Trying to please
Who is your marketing or your product or your effort trying to please?
Every campaign that I've ever seen fail has failed for precisely the same reason: it pleases the wrong person. Think about it… it wouldn't have launched if it hadn't pleased the boss or the client, right? Pleasing the wrong person meant failure.
The same thing is true on a deeper level in your career choice or what you write or what you say or what you sell or how you sell it: if you are working hard to please the wrong people, you'll fail.
Does that critic or that buyer or that spouse or that girlfriend or that investor really matter as much as you think they do?