overcome the three cardinal mistakes above? You’ve dreamt of your bigger future, you’ve pulled up your socks and starting marching there, and you’ve made sure that you’re following your own compass so that you build a life that actually works for you. What’s left to trip you up? I will share with you what I learned the (very) hard way:

If you don’t teach yourself to be happy, you will not be happy.

This is part and parcel with taking responsibility for yourself. You can’t just take responsibility for the life you build, you need to take responsibility for the person you are.

One sign of this mindset is the phrase “I’ll be happy when…”

You’ve got everything you need to be happy right now. And if you’re waiting on that goal, let me tell you a little secret: the closer you get to the goalposts, the further they tend to move.

The Podcast Episode:

I explore these four cardinal mistakes in the 5th episode of the Leader Rising Podcast (and cover parts of them that I didn’t cover above).

If you know someone who’s stuck in one of these mistakes, please send them this page.

Thank you so much for listening.