Get out of your own way if you want to thrive.

So many of us never make it in this life. Whether we come from meek and modest backgrounds, or something more substantial, so many people never seem to make it out of the downward spiral of bad habits and unhappiness.

Why? For many it comes down to self-sabotaging behavior. Rather than stepping outside of the box to establish themselves, they go with the swirl and follow themselves right down into heartbreak and disappointment. Are you guilting of sabotaging yourself and getting in your own way? Now is the moment to put those patterns to rest once and for all.

Why you sabotage yourself.
There are several reasons we choose to sabotage ourselves and our happiness. Some of us do it consciously. We see our happiness coming, and we avert it out of guilt or unease. For others, though, it’s a subconscious reckoning. Having internalized several toxic, false beliefs, they tear their lives apart without ever really understanding that they could have had so much more.

Low sense of self-worth
Our sense of self-worth is everything. When we have an acute sense of self-worth, we surround ourselves with people and experiences that bolster us and make us feel good. That’s not the case when we don’t think we’re worthy, though. When you have low self-worth, you align yourself with people who mistreat you and experiences that make you feel bad. These snowball to create a life that’s miserable and unfulfilling. All because you didn’t think you were good enough to be happy.

Toxic lessons from childhood
What kind of toxic lessons did you pick up from childhood? Your parents might have struggled with their own sense of self, which was handed down to you. Likewise, toxic and dysfunctional relationships throughout childhood could have reinforced the idea that you were not worthy of happiness and love. All of these things are false, though. You aren’t beholden to the patterns of your parents. You’re free to create a life that’s authentically your own.

Fear of being fulfilled
Believe it or not, there are some who sabotage themselves because they fear being fulfilled. They’ve spent so long being unhappy that they remember nothing else. If you’ve only known struggle, transitioning to an entirely unfamiliar state of being can feel unstable and uncomfortable. So, they sabotage themselves (both consciously and unconsciously) because they think they have to stay in whatever emotional or material state that they’re in.

Growing apart from loved ones
To grow and to change inherently means leaving the old things behind so that you can enjoy new and more fulfilling things. For some, this is a scary prospect. They don’t want to lose the people and experiences that have become comfortable and familiar to them. So, they hold themselves back because they know that growing up will take them away from the people that they love. That’s fine…if you’re happy being unhappy.

How to stop the self-sabotage.
You don’t have to settle for the sabotage and the misery. Life can be manifested around you. You can have the things you want and need. To do that, though, you first have to take note of your bad habits and rework your bad beliefs. Then you can take your inner critic by the hand, change the narrative, and choose a different path for yourself and your happiness.

Before you do anything else, you need to get honest about your self-sabotaging habits. For some, the best way to do this is by journaling. They keep a record of all the times they get in their own way, and remind themselves of it often. This lays their patterns out in the open. It’s hard to deny what you’re doing to yourself when it’s written in black-and-white. Identify your self-sabotaging habits and they become that much easier to rid yourself of.

Your self-sabotaging behavior, at the end of the day, comes down to your personal beliefs. Somewhere along the way you decided you weren’t worthy, and your actions followed suit. In order to get beyond this, get to the root of these bad beliefs so you can replace them. Do you believe you’re not good enough to succeed or be loved? Do fear that failure is the only thing you’re deserving of? By reworking these beliefs that are holding you back, you can get out of your own way and manifest a better future.

Realistic goal setting is such an important part of breaking out of our self-sabotage and building greater self-esteem. You’ve got to see yourself successfully doing things in order to believe you can successfully do things. Telling yourself you’re capable is all good and well, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So start giving yourself some goals you can conquer. What do you want most from your life right now? Break that down into a series of steps. Start with the absolutely smallest and easiest task. Work your way up.

Your inner critic is always involved in your self-sabotaging patterns. She drives the bus. Whenever you doubt yourself, she jumps in the driver’s seat and hits the gas. She tears you apart and keeps you small so that she always has a job. Now is the moment to put her out of business. Take away her power by taking away her voice. Whenever you hear that inner critic tell you you “can’t” tell them you can. Insist on it and don’t allow them to trigger your self-sabotaging behavior anymore.

Now that you’ve woken up from your self-sabotaging patterns, start making minor changes to your life every single day. You’ve spent years holding yourself back and getting in your own way. Now is the moment to look back and figure out how to get all those things you’ve always wanted. Become the person you were supposed to be. Each day, do at least 1 thing consciously different. Speak to people differently, stand up for yourself differently, seek out original experiences and different beliefs. Over time, these slight changes add up. Before you know it, you’re standing in a future that you manifested for yourself.

Putting it all together…

Are you sabotaging yourself and keeping yourself from getting what you want in life or in love? Once you admit that you’re getting in your way, you can turn things around. Whether it comes down to outdated beliefs or an internalized sense of low-worth — you’re the only one who can put your self-sabotaging patterns to bed. It requires action, though, and transforming the way you see yourself, your habits, and the world.

First, take a step back and identify your self-sabotaging patterns. Keep a journal of all the times you’ve disappointed yourself and look back at it to see the habits staring back at you. Question your beliefs and what causes you to get in your own way. Once you’re clear on the why, you can change these beliefs to be more encouraging.

Realizing what you want, you’ll be able to take action through the setting of realistic goals. As you move toward your own success and fulfillment, start reshaping the voice of your inner critic. Take their power and speak to yourself in a more positive light. Make small changes every day and don’t stop until you become the happy and purpose-driven person that you want to be.

Don’t let fear run your life

Whether you believe it or not, fear is our greatest enemy.

It is the reason why millions of people give up on their passions. They fear failure, or fear what others will think, and begin to doubt their capabilities.

Fear is the reason behind failure, sickness, giving up, bad relationships and so on. We are afraid of the past, the future, old age, the unseen and even death. Fear is a thought in the mind. You listen to that thought; you imagine it and eventually start to believe in it. It then consumes you. When that happens you become afraid of your own thoughts.

Fear can become so powerful that it can resonate with you for the rest of your life. Let’s take an example; if you keep telling your child to go to bed and they don’t listen, most parents will scare them by saying a boogieman is hiding under the bed and he will take you away if you do not sleep.

This can have a negative impact on the child’s mind. They will believe it and will be afraid to sleep. The fear of the boogieman becomes real for him. This can be reversed if the parent turns on the light and shows the child there is no boogieman. When the child sees it and believes it only then will they be healed of a false thought in the mind.

Our fears have no reality; they are merely negative thoughts we build in our mind. Fear is like a shadow. It follows wherever you go but does not actually exist.

I was recently watching a YouTube video on public speaking and the presenter was telling the audience that he used to have anxiety and panic attacks before public speaking. He decided to work on his fear and change his mindset.

For several days he would go into his quiet study room sit on a comfortable chair and relax his mind and body by taking deep breathes. For 10 minutes he would continuously say to himself in a slow, quiet and positive way:

“I am going to overcome this fear. I am overcoming it now. I am confident. I am smart. I am relaxed and at ease”.

This is known as positive affirmations. You keep telling your subconscious mind positive thoughts, listen to them carefully and start to believe it. The subconscious mind is easily persuaded by suggestions that you tell it.

When you are relaxed the thoughts of your conscious sink down into the subconscious by a process that is similar to osmosis.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

If you are afraid of something don’t let it overcome you. You have to face it head-on. Be positive towards that fear and master it. You will be able to change your mindset towards it and your conscious mind will no longer look at it as a fear. That is when you know you have conquered it.

An excellent example that we all could relate to is Batman. Bruce Wayne had a fear of bats because his subconscious mind related bats to his parent’s death. Throughout his life, he lived in fear because he built it up in his mind and never faced it.

During training with Ras Al Ghor, Ras told him that he has to face his fear if he wanted to move forward in his life. He overcame it and used it as his strength to became Batman.

The following is a process that you can use in order to overcome fear. Do it about 3-4 times a day for 10 minutes. Give it a try.

Let’s suppose you are afraid of swimming. Sit down in a quiet room and comfortable chair. Close your eyes and breath slowly. Notice you inhaling and exhaling.

Imagine you are swimming. Project the thoughts of swimming in your mind. Mentally believe that you are in a pool, standing in the water, feeling the water against you. You feel the cold water and you are moving your arms and legs.

It is a fun and exciting experience, as you are relaxed and it feels good to be swimming. As you begin to imagine this, the subconscious mind will begin to rewire itself from the negative thoughts of swimming into positive thoughts. This is the law of the subconscious.

You can apply this technique to almost any fear that you may have. Just imagine the fear is a more positive way.

Do comment below and let me know what is holding you back and if you have any other techniques that you follow to overcome your fears.

Fear cripples you with that treacherous feeling in the pit of your stomach. It comes out of nowhere and stops you in your tracks. You wonder why you’re not moving forward. You make excuses while refusing to acknowledge what’s stopping you. You can’t see it, smell it or put a hand on it. It’s an invisible force powerful enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone who yields to it.

It’s fear and you can’t do anything until you face it. Fear keeps us from relationships, from careers, from success, and eventually from living the life we want.

We may not do things or say what’s on our minds for fear of what other people may think. We don’t get into that marriage for fear of failure. Some won’t even attempt to date for fear of rejection. What is it about the fear that grips us so?

Fear is the mind wandering into the unknown and leaning toward the worst of whatever that unknown could be. We wonder what’s on the other side of that decision, or on the other side of the job opportunity… We don’t know and fear kicks in.

How many times have you gotten on a flight and started to feel those eels in your stomach taking off? That’s fear. You know in a perfect world that your flight will be just fine. However, not all flights have ended that way, and the fear that your flight may be that next statistic crowds your mind, at least for a moment.

Fear is overthinking what may happen and what could happen. The reality is fear is the unknown over-exaggerated in our minds. It’s the enemy because most things we fear never happen. We just imagine what it would be like if it did. Sometimes that keeps us from accomplishing a great thing had we not feared it.

Ok — don’t laugh at me — I used to be afraid of dogs. I’d see a big dog and start sweating. I’d see a little dog and start sweating. I would think to myself, what if this dog bites me? Who would help me? Why is this dog staring at me? (LOL) The truth is, most of the dogs I encountered didn’t even know I existed… but I feared them.

That’s what fear does. It makes a situation that doesn’t exist — come alive in our minds. These dogs weren’t paying me any attention but were still power over me. Fear only has the power we give it. Once I got that, I walked right by the dogs with no problem. In fact, I asked the owners if I could pet their dogs to help me get over being afraid.

The best way to get over fear is to face it. Whatever you face you win. It’s human to be afraid, it happens. Just don’t let it stop you. Face your dog! Go for that career. Go on that date. Make that phone call. Send that email. Put on that outfit and don’t think twice about what anyone else thinks. Be afraid and do it anyway.

Stare fear down and make your moves right in front of it. You’ll see then that the worst you imagine in your head doesn’t exist in real life. You really have nothing to fear but fear itself.