No, it's not being in the wrong place with the wrong people, not knowing how to change your situation, or not having enough money or the right friends.

Those are the symptoms, but not the cause.

Everything can be changed, including circumstances, knowledge, skills, and other factors.

What is holding you back is you. In particular, your own frustration and self-doubt.

And what holds this in place is your Comfort Zone. It is run by your subconscious mind and it is designed to keep you doing familiar things, because new experiences do not make you feel safe.

We have within us a subconscious creative mechanism that allows us to achieve anything we want, including all the circumstances we need to launch our creation. Once this mechanism is set in motion, ideas, synchronicity, and even physical energy and emotional tenacity come into play.

Your job is to supply the goal, the dream, the vision. The subconscious creative mechanism, then supplies the means to bring it about. Supply it with goals and it becomes active at once.

Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon, curious about how some people succeeded remarkably after their surgery removed some disfigurement while others continued to fail even after restoring a normal, even beautiful appearance, did some extensive research on this topic.

Despite a change in how they looked, a corresponding emotional healing did not always take place.

What he found was that there was an autopilot system that created success for people when they were ready for it. This system existed in the subconscious mind and provided the insights and enthusiasm to make positive things happen.

He explained his discovery in the following way: "Your automatic creative mechanism operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend on its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than 'You' ever could by conscious thought. 'You' supply the goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby."

With all this going for us, why, then, do so few people succeed in life?

It's because there is also another mechanism at work, which is the Comfort Zone. This mechanism slams on the brakes whenever you try something new. It basically makes you feel very uncomfortable until you just give in and go back to doing what you did before.

Here's an example: suppose it would help your career to improve your business skills. You sign up for a class on public speaking, deciding that it would increase your earning potential if you learned how to improve your communication skills. This is your goal, and once it is set your automatic creative mechanism has you reading the material diligently and coming up with clever ways of performing in class. It even helps you find like-minded people to support your new venture.

At first, everything seems to be going great.

Then, you notice that you feel uncomfortable.

There are days when you feel tired and don't want to go to the classes. When you do go, you start to dislike certain people there. They irritate you. When it is your turn to speak, you feel high anxiety.

All these new experiences are coming from your Comfort Zone. This is your Comfort Zone ringing the alarm. What most people do is find a really good reason to justify their feelings, and quit. They go back to where they were before. The Comfort Zone has done it's job.

Thus, to succeed you have to over-ride the emotional charge of your Comfort Zone and allow your Automatic Creative Mechanism instead to expand your world.

Those who succeed had to do this thing. They had to over-ride their discomfort at new, unfamiliar situations and they had to continue to encourage their creativity and initiative to run things.