Are you Sabotaging Your Own Success?

Does success always feel like it’s just around the corner? Do you feel like you keep trying to move ahead and accomplish greater things, but something always stands in your way?

It’s possible that you are unconsciously preventing yourself from achieving your goals, even when you think you really want to achieve them!

Learning about self-sabotage – and your reasons for it – can help you to stop this unconscious cycle so you can go on to create a life you desire.

Below are some of the common factors that attribute to Self-Sabotage. If you are not as successful as you would like to be, take a moment to go through this list. Reflect on each one and really dig deep to uncover what’s been preventing you from achieving the success you desire:

1. Fear of failure. Many people are simply afraid to fail. I can think of few people who actually like to fail! Unfortunately, many people fail many times before they achieve any great and lasting success. While it helps to know this, failure can still eat away at your self-esteem and make you doubt your abilities.It’s not surprising you’ll do anything to avoid it.
  - TIP: Get Clear on where your fear originated. Then tackle it a step at a time. Don’t let fear hold you back. Don’t worry about failing – many famous people failed for many years before achieving success. Keep going. Dust yourself off and get back on track with your goals.
2. Low self-esteem. If you lack confidence and suffer from low self-esteem, self-sabotage may feel natural for you. Seeing yourself as unloved, undeserving, unworthy, or any number of other words beginning with the “un” prefix can hold you back in innumerable ways. While you may have to seek external help as well, you can make some steps to improve your self-esteem now with some simple strategies.
  - TIP: A simple adjustment is to start your day with mindful meditation and affirmations. Spend a few moments connecting with God and yourself each morning before starting your day. Take some time to come up with at least 10 positive things you can say to yourself each morning. Do this when you’re feeling good so you’ll be prepared for those lower days. You can also or research affirmations and write down those that resonate with you.
3. Fear of change. Success is often tied to change, such as a new job, better home, or other things. You may be sabotaging your efforts because you don’t want anything to change.
  - You’re used to your current lifestyle and don’t want to modify it. For example, you may claim that you want a mansion or a private jet, but you don’t actually want to pay for these things or be responsible for them. So, you ensure you never have them in the first place.
  - TIP: Take some time to define success for yourself. Once you are clear on your values, the legacy you want to leave, and what Success looks like for you, then taking steps to adjust your life will be more exciting and change won’t be so overwhelming.
4. Control issues. You might self-sabotage in order to remain in control. Are you allowing your control issues to prevent you from reaching success?
  - Control and perfectionism are often tied together. If you want everything to be perfect all the time, then you may be losing out on big and important opportunities.
  - TIP: Learn the simple technique of letting go. Trust that things will work out as they should, when they should.
5. Habits. Sometimes your habits can sabotage you without you even realizing it.
  - For example, if you have a habit of always being late to meetings, then you may miss your chance to impress a client and get a raise. You self-sabotage your own success because of an old habit.
  - Habits such as drinking and doing drugs are also extremely sabotaging.
  - TIP: Take a self-inventory. What habits have prevented you from being your best? How did that habit work for you in the past. How does it affect you now? What can you achieve if you let it go and replace it with a new habit?
6. Negativity and criticism. The criticism may come from your own internal negative voice, or it may be coming from outside sources such as your family members or friends. Negativity and criticism can be internalized and cause you to sabotage success.
  - If you constantly hear that you’re not good enough, smart enough, or talented enough, then you begin to believe this. You feel that you don’t deserve to be successful.
  - You may not want to try things that could help you because you don’t think you’re worthy of them. Family, friends, coworkers, bosses, and others may have you believing that you’re useless, dumb, or worthless.
  - In addition, research shows that your parents can affect you as an adult. If your parents exhibited self-sabotaging behavior, then you may copy it throughout your life. You grew up seeing this pattern and have a hard time breaking out of it. Their insecurities can carry over to your life.

If you’re sabotaging your own life and future, you can change. It will require effort and time, but it’s possible to reshape your thoughts.

Whenever a thought appears that doesn’t support your efforts to achieve your goals, immediately replace it with a positive thought, instead. As you may do in the classroom, or even at home, and ask a student to re-do an activity to reinforce a positive – you do the same thing with your thoughts. A simple example is changing the the word Impossible to Possible! You’ll get better and better at both recognizing unsupportive thoughts and changing them the more you practice it.

Soon, you’ll be on your way to success!