Would you be surprised if I said that most people who make it in life have done so after  enduring a series of struggles? Would it be strange that no one looks forward to facing difficulties and enduring those moments when nothing seems to be working in your favor? Yet we all admire those who have endured years of solitude, series of rejections and lost in mazes of uncertainty before shining at last. There is a process to making it in life, but before talking about that, today I share the struggles that we have to first overcome before getting to the path of making it.

Here are the four things you struggle with, and ought to outdo as soon as possible, if you really want to make it in life.

The expectations of others

Others’ expectations of you is the one thing you have to face all your life. There is a desire within you to please others, probably in the hope of they pleasing you in return. You also want to be accepted and appreciated by those you choose to surround yourself with, right?

That’s where the expectations of others become a struggle for you. It’s human that we all champion for our interest and it thus follows that the people in your life have interests they consider you important enough to help the with their agendas. If you don’t be careful, you will likely end up championing the agendas and interests of others at the expense of your goals and desires.

Please learn to put your agendas on the table as those other people put their agendas on the table It thus follows that they shall promote you interests as well, thereby resulting in a win-win

Passiveness

The best way to describe passiveness is where you hope for the best and yet do nothing but hope for the best. Given that most gains in life take blood, sweat and tears,  people hope to lose as little blood, sweat and tears as possible. And with minimal loses or consequences. Based on this, passiveness is not  laziness per say but a desire and hope for good things with the least cost of blood, sweat and tears as possible.

Passiveness becomes a struggle when we continually want good things for no price or risk. It provokes you to use shortcuts, crookedness and corruption for an easy gain. And if not, you have to be pushed to the edge for you to do the necessary. For instance:

• Do you have to wait until a phone memory is full to delete unnecessary content?
• Does the deadline have to be around the cornet so that you stay focused on work?
• Does life has to be at the edge of destruction for you to be creative and make new breakthroughs?

It doesn’t have to be that you always live at the edge between joy and sorrow, success and failure. You will overcome passiveness by being proactive, setting goals and pursuing your goals. Lead your life to reach you goals. Live deliberately.

Ignorance

Ignorance has a cost even though we don’t always realize this. There are unfavorable/unpleasant situations in your life that are so simply because of your ignorance. I know some of you want an example for this, so think about this: If your understanding be the size of a pea, you shall read and know only a pea size of knowledge, speak pea-sized ideas, live a pea-sized lifestyle and end up a pea (wink). However, if you can think big, you shall see big opportunities, work on big-sized problems and life a big-sized lifestyle.

The difference between a pea-sized and big-sized lifestyle is your degree of ignorance. The best way forward is to have goals and seek all knowledge, skills/tools and relationships necessary to make your desires not only be a dream but also become a reality.

How others perceive you

To me, this is the pettiest of struggles though not the least significant. The different people in your life have all created a stereotype image of you. This image they have of you is the gospel they spread to their friends and wherever else they got influence.

Your parents may see little else of you besides being their child. If not careful, this may shrink your decision making abilities and independence of mind, to a point you got to break parent-child ties or become rebellious so as to grow your potential

Neighbors are not too close to know facts about your life, and not so far as to know what’s going on in your life. You know how crazy their rumors tend to be.

The same can be said of siblings who are so familiar with our skeletons and secrets that they at times have secrets, and engage us in silly struggles and fights.

Friends also have their influence over us, and force us to conform to a particular way of life via peer pressure.

All in all, you can easily live a life of double standards conforming to friends, fans, colleagues, siblings and parents, matching their image. Please evaluate your self image lest you be lost in maze of your public life. Define who you are,where you’re coming from and where you wanna be in life. Imprint this on your friends, fans, parents, siblings and everyone else who knows you.