The mental attitude or the mindset you have can affect the outcome of just about everything you do. With even more certainty it can be said that the amount of effort you put into anything is in proportion to the mindset you bring to the task. As they say attitude is everything and it can either make things easier for you or put them out of your reach. Being successful is closely tied to what your attitude may be at any given point in time.

These mindsets that have such a great influence over our lives can either result from personal experiences or from conditioning. In other words your attitude can either be developed from an experience or be a belief passed along to you at an early age.

Today we are going to look at 5 common beliefs/attitudes held by many that may inhibit their being successful in many aspects of their lives. The question here will be the legitimacy of the 'thought processes' we are reviewing.

Being Lucky

It is all too often people consider the good fortune of others as being the result of pure luck. What a copout! Often times you make your own luck by seeing opportunities and then taking action. By having the mindset that luck is something that randomly falls out of the sky many people put limits on themselves as to what they can accomplish. Attitude is everything concerning identifying any available opportunities.

Long Hours + Hard Work = Success

A commonly accepted 'notion' is to be successful you MUST invest many hours along with many years. Nothing could be further from the truth when you consider that long hours over many years would typically wear people out and/or make them discontented. Is this being successful? Not the way I see it.

Success is many things to many people. Spending more time with family or friends may be one person's idea of success even if it means just getting by. On the other hand it is not a mandatory requirement to invest hours and years to accumulate wealth. Countless instances demonstrate how 'average Joe's' have been financial successes by pursuing their dreams resulting in their financial good fortunes.

The point here is that these people did NOT allow some common notion such as 'long hours and many years' be the norm that dictated their life patterns. They overcame that mindset and instead pursued a dream and proved it could be possible to succeed and on their OWN terms.

Associating Displeasure with Work

Many or maybe even most regard work as a nasty four letter word. The common assumption is that work has to be drudgery and unappealing. Think about how well you perform in an environment that is boring or unappealing to you. Not very well I would assume mainly because your heart is not into to it and your attitude therefore does not allow you to be at your most productive.

Now consider more pleasurable surroundings that involve activities you may like. Your attitude and energy level are at their best and your attention span is very keen since you are focusing on something you like.

The point here is that the work you do for the money you earn does NOT have to be something you detest. It is possible to love what you do and not mind putting in the time to do it. In the end you most likely will perform much better and as a result be compensated even more.

Education

We have all been raised to believe that a good education leads to being successful. Now this is true however it is the way many 'interpret' education that may mislead us.

The most common interpretation here is usually a 'formal' education but that is not always the type of education that will lead to being successful. Life experiences are a great way to learn and their importance should not be overlooked. So do not let the lack of a formal education hold you back since it really is NOT a viable excuse!

Self Imposed Limitations

Many have grown to believe they can not achieve success due to a variety reasons. In fact it often seems they put more effort into producing reasons as to why the can not succeed than others may invest into becoming successful.

The only limitations we face in our lives are the ones we place upon ourselves. If you are not willing to remove some of these limitations and at least try than it would seem you are content with where you are at in life. If you are not than change it by changing your attitude.

The mental attitude you have has the ability to make life as easy or as hard as you want it to be. Whoever coined the phrase 'attitude is everything' was right on target. It is therefore important to identify whether our attitude or perceptions are justified or perhaps just old 'baggage' we inherited. The 5 belief we discussed above we chosen as examples because they are common to everybody's lives. By recognizing that some of our beliefs are therefore not legitimate will help to empower us to change them and in doing so change the very course of our own lives as we live them.