Why you’re self-sabotaging more than you realize
(Transcribed from the Freelance Fairytales Podcast)
We are our own worst enemies. It’s so true. We’ve heard it growing up and sometimes, we can fail to understand what that saying really means. At the end of the day, you’re only competing with yourself. Anyone else who appears to be in competition with you isn’t. You’r living your own truth and divine purpose, which means you have no competition. The only competition you have is inside of your brain.
Due to different experiences and traumas in our lives, we can default into a pattern of self-sabotage. I see it every single day when I sign onto social media and read comments from people who want to make this whole gig economy thing work, but just can’t figure out why it’s not happening for them.
The internet defines self-sabotage as the following: self-sabotage occurs when people hinder their own success. When people take these destructive steps, their harmful behavior can negatively impact nearly every part of their lives, including relationships and careers. Some examples of self sabotage can include deciding to eat cake when you’re on a diet, procrastinating a freelancing order you know is due in 4-hours, ignoring opportunities in your email inbox you know could transform your life, and so forth.
According to Psychology Today, self-sabotage results from three specific occurrences: your thinking patterns, fears you may have in intimate relationships, and the tendency to avoid things that are difficult or uncomfortable. When we fall victim to these three occurrences, it’s common to procrastinate, self medicate with drugs or alcohol or eating, or even proactively intervene in our own potential and do something purposely wrong in order to bring the opportunity to a close. A great example of this would be cheating in a relationship even though you really love and respect the other person - cheating would ensure that the relationship would end because you are ultimately scared of true intimacy and partnership.
Since we don’t discuss anything related to self sabotage in all of our schooling, we come out into the world already self sabotaging without even realizing it. Sure, some of us do this more than others, but I believe we all enter the world in our 20s with a fair amount of self-sabotage. Overcoming self sabotage is the fastest path to achieving everything it is that you want out of life. But that first starts with acknowledging your personal sabotaging and why you’re doing it to yourself in the first place.
Now, I can’t tell you exactly which things as a kid made you scared to be successful or scared of the unknown today, but I can tell you that it’s possible to overcome it. Again, I am not a licensed psychologist, but I do find it fascinating to study thinking patterns and how they impact us in our everyday lives. From my personal experience, I know the best way to get ahead of these thinking patterns is to first acknowledge them. Accepting radical accountability for the life you are living right now. Are you earning less than you planned? Are you working a job that you hate? Are you unhappy and feeling unmotivated? Our culture today is obsessed with lobbing blame at everyone else instead of accepting radical accountability. The hardest part of all of this is accepting that along the way, the choices you have made in your life have created this reality. They may not be your ‘fault..’ I don’t believe you need to be mad at yourself for these choices. But just accepting that it was YOU and no one else that made these choices is important. It’s hard to accept at first, but it’s going to make you feel so much freer when you realize that you are in total control of your entire life.
If you just heard me say that and you’re shaking your head going, that’s not true, some people are unlucky, some people were born poor or with no parents. Yes, those are all possible scenarios. Some people are dealt a tougher hand - although life catches up with all of us. But as Norman Vincent Peale says in the book ‘The power of positive thinking,’ which I am currently reading, no one, no scenario, no socioeconomic level can separate you from proactively changing your attitude and the thoughts in your head. You might not be able to control what happens to you every day, but you can control how you react to what happens to you. When you choose to see the more positive side of things, it will become a habitual thinking pattern that becomes second nature. The positivity, happiness, creativity, thoughtfulness that radiates out of you in the form of energy will bring abundance back to you. You guys know I am a big believer in the law of attraction because it’s also the same thing as living your divine purpose, being a good person, and knowing God will reward you for being kind and helpful to his other children.
You Are More Powerful Than You Realize
You are in control of how you react to what happens to you in your life. You can make a choice to take accountability for the current status of your life. Once you do that, you’ll be able to start to unpack why it is that you procrastinate, or why you’re scared of success. Maybe you’re scared of criticism, maybe you’re scared to admit what it is you really want to do with your life. Whatever it is, identifying these roadblocks will help you unpack your self sabotaging nature. Everything is connected, and it all starts up in your brain.
Being honest and true to yourself about what it is you want out of life will make you unapologetic in your pursuit of it. You won’t be afraid to go out there and get it. You won’t want to sabotage yourself anymore. Finding my purpose years ago of helping others to break out of soul crushing jobs Made me so passionate that nothing would stop me - and still hasn’t. I don’t care who it offends. I know people need to hear this message, which is why I don’t procrastinate it. And if I do start to procrastinate something, I pause and take note of that. I ask myself: why am I procrastinating this? What is my source for avoiding it? How can I fix that and cut the procrastinating out immediately?
Procrastinating doesn’t make you lazy - it means you’re caught up in a frozen thinking pattern, it means you’re scared ultimately or unsure of how to move forward. It means you don’t necessarily want to know what exists on the other side of the hill - that if you leave the slightly miserable existence you’ve become comfortable with, are you going to regret what you’re trying to obtain on the other side? It’s fear of the unknown, and it causes so many potential freelancers to throw their chances of success out the window. It’s not signing onto your fiverr for a week straight when you know full well that’s going to tank your reviews. It’s taking one month off from freelancing when you’re only 4-weeks into the whole thing. It’s charging $100 more than everyone else, hoping that people won’t actually book your gig. It’s including blurry photos of yourself, hoping people can’t actually see what you look like and therefore work with you. These are all forms of subtle self sabotage that are preventing you from reaching the freelancing success you tell yourself you want.
Bring Your Subconscious Into Alignment with Your Conscious Self
On a conscious level, you do want this success. But your subconscious is thwarting you. Down time to reflect on why it’s thwarting you is essential. This will translate into so many other areas of your life, exploring these self sabotaging patterns. It’ll make you a better friend, partner, parent, and person. It;’s not fun work, but it’s necessary. I challenge you today to reflect on how many times per day you sabotage yourself. Pause and ask yourself WHY you’re sabotaging. Go through one pain point at a time. Write it all down - grab a journal for all of this inner work. Writing stuff down with our hands is huge - it’s way more spiritually connected to our brains than typing on a laptop.
We’re all self-sabotaging more than we realize. It’s an anxiety-filled world we’re living in today. We’re bombarded with people are are richer, prettier, and more success than us on social media daily. Instead of taking that personally, remember only you are running your race at the end of the day. No one is better at being you than you. You are a unique person with a divine purpose that no one else can fulfill for you. If you remember that to your core, your self sabotaging will vanish. Be self aware, take accountability, look at the life you are living, and reflect on how it can be changed. Spend time in silence, listening to your thoughts. Work on changing your attitude. All of these things are possible, and of course, are FREE to do!
Ok that was an intense episode guys, sorry to go there on you. This is why my high school career test results told me I’d be a general in the army. I apparently like to give out orders LOL! These are loving orders though, I really want to help you guys get this, truly.