What is holding you back? How to reach your full potential? Stop Self-Sabotaging.

"Let your past go" to achieve your Dream

Don’t Stop Yourself from achieving your dreams.

Do you feel that you have not reached the full potential in your life? Do you feel that you could have achieved much more in your life than you have achieved? There is a huge possibility that you are self-sabotaging yourself.

How? Let us find out.

Well, I recently discovered this phenomenon with me. I have been struggling with it for the past few years and only now I have been able to understand it. I have realized that most of the things I have not been able to achieve in my life, it is because I am stopping myself from achieving them.  Before getting into my story let us learn some more about Self-Sabotage.

What are some examples of Self-sabotage?

1.      Experiencing self-defeating thoughts that hold you from doing what you truly desire.

2.      Not doing the work you know would help you progress in your career.

3.      Returning to the same person who caused you pain in a past relationship.

4.      Feeling unhappy even though nothing is wrong in your life.

5.      Eating poorly even if you don’t want to.

6.      Smoking and drinking even when you know it is hampering your progress.

7.      Caring too much about what other people think.

8.      Spending Recklessly.

9.      Worrying about things that won't happen.

10.   Mindlessly scrolling social media as a way to pass the time.

What is Self-Sabotaging?

We know how we want to move our life forward, yet we are still. For some reason we are stuck. We are unable to motivate ourselves to do those tasks that would significantly improve our lives. Even if we try, an inner emotion surfaces and stops us from going ahead. When we stop ourselves from moving forward, we can call it self-sabotage.

Why do we self-sabotage?

Self Sabotage is when we have two conflicting desires. One is conscious and the other is unconscious. Change is the only permanent in our lives. The conscious wants the change whereas the unconscious opposes the change.

Undoubtedly, to improve our life, we have to change it and our new life will cost us the old life. But any change is unfamiliar, and our brain has evolved to counter the unknown and the unfamiliar. So, it brings out many emotions to justify why we should not encourage the change.

For example, if we become substantially rich, it is definitely a positive change. Won't you agree? But everything in our life will change. Where we live, what we eat, our friends, our free time, etc.

               To counter this change our brain brings us vivid thoughts like being successful will make us less liked, money is the root of all evil, etc.

Even if the change is positive, it will always face our own resistance. Some more  ways we face Resistance are

1.      Making yourself less attractive will guard you.

2.      Playing small allows you to avoid scrutiny.

3.      Procastanitanion puts you back in your comfort place.

How can we stop self-sabotaging?

A way of preventing ourselves from self Sabotaging is by becoming Emotionally Intelligent. All Self Sabotaging act has a underlining root cause in our subconcious mind. Finding it and altering it is the way forward. 

1.      Understanding ourselves, our emotions:  Humans are Power House of Emotions. We can’t stop ourselves from generating them. We can only be aware why our emotions are getting generated. Some emotion are helping us move forward, where as some are holding us back. First step is being aware from where our emotions are getting generated. Understanding from where our emotions are getting generated can help us find us the root cause.  

Who doesn’t want to be successful? Who doesn’t want to have great money? So do I. But for four years from 2019-2022, I kept postponing my desire to have a creative career in Writing and Speaking. I had self-sabotaged myself. I have only realized it now. Every time I thought of pursuing something different, my mind would tell me, “Not Now”. This is not the right time to do it.  

This feeling has its roots in my Engineering College days. I was not a very good student. As we graduated, I saw all my friends doing better in life. I wanted to prove that I was not a dumb mechanical engineer. I made a tough decision, that I would top the Engineering Services Examination and get into Indian Railway Services – a dream job for Mechanical Engineers. I devoted Years into preparation.

After failing many times, I got into the Defence Aeronautical Quality Assurance Service. But my subconscious mind won't listen. It still wanted the Indian Railway Service. I was neither motivated to put in more effort nor had the courage to let it go.

Whenever I wanted to do something else, my subconscious mind would repeat ‘Not Now’. This is not the right time. This way I wasted 4 years of my life.

2.      Letting go: “Letting Go” is an art and we can learn it. We cannot force ourselves from letting go, because the more we tell ourselves we need to let it go, the more attached we get to it. We can only realize that we cannot revolve around a missing gap forever. This realization will help us in letting go. The next step is to take a first step towards building a new life. 

I tried many times to ‘let go’ my obsession with Indian Railway Service.  But the harder I tried, the more difficult it became to let my obsession go. My obsession for Indian Railways was so huge that I kept on trying to get into it for many years even after getting into a similarly good job. Even though there would not be much change in my life even if I got into Indian Railways, I was not able to “Let it Go”.

But then I realized that I could not keep on revolving around it forever. I have other things to accomplish in my life. I told my subconscious mind, “Time is over. Failures are part of life. I have to let it go.”

After relentless trying for over a year, my subconscious mind finally agreed.

3.      Build a new future: The best way to stop self-sabotaging is to continually work towards a new future. We are truly happy only when we are improving ourselves everyday and moving towards a bright new future. Being consistent in building the new future is the key.

After letting go, I had to take up something creative to build my new future. This is my new future. I chose Writing and Public Speaking.  Spending time on improving my Writing and Speaking on every day basis has helped me move on.

4.      It will bounce back: We also keep in mind the fact that even of after overcoming the emotional trauma which was holding us back from achieving our true self, it will bounce back and return the very moment you find any obstacles in your new life.  We need to keep the principles right and be very clear about why we need the change.

Initially, it was very difficult for me. The subconscious mind kept on trying to oppose the change. It kept on presenting ideas about why it was not the right time to do it. It never missed an opportunity to try to convince me to get into my previous life. Every time I faced an obstacle in my new life, my subconscious mind lured me into my previous life. But my desire for change was very strong. I was able to convince my subconscious mind and make it understand that this change was good for me. I was able to come back every time.

5.      Letting unrealistic expectations go: What is right for you will not stay away from you for very long and what is not right for you will not stay with you for very long. Yes, of course, we can work hard and develop the skills and attitude required to be eligible for something. Alternatively, we can also accept that it is not like we are happy only when everything is perfect in our lives. We are truly happy when we present ourselves exactly the way we are.

My new journey has been tough and slow. But I must be crazy to think of having millions of readers overnight. However, I am confident that if I keep on improving my writing contuinually, one day I know I will have it. The only way to come out of your self-sabotaging nature is to be committed to being consistent. Success is never sure. But even if I fail I will learn a lot in this new journey.

Conclusion:

               Self Sabotaging in some form or other is present in everyone’s life. If not diagnosed and treated on time it will prevent us from reaching our full potential. Let us be aware of the problem and treat it when we find any symptoms. Let us have a self-sabotage-free life.