Do you find yourself self-sabotaging when you consciously know you deserve it? Or you wonder what is stopping you?
Stay to read today’s blog, where I’ll be discussing why and how you can overcome this.
My story
I used to get praise and win the odd award, only to say statements like ‘Oh no I don’t deserve that’ ‘It wasn’t me really.’
Then I used to hide away from responsibility in my jobs because I didn’t think I was capable and even talked myself out of promotions at times. Honestly, I felt like an imposter.
Then, when my self-esteem levels got to an all-time low in 2019, I decided to do something about it. Now I come from a place of love for myself most of the time and my actions are consistent with the stronger self-belief I have in myself.
Why do we think ‘I don’t think I deserve it’ or self sabotage ourselves
From all my mindset research and application, I was curious about this question. Why logically, when you know you deserve it, would you stop yourself? It comes down to subconsciously you have a set of negative beliefs drawn from experience. These are often in the form of:
‘I am not enough’
‘I am not worth’
‘I am useless’
These will come out in all kinds of language and excuses, but these are deep-rooted beliefs. They can come from an early childhood experience when you were perhaps told one of these things or something someone told you. The brain tends to hold on to negative statements too to keep us safe. The mind will then take actions consistent with these negative beliefs if we don’t change them.
Luckily like me and many others, you can change these; therefore there are two things to change:
Beliefs
Actions
Ways to change these
Visualisation
We often have images in our minds of worries or concerns. These can be scary thoughts or pessimistic thoughts. Therefore if we start to picture more positive images, we are likely to feel better. This must be done over and over again. Spending at least 5 minutes a day has become vital for me to visualise my future. Think about where you want to be and picture yourself achieving it and feel how it feels.
Words
The words we say to ourselves and others are critical. Especially for ourselves. Words go into our subconscious, so if we are always using negative words and statements, guess how we will feel? Probably coming from a place of not feeling so great. When I’ve started to say things like ‘I am amazing’ or ‘I love myself unconditionally,’ I’ve suddenly started to take actions consistent with that. Change your language.
Songs
I had to remind myself of this one recently. The lyrics in songs can play an impact on how we feel. Do you like the song with that great beat or tune? Well, make sure you check the lyrics. If the lyrics are things like
‘All by myself… I don’t want to be all by myself’ then we will start to take those kinds of words in. I had to recently delete ‘Feeling a moment’ by Feeder off my Iphone due to the negative words, which is a shame as the song is fantastic.
Podcasts
Would you like to hang out all day with someone like Tony Robbins? Well, you can… just listen to an audible or podcast of Tony. Then you’ll start to hear and pick up the energy and wisdom of Tony. It doesn’t have to be Tony; it could be anyone you admire who has determination in life. I listen to Tony so regularly, most recently listening to his audible ‘Unleash the power within’ it makes me feel like I can achieve anything as long as I get my mindset and action sorted. I feel like I deserve what I want. Listening to uplifting people will help.
Listen to the news, on the other hand; I always feel like it’s such a negative world and I’m doomed.
The people you hang out with
I just touched on podcasts above. Those are people you hang out within the audio world but think about the people you hang out with physically, on the phone or video calls. Do you lift you and make you feel like you can achieve anything? If the answer is no, you probably want to change the people. I’ve luckily usually been good at noticing negative people and moving away from them. Still, in the last few months, I’ve gained so many new friends in the personal development world. They make me feel like I can achieve massive goals, and I’m inspired to hear about their intentions. Other people will try and bring you down, so think about who you hang out with carefully.
Can’t avoid a close friend or family member who is negative? Then don’t talk to them about your goals or ambitions, speak to them about other subjects, and share your goals with uplifting people.
NOW TAKE ACTION
So the previous points I’ve made will help you have more self-belief, self-esteem, and confidence in taking actions. Still, without taking the actions, nothing will change. So the final point is to take action. Make the actions as straightforward as possible. If it scares you, I suggest using Mel Robbin’s 5-second rule technique, where she suggests counting down from 5 to do something.
If you don’t take actions, your brain starts to pick this up, and you will go back to negative beliefs.
Summary
So today, we’ve looked at the reasons why you don’t think you may deserve it. This comes back to subconscious negative beliefs. We can change these though by choosing the information we consume and who we hang out with. Then taking actions consistent with this is vital.
The video can be found HERE
The podcast can be found HERE
Jonny Pardoe © August 2020
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Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash
