Do you feel like you’re living life to your fullest potential?

If so, you might be in the wrong place unless you want to learn about the lives of people who aren’t.

But if you feel like you’re just not achieving what you thought you would or think you should in life, this is an important read that might just change your life.

For the better, hopefully!

See, there are lots of reasons why different people achieve different levels of success in their personal and professional lives.

Many have to do with the skills, knowledge, and tools they have to work with, but these only define their potential.

But the other reasons people underachieve or don’t live up to their potential are usually based on their habits.

So many people continue to do things that they know hold them back but seem to be too hard to change.

But if you want to reach your full potential, this has to stop.

It’s time to talk about nine habits of underachievers who never move forward in life.

If you recognize any of them, it’s time to nip them in the bud before they become permanent behaviors that will hold you back forever.

1) People-pleasing

Many people underachieve for one really strong reason: they put others first.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with putting the interests of some other people before your own, but the keyword there is “some.”

Many people think about their children, partners, and parents before themselves, and this is a very kind and caring thing to do.

With children, it’s basically mandatory.

But the problem is when they become people-pleasers across the board.

When they always agree with what others are saying so they seem agreeable, they deny their true selves.

When they let others take advantage of them because they’re afraid to say no, they do themselves even more damage.

By always being a people-pleaser and not choosing to put their own wants and needs first, at least some of the time, these people find it next to impossible to get ahead in life.

2) Lying

Lying is a habit that essentially everyone practices.

Yes, it’s true.

We all learn that we have the ability to deceive others at an early age.

By five years old or so, we’ve basically figured out precisely how deception works.

The only difference, then, is in how people use this, dare I say, skill.

If you lie to spare someone’s feelings, that’s generally considered kind and acceptable.

But if you lie to avoid responsibility, to get out of trouble or out of work, or to trick or fool others, that’s a different story.

Not only is this going to make you seem untrustworthy and make people avoid you, but it will also come back to bite you in the end when you get lost in your own web of lies.

3) Procrastinating

Procrastinating should also be known as the art of punching your future self in the gut.

That’s because every time you decide not to do something now, you’re leaving it for Future You tomorrow.

Or, as is more common, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that…

So how is Future You ever supposed to move forward in life when you keep piling them up with all these excess tasks that you were too lazy or uninterested in to do yourself?

Makes you feel sorry for that future version of you, doesn’t it?

Well, sympathy is grand, but doing something about it would be even grander, wouldn’t it?

Staying on top of things will help you make your life better in the future; it’s that simple.

4) Overthinking

Here’s a habit that I used to find myself practicing all the time.

What is overthinking?

It’s a variety of indecision that’s powered by two things: a lack of confidence and an inability to filter information.

On the one hand, people overthink situations and problems because they don’t have the self-confidence to spring into action and attack them head-on.

I know that this was my main stumbling block in the past.

I didn’t know which options I should choose because I didn’t have a lot of faith in my decision-making abilities.

So instead, I’d just turn back to the data, turning the information over and over in my head, looking for some clue to the right choice.

People also overthink things because they’re not great at filtering information. 

When you book a hotel online, for example, do you just look at price, location, and comfort and choose the best option quickly?

Or do you waste hours scrolling through the details, like whether there’s a hairdryer and if the building has a gym you won’t use anyway?

Knowing which information is relevant often comes down to knowing yourself, so if you want to kick this habit, it might be best to work on getting acquainted with yourself a lot better. 

5) Being habitually late

Who likes it when someone else shows up late?

Yeah, no one.

That’s exactly my point.

If you’re always late, you’re sending people signals that either A) you’re irresponsible or B) you don’t care about them and you’re wasting their time.

Neither is going to help you get ahead in life, is it?

People who want to achieve more in life need to get rid of this terrible and damaging habit to start treating themselves and others with respect.

6) Giving up learning

I heard a great gag the other day.

One friend said to the other, “Didn’t you learn that in school?”

The other replied, “Maybe, but I returned everything my teacher taught me on my exam papers!”

This is an attitude that is pretty typical of underachievers.

They seem to think that learning happens in school, and then it’s done.

Well, nothing could be farther from the truth.

If you want to grow and achieve success in your life, you need to be learning new things continually.

This can include job-related things like re-skilling or retraining to keep up with the job market.

But it can also enter into your personal life when you learn how to better navigate relationships or raise kids.

If you’re not learning new things, you’re standing still, so how will you ever move forward in life?

7) Not taking on challenges

Just as continually learning helps you increase your knowledge and skills, constantly challenging yourself helps you grow and gain experience.

So why don’t we all do this all the time?

One reason is low self-confidence.

Once again, a lack of faith in ourselves and our abilities leads us to avoid challenges that we feel quite sure we won’t be able to meet.

Another related reason is fear of failure.

We worry that we might fail, and since we think failing is automatically bad, we avoid challenges to avoid failing.

But high achievers know that failure isn’t necessarily bad.

Sure, nobody wants to fail, but when they do, these people use it as an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and do things better the next time.

That’s the attitude that drives achievement.

8) Focusing on the past

So many people are unable to move forward in life and achieve success because they’re hung up on the past.

They may have had really bad, even traumatic, experiences that have left them hurt and wary. 

They’re once bitten, twice shy.

Other people are totally different. 

They’re essentially stuck in the past because they see their past years as having been much better than things are at present.

Essentially, they stop looking forward because they’re fixated on what’s behind them.

Both of these groups of people have a really hard time moving forward in life and achieving anything substantial.

9) Exporting blame

The final habit I want to draw your attention to is exporting blame, something that so many people do out of fear and, again, a lack of self-confidence.

By exporting blame, I mean they avoid blame by either letting it land elsewhere or actively pointing it in the wrong direction.

But the thing about blame is that it’s the other side of the same coin as responsibility.

When you do things well, you want to claim responsibility for them.

You stand up and say, “That was me!”

So when you do things wrong, shouldn’t you do the same thing?

If you were self-confident, this is exactly what you’d do.

You’d show that you can take responsibility for both the positive and negative results of your actions.

You’d want people to see you as honest and trustworthy as well, and this is what taking the blame shows others.

But if you don’t, people surely won’t see you as responsible or reliable.

Final thoughts

Do you recognize any of these nine habits of underachievers who never move forward in life?

If you do, there’s never been a better time than right now to attack them.

Choose one at a time to change, and you’ll start to gain momentum that will carry your life toward success.