7 Jun / 2017

Self-Sabotage: 7 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner

I wish someone would have told me…

Before I spent a couple decades getting in my own way. Sabotaging myself time after time, goal after goal.

I wish someone would have told me that everything I’d been feeling was normal. The fear. The doubt. That seemingly unshakeable sense of not being good enough. Not smart enough. All perfectly normal.

I wish someone would have told me about how the ego works. About how our often-mistaken ideas of who we are become how we are. And why the current version of ourselves — our identity — will fight to the death to keep itself alive.

I wish someone would have told me that my relationships were based on unwritten agreements. That my aspirations to grow and become more than my current self would jeopardize those agreements. And that the possibility of showing up differently than who I’d agreed to be would cause the people closest to me to unconsciously undermine my ambitions.

I wish someone would have told me that there’s an area in the right prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain just behind the right side of your forehead) where the timid and terrified chatterbox lives. Stay here where it’s safe, it says. Don’t do that. People will think you’re crazy. They’ll leave you. You’re not good enough. Not smart enough. This just isn’t meant to be.

It’s helped our species survive for this long. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.

I wish someone would have told me that one of the best ways to turn down the volume on that sometimes-deafening chatterbox is this really simple thing called meditation.

I wish someone would have told me that the fear, doubt, and not-good-enough-ness we feel when we set a new intention for our lives is a requirement for commitment. Without these uncomfortable feelings, the left prefrontal cortex can’t activate its commitment centers. No discomfort. No commitment. No sustained action. No change.

Ego wins again.

I wish someone would have sat me down long ago and explained how self-sabotage works. It might have saved me almost half a lifetime of thinking something was wrong with me, when in truth everything was perfectly right.

Everything changes when you understand what’s happening and why it’s happening.

You see yourself and your sabotages in a whole new light.

As Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

This week on The Quote of The Day Show, Debi Silber really drove this topic home, as she reminded us that fear and insecurities are normal. When we push through self-doubt and move past self-sabotage, the rewards will always outweigh the risks. Always.

Listen Here.

How do you deal with self-sabotage and your own personal chatterbox? What is it keeping your from being, doing, and having in your life? And with this new understanding of why you have these perfectly normal thoughts and feelings, are you more ready to push through and commit to your dream?

Leave a comment and let a guy know!

Thanks for reading,

Sean