Care Less, Do More: 7 Realistic Reasons Why You Never Achieve Anything

Yesterday I listened to a 20-minute voice note from a friend. Fear was the main topic—fear of failure and never achieving anything significant in her life. I listened attentively and wrote down a few prominent points of discussion. Why do some people never achieve anything major in life? Why do some people fail to achieve goals over and over again?

I personally think that you never lose. You only learn. However, why do some people appear to win, win and win, and others struggle through one battle after the other? There must be some science to it? Some explanation. There are several reasons. I am going to discuss some of those reasons in this article today.

Here are seven realistic reasons why you never achieve anything. It will be a bitter pill to swallow for some people, but if you struggle to achieve anything in life, you need to read this, get really honest with yourself and start making some serious changes. Let’s go!

You Care Too Much

You care too much; what do I mean by this? I watch short video clips by a young man called BillionairePA on Instagram; he is a breath of fresh air and speaks the complete truth; he never misses a beat. I watched a compelling IGTV video the other day where he said this, and I quote:

“Some of y’all will never achieve anything in life because you care too much about what people think. You will never get anywhere in life because you always have other people’s opinions in the back of your mind.”

This whole idea of caring too much about other people’s opinions is what I call a “people pleaser mentality.” Instead of living your life on your own terms and diving deep into the real version of you, you hold back in fear of what other people think of you. That is a surefire way to fail and fail and fail, and never stop failing.

Let me give you a quick scenario:

You have this desire to start a YouTube channel; you have a whole lot to offer. You are a talented cook, and you have what it takes to make it big on YouTube, but instead of setting up your channel, you keep putting it off because you are afraid.

Afraid of what other people might say about your channel. Afraid of what your parents might say, scared of what your friends or neighbours might say.

If you just stopped caring so much and just jumped right in without a care in the world, you might have 100,000 subscribers on YouTube right now, and you would have probably quit your job and living your best life by now.

Have you noticed that the YouTubers that succeed are the ones who get on with it without thinking too much about the opinions of their friends or family? I mean, you never know, they might think about it, but they don’t let it stop them, that’s the difference.

I have a gay friend who told his parents that he was gay when he was 14 years old. He moved out when he was 16 and created a blog about his gay adventures when he was 21.

His family disowned him, but he didn't care; he eventually got a lead role on a Las Vegas show because of his fearless content. You see, he made it because he stopped focusing on the opinions of others and delved right into the real version of himself.

You Don’t Keep it Simple

There is nothing wrong with dreaming big! Heck! I have some stupidly big dreams; however, if you are someone who holds back and hesitates to get things done, you need to sit back and ask yourself why. Maybe, it’s because your goals are too complicated. So please keep it simple; focus on starting small and building up to that big goal.

Big goals are overwhelming, and often, we start something and then fear takes over. We get overwhelmed and eventually just quit. This happened to me when I set a goal to write 1000 articles in a month, I failed the first time, and I kept setting the same goal until I realised that I needed to lower the bar a bit. I set a goal to write 100 articles in a month, and I did it.

I set another goal to write 200 articles in a month, and I did it. Do you see where I am going with this? Start small, build your confidence and push through to that bigger goal.

“Keep your handkerchief neat, and then you can be trusted with a bigger cloth. If you can’t manage few minutes, you are likely to waste 24 hours no matter how many times it’s given to you!”

― Israelmore Ayivor

Think about this, if you can’t handle a small goal or stick to something that requires less effort, how do you expect to handle a huge goal? So instead of setting yourself up for failure every time, set yourself up to win by starting small. For example, you read all these articles that say you need to write and publish content every day to succeed, right? So you start, you fail, you start again, you fail.

You get disheartened and stop writing for months because you can’t stick to anything. Instead of setting yourself up for failure again, why not create a simple writing schedule where you write on Mondays and Wednesdays instead? So simple, yet impactful.

All you need to think about is that you need to write on a Monday and a Wednesday. When you get used to that, increase the days or the word count.

You Give Up Too Soon

Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book The Tipping Point writes about successful people and the difference between them and people who never achieve anything significant in their lives. He says that most people give up right before they are about to experience a breakthrough, the tipping point.

Do you often find yourself on a major productivity kick, working hard, getting things done and smashing goals and then suddenly you grow lethargic and stop?

Months later, you meet the friend you were doing challenges with, and they are driving a brand new Mercedes, and you are still in the same old position? The difference between you and your friend, you gave up too soon, and your friend pushed through the pain.

When you lift weights, it’s the last few reps that actually provide you with the desired results. Therefore, it’s the last-ditch efforts that will lead you to the breakthrough, and it’s the persistent action that will propel you to the top.

You Refuse to Learn

Warren Buffet says it best when he says that the more you learn, the more you earn. Learning is a lifelong journey, and even the most successful people in the world read and learn. They don’t simply stop when they achieve a certain level of success. People who never achieve anything refuse to learn, maybe it’s pride, or maybe it’s just laziness. The bottom line is this, learn, learn and learn some more.

You Do the Same Thing and Expect Different Results

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I guess we are all insane; there is no such thing as normal, right? However, if you keep repeating the same mistakes and asking yourself why you are still stuck in the same position, maybe you need to rethink how you conduct your life.

Mistakes are part and parcel of life; however, you need to learn from them, not repeat them over and over again. Are you learning or repeating?

Take the time to analyse your life and where you are now. Do you continue to repeat the same mistakes and then expect a different result from that mistake? If that’s you, change it, check your past mistakes and overhaul your life and thinking to avoid making the same mistakes again.

You Are Not Authentic

People can spot a fake from a mile off. You might get away with it for a while, but eventually, you will be caught. Be yourself, and this is where caring less and doing more comes into play. Instead of caring what everyone around you thinks, care less and do more. Do more of what makes your heart sing and care less about other people’s opinions.

When I quit my job years ago to pursue my content writing career, working from home wasn’t even a thing. My parents thought I was unemployed. Meanwhile, I was writing content for clients in Australia, Norway and the United States. My parents had no idea what I was doing. In fact, at one point, they thought I had a sugar daddy, there were wrong.

I pushed their opinions to the back of my mind, and I took a nose dive into my true, authentic self. I cared less about people’s opinions, and I focused on living my best life instead.

Within a year, I had nine writers working for me, and I lived the laptop lifestyle. Of course, most people could only dream of living that life then, but I did it.

The key is to be authentic, do exactly what makes your heart sing as long as you are not doing anything illegal or immoral. Just do you boo!

You Are Too Negative

Negativity will destroy you. I have watched family members and friends destroy their lives because of negative thoughts and negative actions. They spend their days complaining about everything and anything. Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of life and speaking their dreams into existence, they moan and moan and moan.

“Negativity is the enemy of creativity” -David Lynch

Have you ever started a creative project and just stopped after a few weeks because of negative thoughts? Negative thoughts will destroy your dreams. This is what I do when the negative thoughts start to creep in:

✅I listen to Keep The Faith by Michael Jackson

✅I watch Karate Kid Part 1 (The one with the crane kick (when Daniel met Mr. Miyagi for the first time)

✅I write in my journal

✅I go for a walk and listen to positive words that I recorded earlier

✅I exercise

✅I read something positive

I don’t do all these things at once, but I do one or two, and it really helps to kick those negative thoughts out of my head. I also have positive quotes written in a book and on my mirror on a post-it note. Most of these things probably seem cliche to you, but they work for me. They might work for you too if you tried them.

Bottom Line

There is no one-size-fits-all for success; your idea of success might be different from mine. However, if you have struggled for many years to achieve the things you want to achieve in life, you must be doing something wrong.

For me, one of my main issues was caring too much about the opinions of others. Caring too much can kill your dreams, wanting everything to be perfect before you start because you are scared, you don’t want people to laugh or point at you. For goodness sake! Just get on with it!

If you are struggling to get things done, keep it simple and set yourself smaller goals. Everything you want in life is on the other side of fear so, stop caring about the world watching and do something. No matter how small it is, do something. Don’t overwhelm yourself with complicated steps and plans; do the simplest thing, and you will be surprised at how far you can go when you take one simple step.