Just as there are specific actions we can take and attitudes we can harbor to increase the likelihood of a successful life (in whatever aspect of life we’re seeking success), there are obviously specific actions and attitudes that can increase the likelihood of failure as well. Below are some of those steps that can lead to abject failure in life. The point is, of course, to know ahead of time exactly where the cow dung in the field is to avoid stepping in it.

I have a confession to make. I don’t live a minimalist life of decluttered simplicity. I have too much unused stuff packed in too many boxes stacked on too many shelves. And while I could do better in this respect, there are other cluttered parts of our lives in need of some spring-cleaning as well. Too many of us suffer from our own cluttered emotional closets stuffed with messy habits of thought and crowded feelings we’ve clung to for far too long. Perhaps it’s time we practiced a little emotional minimalism as well.

So often, we look down the road of our lives through the prism of the past, projecting that past onto the unknown and unknowable future, somehow dirtying it. For some of us, all we need to empower the decision to take our foot off the brake of life is the inspiration of a powerful example, proof that it can be done, that someone as regular and normal as me with all my limitations, baggage, insecurities and emotional problems has done it before.

Pledging to live up to a set of standards, to something higher and larger and more eternal than self-serving and immediately-gratifying impulses may be considered an insignificant step in the process of actually doing the work of building character. But it’s in the small steps that miles are covered and continents crossed … and a character is fashioned.