7 Ways You Sabotage Your Success and How to Stop
The sky is the limit for you. It’s a way of thinking that becomes part of who you are. We should proceed one stage further. You can decide to achieve your goals. When you know you deserve to succeed, you can identify your illogical thinking, dismantle them, and replace them with a constructive, future-oriented mindset.
Your identity shifts from victim to hero, from being inspired to being an inspiration. You let go of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that have been holding you back. You’ve decided to overcome negativity bias by rejecting comfort and choosing adventure.
You, yourself, are your greatest challenge. Our minds are hardwired to place higher importance on negative than good information. Everyone is susceptible to negativity bias, the tendency to dwell on and hasten the memory of unpleasant situations.
You sabotage your own development, fail to break harmful habits, and unconsciously set yourself up for failure. When under duress, people tend to turn to the “devil you know.” The worst adversary you face is the one you’ve made: yourself.
If you feel helpless in the face of your sentiments, it’s time to retrain yourself to take charge of your emotional state, direct your emotions, and write the script for your response.
Listed below are seven ways in which you’re working against yourself and sabotaging your success:
1. You attribute your failures solely to your blunders.
Initial enthusiasm, self-assurance, and a “we’ve-got-this” mentality are high. We embarrass ourselves once we create a boo-boo. Insecurities start to creep in, and they become stronger by the minute. It’s as if all of our accomplishments were taken from us.
Common blunders occur frequently. The bad choices we make can help us become better people.
By accepting that criticism is information, we recognize that our blunders are instructive and inevitable. Progress toward failure. “if l fail more than you do, l win,” as Seth Godin puts it. Huge amounts of setbacks are required to shake things up in life.
2. You think your past correlates to your future
Everyone has a history. Your past is your greatest teacher and a source of invaluable learning opportunities.
You’ve put time and effort into taking a chance, and now is the time to put your newfound knowledge to use. Any given time, you are free to be whoever and however, you like. Give up hoping that other people will accept or validate you. Learn to save yourself.
3. You fail to see the value of what you already own.
In today’s society, material possessions are often seen as a barometer of success. We try to buy our way into contentment, and for a little while, it works. It’s always exciting to try anything new, but eventually, we become used to them. In most cases, the thrill of waiting for something is greater than the joy of finally getting it.
As soon as we obtain what we desire, we become used to it and lose interest. When did you last hear a youngster threaten the end of the world if they didn’t get a toy? The craziest part is how fast their happiness disappears as they start to desire anything else. Once you learn to be grateful for what you already have, acquiring more won’t improve your situation.
4. You refuse to see who you are becoming
To achieve any measure of success, you must first be that which you seek (e.g., happy, content, inspired) and then act accordingly to bring about the experiences you seek. What we’re made of is what we attract. The Harvard psychologist Shawn Achor outlines how happiness helps you succeed scientifically.
Affirmations are frequently used as a foundation for generating a mentality change and supplying the subconscious with priceless nuggets of wisdom. Writing in the present tense and with an optimistic tone allows you to more fully embody your true self. From this, you may deduce the steps necessary to fully embody your evolving self.
5. You’ve done damage to your social network.
It breaks my heart when individuals achieve success and then insist that they have nothing to do with it but their own efforts.
Individuals are influenced by their surrounding society and sometimes forget their origins and the efforts of others who helped them succeed. Success can be easily misunderstood if one lacks a healthy dose of appreciation and modesty.
6. You feel entitled to some things.
People’s sense of entitlement is paying off in the 21st century. It affects people of all ages, whether they are motivated by a desire for financial stability or by the competitive nature of the labor market.
Quit griping about how little you can do to help the world and start being thankful that you can. In order to get the respect and trust of others around you, you’ll need to put in some effort.
7. You don’t put any effort into calculating the result, so you just “wing it.”
When it comes to achieving success, reverse engineering is where it’s at. Put the finishing touches on the beginning. Start with the goal in mind, as Stephen Covey advises in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Once you’ve got your bearings, work backward from your Wildly Important Goal for the year to establish quarterly, monthly, and weekly benchmarks. Select the top five things you can do each week to move closer to your goal.
Seven ways to stop sabotaging your success:
1. Familiarize yourself with the concept of self-sabotage.
As a society, we have developed several habits that are ultimately damaging to ourselves. It’s possible that we don’t even realize when we’re engaging in the kinds of activities that are detrimental to our success and pleasure.
When we act in a way that undermines our own best interests or our larger aspirations and aims, we are engaging in self-sabotage. It seems that no matter how hard we try, the things we desire to achieve always elude us. Why? Because we know that deep down inside we want to do the opposite.
Your unconscious mind probably justifies your destructive behaviors by telling you that they are necessary for your protection. Some ways in which we sabotage ourselves are so subtle that they are easy to overlook. Too frequently, we fail to see how our own bad habits are damaging us.
Because of our inability to see the forest for the trees, we keep being sidetracked by our disorganization and, worse, we overthink every single decision to the point that we can’t seem to take any action at all. Oftentimes, the way we respond to a certain scenario ends up being the root of the problem rather than the actual issue itself.
2. Locate the causes.
Unfortunately, many of us resort to harmful coping mechanisms when faced with stress. Over and over, we fail to follow through on our promises, neglect to take proper care of ourselves, or take our personal and interpersonal connections for granted.
Sometimes we give in to our negative emotions and responses. Sometimes, though, the causes of our difficulties are so subtly ingrained in acts of self-sabotage that we fail to recognize them.
An individual’s sense of self-worth is frequently at the heart of self-destructive behaviors. You doubt that you are worthy of having good fortune.
Even when you try to compensate by establishing very ambitious objectives for yourself, you can’t shake the notion that you’ll never be good enough. To some, self-sabotage is a sick way to exert influence over their own lives.
It’s preferable to steer your ship straight into the rocks of failure rather than have it thrown in your face by forces beyond your control. Start making modifications to stop self-sabotaging actions when you’ve identified and accepted the underlying causes.
3. Relax and think.
To figure out why you repeat making the same mistakes, you need to do some real soul-searching. Understanding yourself and your true motives and aspirations requires digging into the problems you seem to be imposing on yourself.
Those who don’t stop to consider the consequences of their decisions rarely achieve lasting success. Those that succeed reflect on their actions, both successful and unsuccessful, and use that knowledge to improve moving forward.
A change in strategy is implemented. You can’t start the process of change and transformation without first doing some serious introspection.
4. Listen to that voice within you.
The basis of many of our limitations is based on fear. We worry that our own self-criticism is correct. The fear that we aren’t good enough, resilient enough, or simply able to achieve happiness sets in.
Stop telling yourself negative things like “I can’t” or “I’m a failure.” That self-critical monologue represents a habitual way of thinking that limits one’s potential. Stop being so hard on yourself and instead try to think upbeat, encouraging ideas.
You may start effectively opposing your restricting habit after you become aware of the places and methods in which you are limiting yourself.
You have the power to stop any self-defeating actions you’re about to take. You may initiate the formation of desirable habits and give yourself a reliable, upbeat inner voice.
5. Modify your usual practices.
Stopping our self-destructive actions requires us to change our destructive routines. Every decision we make either brings us closer to or further from the person and the life we want for ourselves.
The things you’re letting yourself keep doing are the very things that are stopping you from getting what you really want.
Think about the ways in which your current routines and mindset are working against you and preventing you from reaching your full potential for joy and fulfillment. The next step is to start thinking about how you can replace those habits with ones that will help you get where you want to go.
To begin altering our habits, we might have to learn to avoid the kinds of individuals and situations that have elicited less-than-desirable responses from us. Try to avoid or divert the stressful scenario that causes you to respond badly while you work on developing more adaptive coping strategies.
6. Make little, important changes.
Once you’ve identified the improvements you want to make, choose only one thing that you want to work on. If you want to make a difference, baby steps are better than giant leaps.
This is not practical, as such drastic changes are difficult to maintain and are often abandoned. Instead, you should start by making a few significant modifications that will eventually add up to larger ones.
Take a step back and look for one modest, and important adjustment that you can do to set you on a more successful road. If you notice you’re hurting your success by missing deadlines, not following up with leads, or simply being chaotic.
Take five minutes out of your daily routine to straighten up your workspace and create a list of things you need to accomplish if you tend to be unorganized and forgetful.
If you keep falling behind schedule, it’s time to sit down and figure out how to get everything done in a timely manner. The next stage is to take action in the direction of your goals, which will help you achieve them and boost your self-esteem.
7. Make preparations and resolve to succeed.
When we are unprepared, we are more likely to engage in self-defeating actions. When faced with the unexpected, we may feel unsettled and unsteady.
Confidence is lost, and we react adversely to events instead of forging ahead. We give in to defeat and then retreat, feeling helpless and unable to handle anything. The most effective response is to create long-term strategies and objectives to guide your actions.
Having solid, well-considered strategies for each action we do will boost our confidence in our goals and our ability to achieve them. This is something you can accomplish on a regular basis by planning out your reactions to various stimuli.