Do you ever find yourself procrastinating, putting things off, or leaving a string of unfinished projects in your wake?
Or perhaps its that you let yourself down with certain habits or behaviors that you know aren´t helping you.. and you just can´t seem to stop doing this...
even though you may realize that it´s probably preventing you from being as successful or as happy as you want to be?
If you do feel like you might sometimes have a tendency to get in your own way, or to let fear hold you back, then do keep reading, because I am examining the four main reasons that we often self-sabotage and what you might be able to do to start helping yourself to get out your own way.
⭐Five big signs you might be self-sabotaging...
Here are 5 signs that you are self-sabotaging:
😧1) Neglecting your physical health and indulging in activities that are harmful to your body.
This includes overeating, drinking, smoking, etc. Skipping basic hygiene or even ignoring any signs that you might be unwell.
😧2) Over-planning to a point that it is being used as a procrastination tool.
Are you a perfectionist and does it get in the way of your ability to make fast and decisive actions, important decisions, and start projects?
Instead of taking action on tasks, you might be using your time to make detailed plans and fooling yourself into believing that so much planning is productive and still moving towards your goal.
😧3) Blaming yourself, so that every time something negative happens in your life, or things don't go your way, you take it very personally and feel like you are a failure. You may also over question or ruminate over your own "failed" past decisions.
This attaching of failure of events and making failure part of your identity causes severe action paralysis. Activating your own fight, flight, or freeze response, you may naturally believe that you will always fail at everything you do, and often tell yourself that there is "just no point even trying".
😧4) Not speaking up and setting boundaries for yourself to ensure that you can have your own needs met sufficiently. Not standing up for yourself means that you end up feeling disrespected and devalued by friends, family, and in your relationships. You may feel like you cannot ask for what you want in life.
Feeling unable to express your feelings to others also means that you don't get the things in life that you really want or need and find yourself with low self-esteem and low self-worth as a result.
😧5) Drinking more than usual, or taking drugs to avoid or lessen feeling unpleasant in some way. Using mind-altering substances to make yourself "feel better" or "more confident" or as a distraction from your own thoughts, mind, or life.
These go on to deplete your energy levels and will only serve to distract you, whilst engaging in the activity itself. They will not resolve or release you from your feelings on a more permanent basis and they often make you feel much worse afterward, instead of leaving you feeling satisfied, strong or recharged enough to face and handle any life changes you really want to make.
🤗 Here are the four of the main reasons that often lurk beneath those unhelpful actions of self-sabotage...
⭐1) Fear of failure
Yes... good old-fashioned fear of making a mess of it
All those "what if´s" - what if I fail, what if I get it wrong, what I look stupid, what if I get judged badly, what if its no good...
The fear of failure is what often keeps us held back in life and prevents us from being our authentic selves.
It causes us to hide our talents and shiny bits, to dim our light and magic, and feel too afraid to let the world see who we are.
Add to that the discomfort of things "feeling hard" or challenging in some way, and it´s a recipe for us giving up, before we even begin. After all if we don´t even try, then we can´t possibly fail, right?
Imagining the cost of our actions much more than the benefits is one of the biggest ways that we may hold ourselves back, from having so many of those things in life that we may want.
But by not starting and putting ourselves out there, we ACTUALLY fail already.
We fail at being our beautiful selves and we give ourselves an unconscious signal to reaffirm our fears and any feelings of insecurity or low self-worth.
To move past this fear we need to recognize that failure is not only a necessary part of all processes but that it is a welcome gift that helps us to improve and can help us to lean further in the direction of our success.
Failing to quit smoking, for example, tells you the areas where you would need to focus on finding better solutions the next time you attempt to stop, which makes you much more likely to quit successfully.
In fact the more you fail, the more you will inevitably succeed. You just need to view and use failure as a stepping stone to launch you onto your next attempt and just keep going...
If you do not believe me, then you can ask any successful person that you already know.
You can start to imagine failing in a more positive way, by accepting this and allowing for it, and even welcoming it as an opportunity to fine-tune things, when you imagine moving forward with any projects or ideas in life.
⭐2) Fear of Success
Yes, believe it or not, this fear often stops us EVEN MORE than the fear of failing. You may think, "what rubbish I WANT to be successful", but for your brain success can be a scary idea.
Why is this you may wonder...?
Because success means new things. New places, new activities, new pressures and changes everywhere. And this means lots of unfamiliar feelings and spaces.
And so.. because it's all so unfamiliar (and your brain prefers autopilot settings and familiar activities), it might drive you to stay in those comfort zones where it doesn't need to be fully engaged. It uses negative thoughts and feelings to fool you into staying right where you are.
Comfort, control, and certainty are the food of any anxiety monster and they help any anxiety to grow stronger and bigger, so we might often develop those anxious thoughts and feelings about change or making changes in our life.
To overcome this, we need to spend more time fully visualizing and making the unfamiliar feel more familiar in a way that fools our brains into letting go of this fear.
This is where hypnosis is ideal because we can use it to help you and your brain become excited about those new activities, new places, and people so that it stops putting the brakes on and driving you further away from those wonderful things in life that you really want.
⭐3) Fear of "jinxing it"
This is a completely irrational fear that because things go well, they will end up turning disastrous eventually.
We tell ourselves that things are too good to last, and worry about losing any advantages or progress, and that "it just won't last".
Because we tell ourselves this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As do most of our self-talk stories and inner beliefs, because these beliefs simply end up controlling our unconscious actions.
Believing that the end is around the corner makes us act in ways that bring this fate closer to us.
Stop telling yourself that just because life goes well it cannot last.
The truth is totally opposite to this. Like attracts like.
The more you experience great things in life, the more attuned you are to receive more of these things, not less. You only get less when you self-sabotage by believing that great things cannot last.
The antidote for this is to start noticing the great things around you and to recognize that simply because you are noticing these, you will keep on finding and seeing more and more greatness.
Gratefulness makes you great-full!
⭐4) Traumas that are left unresolved or unhealed
Sometimes we have had certain experiences in life that have left an imprint on us unconsciously, and we find ourselves locked in an unhelpful behavioral pattern as a result of these traumatic times. We might be pulled into these unwanted behaviors as automatic responses.
Spending time self-reflecting and becoming more aware of our behaviors, the triggers, the feelings, and the thoughts that support our unwanted actions so that we can look at making changes to these or going back to release ourselves of the effects of this experience in both our minds and bodies can help us to break free of these unhelpful behaviors that hold us back from having the lives that we really want to have.
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Lots of love from
Pippa xxx
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