Eliminating Success Blockers: The Key to Starting Your Business Right

Before you embark on the exciting journey of starting a business, it's crucial to address some common yet frequently overlooked roadblocks that can keep you from reaching your true potential. These obstacles—what I call "Success Blockers"—are traits, mindsets, and habits that can quietly sabotage your efforts without you even realizing it. Eliminating these success blockers should be your first priority if you want to build a sustainable and successful business.

The truth is, entrepreneurship is not a magic formula for instant success. It's a process of growth, learning, and sometimes failure. Realistic expectations are key, and understanding that the path ahead may involve challenges is vital to your success. What makes or breaks entrepreneurs is not whether or not they encounter obstacles—it's how they deal with them. Too often, Success Blockers such as self-doubt, procrastination, fear of failure, and a lack of confidence hold people back. These can cloud your vision, paralyze your actions, and prevent you from executing even the best business ideas.

Here’s the reality: If you don’t address these Success Blockers before starting your business, you are setting yourself up for unnecessary struggle, wasted time and costly mistakes. Without tackling these internal barriers, you’ll find yourself caught in cycles of hesitation, second-guessing, and unproductive busy work. The business that you dream of can easily turn into an overwhelming burden instead of an empowering pursuit.

The emotional weight of these limiting beliefs is heavy. You may have thoughts like, "What if I fail?" or "I’m not good enough to run a business," or "I don’t have what it takes to be successful." These thoughts can make it impossible to take meaningful action; without that action, no business will grow. Worse yet, when left unchecked, these mindsets can create a negative feedback loop that reinforces your fears and self-doubt.

But here’s where the good news comes in: you don’t have to tackle this alone. Working with a coach, someone who can help you identify and break through these barriers is an incredibly effective way to ensure you're entering your business journey with the right mindset and confidence. A coach can help you gain clarity, develop self-awareness, and teach you techniques for overcoming mental roadblocks. You’ll get guidance in not only recognizing your weaknesses but turning them into strengths and meaningful action.

A coach will also help you set realistic expectations for your business. Starting a business is rarely a smooth, straight line to success. It requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to fail forward. By having the right support, you can move past the overwhelm of perfectionism and break free from the trap of waiting until everything is "just right." Instead, you'll learn how to take action with the knowledge that each step, even the missteps, is part of the process.

Now, think about this: What happens if you don’t eliminate these Success Blockers before launching your business? The odds of burnout increase, you may find yourself overwhelmed with stress, and ultimately, you could lose sight of the passion that initially sparked your idea. Worse, you may give up on your dreams altogether, convinced that success is out of your reach. These Success Blockers have the potential to negatively impact every decision, risk and action you take. That will cost you dearly in time, money or lost revenue and wasted effort and resources. But you don’t have to go down that road.

The thing to notice about these Success Blockers is they do not act alone. They are frequently interlinked, which is good and bad news for you. The bad news is that it may mean, for example, that if your self-doubt suddenly takes a nose dive, that will also likely affect your mindset and negative self-talk. The good news is, if you work to improve one Success Blocker, you will also improve one or more others. That should encourage you to get started immediately, as you really don’t have as much work to do on yourself as you might have originally thought.

Starting a business requires more than just a great idea—it demands the courage to overcome internal obstacles and the ability to stay focused and resilient through the highs and lows. Tackling your Success Blockers now will help ensure that when you do start your business, you are ready to face challenges with confidence and determination. The best time to start is now—but only once you’ve addressed what’s standing in your way.

Which Success Blockers are holding you back?

It’s only human to have some of these traits, the question is, do they adversely affect your life or business? Will you take them with you into your new business and let them negatively affect every decision, action and risk you take?

Take a look at the list of Success Blockers below and ask yourself "which ones affect me?"

1. Limiting Beliefs - Do you tell yourself you're not worthy, too old, not good or educated enough or something similar?

2. Unproductive Habits - Do you have poor sleep habits, or indulge in activities that affect your health, relationships or productivity?

3. Self-Doubt - Do you lack confidence, question your ability or dislike yourself in some way?

4. Disempowering Mindset - Do you think you can't change, learn new skills or overcome significant obstacles in your life?

5. Procrastination - Do you NOT do something you know you should, and don't understand why you behave that way?

6. Low Productivity - Do you end your day and question what you've achieved, do you never seem to get much done?

7. Self-Sabotage - Do you think or behave in a way that interferes with you goals, well-being or relationships?

8. Negative Self-Talk - Do you talk to yourself unkindly or harshly, do you criticize yourself a lot?

9. Bad Time Management - Do you miss deadlines and always seem rushed because there is never enough time?

10. Bad Routines - Do you feel stressed and anxious, do you always feel tired, are your relationships strained?

11. Poor Goal Setting - Do you set goals but rarely, if ever, achieve them, or make New Year's resolutions and abandon them after less than 2 weeks?

12. Poor Focus & Prioritizing - Do you get easily distracted, start things you don't finish or just feel it's difficult to focus on work?

Consider the effect they have when you have more than one of these traits. What impact do you see them having on your life, relationships and your business?

How will they affect your future if you do not find a way to mitigate their influence on your performance and progress?

How are your Success Blockers affecting you - a quick assessment

Give each, one of the following ratings:

• Never affects me
• Rarely affects me
• Occasionally affects me
• Frequently affects me
• Is a major detrimental issue in my life

If you give them one of the last three ratings read further about each specific one and consider the 3 solutions offered to overcome their impact.

Work on each trait one at a time, starting with the one you feel influences you the most. Note that because they are interlinked, working on one will invariably reduce the effect of another blocker.

Do not expect to change overnight. Be patient and reward yourself for any progress you make however small. Enjoy the process and make your efforts consistent. Measure your progress where possible so that you can appreciate how far you have come. You might also want to write your thoughts on the process in a journal daily.

Consider having an accountability partner. Good luck and remember only action will yield results. Don't overthink the process.