Destroying Me Before I've Even Begun | A recovering Self Sabotage(r)
“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.”
— Katie- The Resilient Blog
A recovering self sabotage.jpg
A recovering self sabotage.jpg
I imagine that she looks like me… well, she is me, but outside of my head, and when she starts, it always felt like a struggle with myself. She often visits when I am at a low point… sometimes sitting right across from me and other times, whispering in my ear. It starts out small… like little whispers of doubt. She tells me I am not capable, I am not deserving. She lets me know that I am unable to achieve the success I am destined for. And, every time, I choose to listen. I soak it in, and I allow her, I allow it to stop me. I let myself believe I cannot and should not be doing the things I want to do. And this happens every time... you name it! Every aspect of my life, from my classes to my blogging journey. And for many years, I did not know what the phenomenon was. But, this past year, I had more moments when she would come to visit than I’d ever had, and with my frustrations at myself came the realizations of what exactly I was dealing with…I was a Self-Sabotager.
Self-sabotage occurs when your logical, conscious mind (the side of you that says you need to eat healthily and save money) is at odds with your subconscious mind (the side of you that stress-eats chocolate and goes on online shopping binges). The latter is your anti-self -- that critical inner voice that seems to hold you back and sabotage your efforts.
Self-sabotage involves behaviors or thoughts that keep you away from what you desire most in life. It’s that internal sentiment gnawing at us, saying “you can’t do this.” (Deep Patel)
Self Sabotage BlogPost.jpg
Self Sabotage BlogPost.jpg
I think it happens to most people… all people really and most of us don’t even know it. We don’t consciously fight her… fight it. We believe and never DO. And I think that was my thing… I never did. I had so many ideas, research papers for conferences, job applications, youtube video ideas, business upgrades, etc. that I just never DID. I would start, plan it all out, calculate success, and work really hard to prep for whatever it is I wanted to do and when the time came to click send, to write and/or to create… I could not DO it. I was stuck in place in my head, letting myself believe that I was not good enough that I did not have the capabilities to do anything. Things didn’t randomly change too… It began small when friends confronted me for my inabilities to do… I remember a friend in particular who listened. I was rambling on about how I could not get a job, and I had no money because I was not smart enough and she legit almost slapped the living daylights out of me LOL. Sis really just snapped. She rattled me a little bit that day… she was the voice of reason after years of sabotage that finally… finally brought me out of it. She told me to “DO,” and you could tell she meant it. She told me that if I never got out of my head and did… I would spend the rest of my life, believing my success was unachievable and never amount to nothing. And, that honestly stuck with me, but something else she said stuck with me more… she asked me to count my blessings in the past year and not my failures, and she said to write them down. That exercise made me realize something… for many years I never consciously counted my successes… my mind always went to my failures, it went by itself to the things that I did wrong never what I did right.
Self Sabotage .jpg
Self Sabotage .jpg
Overcoming self-sabotage means that you have to look at the ways your self-defeating behaviors are serving you, and then do the hard and brave thing which is to figure out how to get yourself the things you really want in the way that you really want them.
This is not easy. This will not happen overnight. Finding good friends and building true financial and mental and emotional stability and a clear sense of self isn’t doesn’t happen just by sitting around and hoping for it. You don’t just decide to love yourself one day and then see the fruits of that decision bloom. Like any good relationship, self-love is generated. So is self-reliance.
Overcoming self-sabotage doesn’t mean you’re going to be the most successful person in the room. It doesn’t mean your going to unleash and inner Einstein and reveal your genius to the world (though of course, it could mean that). Mostly, it just means that you let yourself receive that which you want to ask for – and that you live as you wish to live (Thought Catalog)
People who self-sabotage use the idea of success as a safe cover-up, rather than asking for the life they really want. And I refuse to live a life that I would come to have many regrets. So I started small… really small. I began to count my successes and affirm myself every morning. I looked in the mirror and told myself that I was capable of anything I wanted to do, and soon enough, I began to believe it too. I began to show myself that once I believed in myself and loved myself for who I was… doing would become more natural, and I was not wrong… it did. It became easier to turn my back to her when she visited, and it becomes easier to close my ears to the whispers of doubt. Writing this exact post is a testimony to that. I am finally doing… I am finally writing, and f*ck it feels good to be free even just a little.
This Is What It Means To Overcome Self-Sabotage
This Is What It Means To Overcome Self-Sabotage
This Is The Honest Truth About Why Some People Self-Sabotage Their Own Success
This Is The Honest Truth About Why Some People Self-Sabotage Their Own Success
So this year… as I write my first post, gear up to graduate this May and begin to create better content on Youtube and Instagram… I promise to love myself just a little bit more. To believe in me and to always do… and when the moments come when I fall because they will… I always choose to get up and keep doing because 2020 is for living… my entire life is for living and f*ck it if I don’t live it to my fullest potential.
