Hey everyone, welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
Today, let's talk about self sabotage:
what it is and how to stop sabotaging yourself.
Self sabotage is when you hurt yourself
or when you hold yourself back from reaching your full potential
or reaching the next level of happiness or success that you desire in life.
Sometimes we do this without even realizing it,
because it's just an innate mental block that happens.
And other times you might realize that you're sabotaging yourself,
and yet you still do it.
You might know that you're emotionally eating
and yet you still want to do it, because you have that craving there,
or because you want to procrastinate or something.
So today I want to talk about how we can become
more aware of when we're sabotaging ourselves and how to stop doing it.
The foundation of why we tend to sabotage ourselves is this idea of comfort.
Humans love comfort.
You and I know we love to do what we're comfortable with.
We love to stay in what we know.
We don't like surprises.
We don't like anything too risky or uncertain.
We like to stay in the safe zone, this comfort zone.
And self sabotage is what happens when you are reaching the edge of that comfort zone.
Or maybe you've passed that comfort zone
and you have this mental part of you or the subconscious part of you that tells you,
“Okay, let's backtrack, let's hold it for a bit. Let's not go there.
Let me stay back here where it's safe.”
And so you do things that don't allow yourself to break through those boundaries
and break through whatever blocks you need to break through
in order to get to that next level of happiness and success or amazing things in life.
Basically, in each of our lives there's a certain level of happiness that we are comfortable with.
So you may be used to experiencing a certain level of happiness,
and you might think that you want more happiness,
but in the journey of getting there,
you need to push yourself outside of that level that you're comfortable with.
And it might just feel so weird to you that you innately sabotage yourself,
so you go back to that same level that you've always been comfortable with,
because it's uncomfortable and it's weird.
It's different and scary to push yourself
beyond what you know, what you're comfortable with.
So that is self sabotage.
A lot of the times, it's possible for you to have a higher level of happiness,
but you don't allow yourself to be that happy,
because it's so different from what you know.
And so, you tell yourself in your mind, things that don't allow yourself to be that happy.
You don't allow yourself to enjoy your success
because there's something in you that's holding you back.
I don't know if you've experienced that feeling
of not allowing yourself to be fully happy,
or that feeling of not allowing yourself to enjoy your successes
or appreciate your accomplishments that you made,
because it's so new and different for you.
You just don't allow yourself to feel it, you know.
Happiness is something you can choose to feel more of,
but a lot of people limit themselves because they're afraid.
It's out of their comfort zone to field that happy,
because they are used to their life, you know, operating within this range of happiness.
And you're also afraid that if you enjoy your success or you're too happy,
that you're going to fail and things are going to come falling down on you.
So it’s that fear of the unknown.
You don't want to get your hopes up,
and so you kind of just don't let yourself live to the fullest
and you're just enjoying life just “this much” rather than “that much”.
Not only is self sabotage about wanting to stay within your comfort zone,
it also has a lot to do with your self confidence
and how you see your own self and your self worth,
because you won't allow yourself to feel happy
if you don't believe you deserve it.
And the same thing goes for success and reaching goals.
You might think that you desire to succeed in this path.
You might desire to reach this goal
and maybe subconsciously in the back of your mind,
you don't feel like you're worthy of that goal
or you don't feel like you deserve it.
And in that case, you will always self sabotage yourself
and hold yourself back before you ever reach that goal.
It'll come in the form of procrastination, excuses,
wanting to give up, going on an emotional roller coaster,
not making a decision to fully commit, not deciding to focus 100%.
The reality is: A lot of the times, what stands between you
and what you want is a bunch of mental blocks.
It's not just about the taking action.
If we didn't have mental blocks, we would be like a computer.
We know, “Okay, we'll take this step and this step,
then this step, then this step, and then we're there.”
But the reality is: There's a lot of winding paths because we tend to overthink.
We tend to procrastinate.
Once we've reached a little bit of success,
it's so outside of our comfort zone that subconsciously, we try to pull ourselves back.
So you might find a little success and then after you find that success,
you mentally tell yourself, “Oh great. I did a little bit, now I can chill out. I can rest and whatever.”
So then you backtrack because you're not working as hard.
And that thought is your self sabotage.
It's because you are afraid of continuing to push at that same level,
because whether you think you don't deserve it
or whether it's just too strange and uncomfortable and different for you,
that you're like, “Okay, this is too different.
I need to backtrack to what I'm comfortable with.”
You are the one that ends up holding yourself back.
And that is what self-sabotage is.
So now that we understand more about self sabotage and why it happens,
what the root cause of it is and what it looks like...
How do we stop doing this?
How do we release these mental blocks?
How do we not be our own worst enemy as we're pursuing our goals and dreams?
So the first step is recognizing what's happening.
It's being aware of the ways that you self sabotage.
It's being aware that you feel resistant
when you're pushing outside of your comfort zone.
But you have to just logically know that what's outside of your comfort zone, it feels weird,
but it's good for you, so just be aware of that.
Pushing your comfort zone is just like working a muscle.
The more you do it, the more you practice,
the better and stronger you get.
You also got to work on your self worth
and believe that you deserve everything that you desire.
Believe that it is yours.
Believe that you can make it.
Believe you can achieve this goal
and believe that you are worthy of that goal.
You are worthy of what you desire,
and that is an internal belief that you have to have in order to get there,
because if you don't believe that you deserve it
or you don't believe that you're worthy of the goal,
no matter how hard you work towards it,
you're always going to find something that blocks you from reaching it.
So you have to really work on that self-worth.
The next thing you've got to do is learn to manage your fears,
to feel the fear and do it anyway,
because ultimately procrastination is a form of fear.
You procrastinate because you care about this thing so much that you're afraid to take action,
because you might mess it up.
You're afraid of messing it up.
You're afraid of failure.
So that is what procrastination and resistance really is.
It's all fear.
So you have to learn to manage your fears,
be aware of your fears, understand why you have them,
and then learn to take the action anyway.
And I'll talk more about fears in an upcoming video,
but there's also something I talked about previously called
“reducing that gap between knowing and doing”.
I'm talking about the gap between knowing what you gotta do and actually doing it.
The wider that gap is, the greater the discomfort.
Meaning the longer you take between knowing what you gotta do and doing it,
the more anguish and stress and negative feelings you're going to feel,
because that is your fear.
That gap is how long you are letting your fear control you, control your decisions,
and how much you procrastinate is also a sign of how strong your fear is.
So you've got to conquer that fear.
You got to manage it: Reduce that procrastination.
Just take action.
Like I said, it's all in your head.
The last thing you gotta do is just to keep going, keep pushing yourself.
And don't stop, don't give up.
A lot of self sabotage is just that thought that tells yourself,
“This is hard. I want to give up.”
Or it's that voice that, after you've achieved some level of success you're like,
“Okay, this might be good enough. I'm going to be lazy now.”
You know, it's that voice that doesn't want to do what's hard.
It’s that voice that is the weaker version of you.
And we all have the stronger and weaker versions of us,
so it's totally normal and okay.
But it's understanding that you are stronger than that weak voice that wants to give up.
It is your choice to decide which voice to listen to.
So let me know in the comments if you've noticed
any self sabotage happening in your journey.
Let me know what it looks like, what your self sabotage manifested into you,
because I'm really curious to read more examples on self-sabotage,
especially since it's something that not everyone realizes that they're doing.
Personally, for me it happens through procrastination,
when I have a big project and I'm just not letting myself face it.
And it also happens when I feel like I've worked really hard
and I've reached a certain level of success,
and then I get lazy because I don't want to work that hard for a bit.
And then I backtrack, so I'm not moving forward
or progressing as effectively as I could be
if I were just pushing myself at a consistent rate,
because I think there's something that is scary about growing so fast
or reaching a high level of success that you're not comfortable with,
because it's so new and you don't know it.
So because it's so new and different, you're like,
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's chill. Let's backtrack so I don't grow too fast."
And I know that that is self sabotage, because I'm not giving my best.
I'm not being the version of myself that's operating at her fullest potential.
I'm not being the most excellent that I can be.
I'm not putting like 1000% of hard work and effort,
and I know that the only person holding myself back is myself.
It's just me that's afraid to grow so fast
or me that's afraid to give it my all, every single day,
always doing my best, because you know what?
It's tiring.
It's tiring to do your best.
It's hard to push yourself outside of your comfort zone, but it's totally possible.
So instead of being afraid of that,
being afraid because it's so new or it's so difficult,
just allow yourself to receive and enjoy all the happiness,
success, and abundance in this world, because you deserve it.
Anything you desire, you deserve.
You are so worthy of everything that you want
and it is possible for it to happen for you.
So don't block yourself from achieving it.
Allow yourself to receive.
Allow yourself to be the best that you can be.
Stop self sabotaging yourself.
All right, love you so much.
I hope this was helpful.
It's still a journey for me,
but its first step is being aware of what's happening, right?
All right, that's it for today.
Love you so much and I will see you next time.
Bye!