The 7 Habits Of Staggeringly Unsuccessful People

We've all read, or read about, Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. His principles have informed, inspired, and elevated any number of supply chain practitioners, and leaders nd functionaries throughout the business community.

It seems obvious that failing to adopt the 7 habits, or practicing their opposites, would be the profiles of the less successful. But, lifehack.org takes a different and thought-provoking tack of its own. The following outlines and expands on their 7 things that prevent success.

Procrastination: The do-it-later mindset that translates to do-it-never. Putting off is not only a thief of time, resources, health and success, it is also a crutch for those too timid to contemplate succeeding. We cite the mantra that the urgent drives out the important, then spend all of our time on the urgent, never addressing the important.

Fear of Failure: Different from fear of success, this fear stops people in their tracks at the very time they need to take both action and risks. Failure is nothing to fear; it is self-generation of teachable moments. It provides learning about what works, what doesn't, and what needs tweaking. Those crippled by fear might make the walk at Fatima, but they'll be passed by as hordes risk much to reach for miracles.

Ignorance: We might use more polite language, but those who consciously refuse lifelong learning in a daily-changing supply chain (and general business) landscape will be the unemployable when they get riffed at age 50. Meanwhile, those a decade older, or a decade younger, will be sought out in the talent hunt that is likely to dominate our operational challenges for the foreseeable future.

Lack of Purpose: What's the plan, Stan? If you do not have a plan for accomplishment, even success, by definition you have a plan for failure. You ought to have more than a vague idea of why you get up each morning, else why bother throwing off the covers? Almost every component of your life has a plan that includes and affects you - your grocer, your cable provider, your insurance company. Is that all you've got in the plan for your life?

Lack of Courage: Courage does not mean being fearless; it does mean the ability to take appropriate action in challenging circumstances. Consider L. Frank Baum's Cowardly Lion. A quivering wreck who was ready to storm the Wicked Witch's redoubt at the moment of truth. For success, fears must be set aside by a confidence that one can find ways to overcome obstacles - and achieve results. Without these, abject failure is not necessarily predetermined, but a lack of even modest success is predestined.

Fault-Finding: Criticizing, nagging, tattling, and complaining are the loser's shortcuts in the path to failure to thrive. The antidote? When something is wrong find ways to make it right. Solve problems rather than shine a light on them so that everyone sees that someone else has failed in some measure.

Lack of Self-Belief: If you cannot believe that you can succeed, you won't. Henry Ford identified the issue early: "Say you can; say you can't. Either way you'll be right." Among other examples, flight, building the Hoover Dam, travel to the moon, and long-distance radio transmission were all widely believed to be impossible. But, for the Wright brothers, NASA, Marconi, and others with self-belief these were distractions, not genuine permanent barriers. You don't have to have the iPad in mind; just believe in yourself and your dreams and objectives and you won't need much more to be a success. Waver, give up, abandon the dream, question your passion - any or all of these will mark you as unsuccessful.

Believe, succeed. Stay out of the failure traps and quicksand.