In life, it’s frustrating when you miss a flight by just five minutes or get a flat tire without a spare. But what’s even more disappointing is when your colleague gets a bonus and you don’t. Why does this happen? AdmiGram.com explores this issue in a brief but valuable article.
Why is someone more successful than you? In 99.99% of cases, it’s not about others’ superhuman motivation but your own failure to maintain a steady work pace. It’s straightforward. Let’s highlight the most crucial factors that negatively impact your chances of getting a bonus or earning more.
7 obvious factors killing your financial potential
We dive into social media and the internet
It’s been said countless times: social media and the internet are the most obvious time thieves with all the resulting consequences. Yes, you can argue that they are convenient, informative, concise… but those are rare exceptions. You only need 10-20 minutes a day to extract valuable information from these sources. Statistics are alarming — office workers spend about 30% of their work time on social media and favorite websites.
We love lunch breaks
Lunch breaks are a sacred right. However, let’s be honest, in most cases, our lunch break starts long before lunch or, worse, never ends. This isn’t about the daily schedule but what goes on in our minds when the clock strikes 11 AM. We’re already planning where, with whom, and what we’ll order for lunch. And after lunch — coffee, donuts, chatting — it goes without saying. The fact is, most of us don’t consider the afternoon as work time.
We love to sleep in
Sleeping is a normal physiological need, but only if you don’t sleep at work. Your blank stare at the screen and dozing at your desk is daytime sleep caused by ignoring a proper daily routine. You need no more than 8 hours of sleep per day, and you should go to bed and wake up at the same time. Only then will the insatiable desire to sleep in the office in the mornings disappear, and you won’t sleep until noon on weekends. Remember, if you’re sleeping, it doesn’t mean everyone else is. You could sleep through the best opportunities.
We don’t want to communicate
Communication is crucial. If people couldn’t communicate, we wouldn’t have built cities or gone to space. The importance of interaction is even mentioned in the Tower of Babel story. Let’s stop being offended at others and our boss for not understanding us. Let’s learn to speak in a way that makes us understood or at least seek compromise. It’s hard, but even harder is understanding that only a few will try to resolve things with words, while the rest will just be silently angry and curse everyone around.
We don’t think about tomorrow
One fundamental problem of humanity is the desire to live for the moment. We come up with hundreds of reasons to justify why we shouldn’t worry or do something. We live as if all our grand future events are ahead of us. To be even a little more successful than everyone else, you just need to start doing something right now. While others are afraid and stuck in the comfort zone, you’ll be making small steps forward.
We choose laziness
Another extreme is our laziness. Maybe you don’t want to do something now, but you won’t want to do it later either. The time between “now” and “later” will be filled with stress, self-reproach, and unpleasant thoughts about what you could have done if you had started on time. It will be especially unpleasant to see your friend Bill open that cafe you planned to consider tomorrow.
We get stuck on achievements
Often, after finding a good job or starting to profit from a business, we relax and start believing it will work forever. “I had 1000 customers yesterday, today too — so tomorrow will be the same… I’m a good employee, the company values me, that’s why I’m here…” Life doesn’t work this way. At least not as long as you expect. Our life is like sports; if you don’t try hard enough, new champions will emerge tomorrow, and your record will be forgotten forever.
