5 Shocking Self-Sabotaging Patterns That Are Keeping You Stuck

We inhabit a dimension where we constantly point fingers at everything around us but ourselves when our plans are falling apart, or our expectations are not met. However, did we ever ask ourselves, “What if our most formidable enemy is us instead of the circumstances?”

More often than not, we make ourselves the victim of our own problems due to some level of validity that exists there. “I fail to secure a job because the pandemic has brought the world to its knees,” for instance, is not entirely absurd. However, it is not entirely true either.

Were you able to secure employment? Definitely. Is the pandemic still ongoing? You bet. Is the pandemic making your job hunt more difficult? Undoubtedly. However, have other people secured new jobs that they have appreciated during the global health crisis? Absolutely.

Here is an observation of mine that is worth sharing with you: frequently, the circumstances that we confront might make the situation more unbearable, but that does not mean they are the reason we fail to fulfil our goals. The reason we are nowhere near accomplishing our goals is that we choose not to let ourselves. That decision can be conscious or subconscious in nature.

It is through comprehending that crucial realisation that we can educate ourselves on how to get out of our own way and permit ourselves to begin the process of attaining what we have come to believe is unattainable.

All that being said, we are presented with a somewhat big question: how do we do that? More specifically, how do we paralyse and thus prevent ourselves from seeking the version of ourselves that we yearn to be?

1. By becoming a people pleaser.

Every time you place other people’s needs before your own, you use their needs as a pathetic reason not to fulfil your own. You reject how much you believe you are worth and how much everyone else can believe you are worth.

By behaving as though you are a pseudo-martyr, your subconscious system kicks in and convinces your entire being that your time and goals are not as essential as everyone else’s.

Subsequently, you have every reason to falsely believe that you should be staying exactly where you are.

2. By overthinking the options on the table.

The more options available to you, the more the paradox of choice comes into high gear. By definition, the greater the number of choices available to us, the more difficult it is for us to make any level-headed decision at all.

Until we make a definite, sound decision, we are simply thinkers, not doers. Any option can bring us there, but by examining and reexamining every one of them, all you are doing is throwing time away and keeping your brain stuck.

3. By keeping the most impactful actions for the eleventh hour.

Instead of dragging your lazy ass from the bed, Netflix and Facebook immediately, you convince yourself you will come to those needle-moving actions tomorrow or another day and that you are never too late.

However, before you know it, time is working against you, and you have not crossed off a tiny bit of the mission-critical activities necessary to actually drive you forward.

4. By dodging the need to make a committed choice.

Or making a choice but continuing to examine all the other options available to you.

Every second spent continuing to manoeuvre around the choice is a second taken away from the action that could actually get you closer to where you want to be.

By not choosing any path, you can be assured of one thing: you will continue to stay right where you are.

5. By understanding the “how” but working against it anyways.

Instead of following the roadmap that clearly takes you to the goal you wish to accomplish, you find yourself taking the opposite action anyways.

You make false convictions as to why consuming a chocolate bar is not a big deal, even though you have been trying relentlessly to lose weight.

You make excuses in your head about why it is okay that you push off updating your resume and applying to the job for another twenty-four hours, even though you mentioned that same thing every day for the past several days.

Something inside of you is malfunctioning, and it needs to be rectified. Otherwise, you will cycle in circles for the rest of your life.

Final Thoughts

All of these behaviours cheekily keep us from discovering our full potential and thus accomplishing our goals. So much so that we do not even comprehensively acknowledge them as obstacles.

However, as we obtain more insights into how those obstacles operate and how they rise to the surface in the first place, we also gain the opportunity to take new, more beneficial actions when confronted with them.

Hence, it is in this way that we cease viewing ourselves as the antagonist and choose to be our own greatest ally. By simply recognising and starting to recognise these self-sabotaging behaviours, we get the gears spinning and develop a new way forward. One that gives us the ability to take the next course of action towards liberating ourselves, growing, and fully unlocking our next level identities.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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