ABOUT SELF-SABOTAGE

Unfortunately, we all do that ... When it comes to making progress, we are often our own worst enemies. You may even be disappointed that you have worked so hard, but nothing has changed and it is very easy to blame external circumstances.
But what happens when you start thinking that your thoughts and actions are holding you back? What if you realize that deep down you don’t really believe you’re capable or worthy of success?
If you feel that you will never get to where you want to be, it is most likely a matter of self-sabotage and limiting beliefs. Let's take a look today and open up a little background on what self-sabotage means, why it happens and how to recognize it.
Alyce Cornyn-Selby describes self-sabotage as follows:

“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.”

You might not think you’d ever do that to yourself - but even if it sounds cruel - you will most likely do so without even realizing it.
The problem is that we love to blame external situations for our failure. You may think that your job, partner, family or environment is holding you back. They all certainly have a role to play in your success, but above all, you still have to take responsibility for your own actions and avoid playing the blame game.
There are many reasons why you may not feel successful, but most of it is due to your thoughts and behaviour. The truth is, maybe you treat yourself like your own enemy.
We all also have that little inner voice that tells us what we want to do with our lives and who we want to be. Unfortunately, we often put that inner voice aside because we start thinking like, "How am I going to make money from this?", "What will people think of me?", And "What if I fail?"
We constantly refrain from doing things that we think would bring real meaning and purpose to our lives because we are constantly afraid that we are not good enough. Whether it's about our skills, abilities, personality, or how we do things on a daily basis, self-doubt is always nagging us in the back of our minds.

Why do we hold ourselves back?

We all have our own story, and our story is exactly how the past has shaped us and who we are today. But in fact, we also have more stories - the ones are not real and with what we come up and put together from different pieces of information.
These stories come from things that have happened in the past, in situations where other people have criticized us. As well as assumptions about ourselves and our future. By constantly repeating, we also make ourselves believe that these things are true no matter what.


… For example, maybe you gave a presentation one time and it went horribly. You forgot everything that you were trying to say, and you felt totally embarrassed. Maybe somebody else told you you were terrible at giving presentations. Because of one instance, you feel like for the rest of your life you’re never going to be good at giving presentations.

The same might be true if you’ve had moments where you thought you were not beautiful, not smart enough, not a loving partner, or not a good mother. You start to believe these things are going to be true for the rest of your life. We constantly repeat these thoughts in our heads and tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, but it’s all a story - the story in your head and real life has little to do with it.

But you know - the thing is, you have the ability to rewrite your story. You get to decide who you want to be and what you do with your life. It comes down to three things: trusting yourself, adjusting your mindset, and taking baby steps.

On Wednesday, July 29, my Instastory followers could also take part in one of my „self-opening“ moments - when I shared a black and white photo challenge post, I received a private message from a completely stranger…what spotted exactly that "right" nerve. Yes, of course we don't know other people's stories - but the more so - how can anyone who has no idea about my past tell me directly: “It's so ridiculous that you're trying to play some mother Teresa and heal the world with one picture. You sit in your pink bubble and you have no idea what life is really like. What about Turkish women? Do you also know Estonian women are also be beaten! But this idea does not fit into your flowery and positive life. Look a little below from your tower and around you, you will see what real life is. It is good to teach others when life is good and everything is just handed to you.”

Here today, I'm not going to unroll my life story, but just as a reminder to all of us - we all have our own story - we all have the baggage of the past and I believe that this messenger also has its own story and reason for bitterness. But as I have said many times, there is actually insane power within us. And I haven't get everything so easily. I reached to this day with constant and determined work - and had repeatedly and repeatedly rewritten the stories in my head. And there are dozens, even hundreds - because there are stories that can be rewritten in very small steps. As a summary from Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh's book "How luck happens" I’ll add good formula here:
Luck = Focused hard work + Chance

…or the formula for happiness is purposeful, focused, dedicated work + opportunity. Because only when you are prepared for the opportunity, it is possible that the happiness factor will apply and everything will succeed 100%! Yes, sometimes you may be 100% ready and self-sufficient, but the "state of the stars" is not favourable. Then it is what it is and it can be said that there was no luck :). Ok… but back to the topic.

So why are we sabotaging ourselves?

We all - without knowing it - we all have limits to how much love, success, and creativity we will let ourselves enjoy. When we reach that limit, we end up self-sabotaging.
For example, when things are going well in our lives, we wonder if it’s too good to be true. Because we don’t quite believe it, we imagine things will start to go wrong. We think that we don’t deserve to feel this good.
As soon as these self-sabotaging thoughts begin, you fall back into old habits. You do something that pushes you back into your comfort zone where you feel confident, safe and "familiar". You might even do something drastic that pushes you even further than ever before.

In his book The Great Leap Forward, Gay Hendricks cites four reasons that can sabotage success:

1. You feel that something is wrong with you, you’re flawed and you do not deserve good things
2. You are afraid that others will abandon you because success brings change
3. Believing that greater success will bring you a greater burden
4. You don’t want to outshine others with your successes

Unfortunately, most of us run on autopilot and don’t even realize when we’re self-sabotaging.
Whether it’s getting distracted, comparing yourself to others, or doing everything except the important tasks on your to-do list, you have to increase awareness around your thoughts and actions. Ask yourself often if what you’re doing is self-defeating or self-improving.
Each one of us carries ingrained, unconscious ideas of just how happy and successful we can be. But by learning to identify and transcend these self-imposed “Upper Limits,” we can expand our potential for happiness and abundance in extraordinary ways.

Have you noticed how we start to manufacture the stream of painful images because we are feeling good!?! Some part of us is afraid of enjoying positive energy for any extended period of time. When you reach the Upper Limit of how much positive feeling you can handle, you’ll create a series of unpleasant thoughts to deflate yourself. The thoughts we manufacture are guaranteed to make us return to a state we are more familiar with: not feeling so good. Think about – do you recognize the pattern: you can enjoy a period of relationship in harmony, then stop the flow of connection by criticizing or starting an argument, or you’ll eat healthy food and get plenty of exercise, feeling great for several days in a row. Then will go on a weekend binge of restaurant food, wine and late nights that will leave you feeling dull and bloated.

One of the easiest ways to improve your life is to become aware of the moments when you self-sabotage. Catherine Beard  pinpointed five common signs of self-sabotage - so you can see if any of them are sneaking their way into your daily life ;).

1. Over-planning
Planning in itself is a stress-buster. It lets us get ahead before we get overwhelmed, so that we are not buried under obligations. But one of the disadvantages of planning is that many also use it to postpone activities - just by planning and planning but not acting :) . We use it to avoid taking action. We’d rather come up with a super detailed plan than actually act on it. That’s because we like to use planning as a procrastination tool. You might like the feeling of being organized, but you have to make sure you’re taking action for the planning to be worth it. Otherwise, you’ll have wasted the time planning when you could have accomplished something on your to-do list.

2. Searching for inspiration
Like over-planning, finding inspiration is another way to procrastinate without realizing it. Instead of getting started, you search for answers with the mindset that you need help taking the first step. However, when looking for answers, you might feel even more overwhelmed - because you realize that in fact a) you did not find anything useful or b) there is too much information now. In fact, you do not need the help of others to get your own ideas going. Start where you are and with what you already know - start before you have the answers to all your questions.

3. Lack of commitment
Have you ever started with something and given up halfway because it didn’t give the desired results? For example, weight loss :)? Or, for example, I wrote my blog - I started without knowing if anyone was reading it at all. Hasn’t done promotion either, and in three months it hasn't seemed to bring me very far - maybe I should stop and do something else with that time :)? You know, you can't always expect an immediate breakthrough. Instead, you have to enjoy being on the road and doing things, and success is achieved when you commit to yourself and your ideas over a longer period of time, even if at the moment it seems like nothing is going to happen.

4. Lack of consistency
Spontaneity makes life fun, but consistency is crucial to success. If you lack consistency in your work, your behaviour, or your daily routine, you’ll find it difficult to actually make progress. Maybe it's like you're deciding something and even announcing it - oh I'm going to do it! But then you forget it completely or even avoid it. Try to think for a moment, can people trust you? Can you even trust yourself? Do you really do what you say you do? Lack of consistency creates the opposite negative emotion - if you don’t have consistency in life, you’ll constantly feel like you’re playing catch up.

5. Putting yourself into a box
Have you changed your mind about defining yourself? You may think that you can't do anything because your personality is not right. You may think that no one takes you seriously because in everyday life you are strange and too cheerful - goofy. But in your workplace, are you a complete professional? So you can be both smart and goofy at the same time. You can be profound and joyful. We are all multifaceted and there is no need to hold on to anything that would hold us back. And it holds you back from thinking that you need to have a certain type of personality to succeed.

Why we set upper limits?

Each of us then has, as it were, an internal thermostat that determines how much love, success and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. The thermostat is usually set in early childhood and, when programmed, keeps us within what we think is rightfully ours.
The foundation under the Upper-Limit are based on four hidden barriers, they seem to be different, but they all have something in common - although they seem real, they are based on fear and false beliefs about ourselves. And we are held back by the fact that we subconsciously accept them and consider them real. Until we become aware of them, we also consider them to be real. Once we become aware, these barriers dissolve and we seem to be free.

1. Feeling Fundamentally Flawed
You feel that something is wrong with you and you do not deserve good things.
The belief that I am not enough or that there is something wrong with me is one of the biggest limitations and obstacles, and there is the associated fear: that even if I commit, I will still fail. This belief forces you to "stay safe" and keep a low line. That, if failed, then the fall is not high.

2. You are afraid that others will abandon you because success brings change.
This barrier makes us feel that I cannot achieve complete success, because then I would quit alone, be disloyal to my roots and leave behind people from my past. It's better not to take too many steps and stay "equal" with my community.

3. Believing that greater success will place a greater burden on you.
This barrier creates a feeling that I will not be able to reach my full potential because I would have an even greater burden than I do now.

4. You don't want to overshadow your progress.
The subconscious mantra of this barrier goes something like this in your head: I must not achieve my full success, because if I did, I would seem to be better than someone and make them feel bad. This barrier is especially common among talented children.

If you are limiting yourself, you are also blocking the flow of positive energy, but fortunately, in addition to the barriers mentioned, there are not too many ways for us to set our own upper-limits :), try to pay attention to what you are familiar with.
The most common one is worry. Worrying is usually a sign that our upper limit thermostat is "red". Worrying is only useful if it concerns an issue that we can actually take advantage of and if this leads to our immediate and positive action. It's a good way to find out if a worrying thought is something you should pay attention to. Ask yourself - Is it a real possibility? Is there any action I can take right now to make a positive difference? When you find yourself worrying, there is something positive trying to break through.

Another way we set ourselves limits is through blame and criticism. When we blame someone or something, we often do so because we have exceeded our upper limit and are trying to slow down the flow of positive energy. Blaming yourself is just part of the same pattern as blaming someone else. Chronic criticism and chronic accusation are behavioural habits we could eliminate. Set yourself a goal - become an observer of critical statements, both those you say and those that fly through your head. Catch them and share the two columns :) - put in the first all those that contain criticism of real things and a suggestion for what to do with it ("Listen, you're standing on my toe! Get lost!"). And in the second column, put everything else. It can be predicted that the second column will hiiiiiiigh and you will see that most of the criticism is not constructive.

Deflection is another common upper-limit behaviour: we completely compress the flow of positive energy - avoiding it altogether. Diversion keeps positive energy away. Also, for example, if someone tells us something nice, we also pass on that information / knowledge and do not accept it. The idea of overcoming our upper limits is related to developing the ability and will to feel and appreciate natural well-being. By natural, I mean good feelings that are not caused by alcohol, sugar or other short-term pleasures. Allowing yourself to feel naturally well is a direct way to raise your upper limits. By expanding your ability to feel positive, you also increase your tolerance for things that go well in your life.

Arguments also bring you down when you’ve hit your upper limit. If you learn to see disputes as upper limit symptoms, you can move beyond them. Arguments are often caused by two people competing in a relationship for the victim's position. If there is a race for the position of victim, each person must find some way to fall victim to another, instead of finding compromises.

Finally, if things are still going well, some of us have an interesting pattern of behaviour, which is a pure example of the upper limit - we get sick. If you want to know if any of your illnesses are due to an upper limit problem, think back to when you were sick. Ask yourself, did this happen during or just after a big win? Not all diseases are, of course, upper limit symptoms, but if you are interested in getting to know yourself, you could look into anything that will cause you potential upper limit symptoms of pain and suffering. Many of us ignore the impact of our thoughts and emotions on our physical health, but it is worth paying attention to ;). You may find that you are actually much healthier than you ever imagined.

Be a limit tester

Do you want to get rid of your upper limits? Try these Gay Hendricks tips:
• Commit to maintaining curiosity and playfulness by learning your upper limit behaviour.
• Make a list of your upper limits. For example, some of the most common: worrying; blame and criticism; getting sick; hiding important feelings; not keeping agreements; not speaking significant truths to the relevant people (If you are mad at John, he’s the relevant person to talk to. It doesn’t help to tell Tim that you’re mad at John.); deflecting (Ignoring compliments is a good example.)
• If you notice that you are doing something on your upper limit list, such as worrying or not communicating some truth, turn your attention to the real problem: expand your ability to achieve positive emotions and success.
• Consciously make your body feel good. Use yourself to get to know yourself well, not just your mind. For example, feeling more love in your chest and heart area.
• Create a new story that shows you how to live your life to its full potential.


But then it's either personal development or weight loss - only consistency will help you move forward. If you have goals that you want to achieve or habits that you want to change/acquire - then you need self-discipline to follow them. When motivation disappears, it is self-discipline that carries you forward. Why is self-discipline so difficult? Because it often has such a negative colouring. Self-discipline is often associated with deprivation, and who wants to willingly deprive themselves? But take it as a game as a challenge to reach the next level :) .

Personal growth isn’t just about learning. It’s easy enough to consume all of the self-help books and resources out there, but actually putting what you learn into action isn’t always fun. And if we don’t implement what we learn, we’re not really growing. Maybe you want to make changes but never know where to start. Maybe it gets too overwhelming to make all of the changes you want to. Maybe you get excited at first but then lose sight of the goals and changes you want to make.

Personal development is a choice, and it's more than just reading all self-help books and articles, attending trainings and seminars is easy and even nice - but putting theory into practice is not always the most fun. But until we apply what we have learned, we will not really grow. Maybe you even want to change something, but don't know where to start. Maybe I'd like to change everything at once, and then it's going to stop you from making all the changes you want. You may even be very excited, motivated and hopeful at first, but then those goals and changes will be forgotten.
Personal development is a choice, and it's more than just reading self-help books and reading quotes in Instagram posts. It is also more than just meditating and detoxing. The roots of personal development include improving habits, behaviours, attitudes, and actions. It involves self-discipline and self-commitment, even if you don't like yourself. In order to truly grow as a person, you must actively strive for this development, instead of trying to soak in all the self-help tips you come across.

The most important part of personal growth is self-awareness. To change, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. You also need a supportive, healthy mindset that encourages you to become better as a person, instead of believing that you are who you are and you can't change.
In order to truly grow as a person, you must also actively strive for your own growth - do something real. No one else can do it for you. Believe it - it will not go anywhere just to absorb all these self-remedies.

Yes, we can't change the things that have happened to us, but we can make choices and decisions that help us help ourselves and truly reach ourselves.