I can’t. 

These two words are two of the most dream-killing words in the dictionary. 

Heres the twist though you may never in your life say “ I can’t ” but your subconscious knows you don’t think you are enough. Then you subconsciously create outcomes that reinforce you not being enough. 

Change Your Thinking Habits

In the New York Times Best Seller "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, he writes about 3 ways to approach motivation in changing a habit. External, Action, Internal. Many people approach change with an external or action motivator.

Example: When trying to lose weight

• External Motivator:  I’m going to lose 30 lbs.
• Action Motivator: I am going to follow the Keto Diet and workout 5 times a week 
• Internal Motivator: I am a person who takes care of my body

 

When your motivator is external and you happen to not lose weight at the rate you expect then you say forget it where's the pizza and you fail to change the habit. 

When the motivator is action, what happens when you miss a workout or two, you start feeling bad about yourself and say forget it.

James Clear states to change a habit then you need to start with the internal, change the way you see yourself. An identity-based change. 

When you begin to identify as a person who takes care of their body you’ve associated pride with the task and the habit becomes much easier to change because the internal reward is much higher.

Being proud of yourself. 

How Do You Become?

How does this apply to self-sabotage?

Whatever you think you are sabotaging, you must first see yourself as that type of person.

If it’s making a YouTube Channel, you must see yourself as a YouTuber.

Or if your a business owner and you trying to grow your company, you must see yourself as a successful business owner... even before it happens.

This is the first step to changing the self-sabotaging behavior.

Change the way you view your identity. 

Then in part two of that you Reverse Goal Set and ask yourself what qualities does a person who is a successful YouTuber have.

They probably are :

• confident,
• vulnerable,
• consistent,
• entertaining,
• tech savvy,
• research,
• and collaborative etc. 

Then you will one by one pick one of those attributes and level up in that one thing.

In the above example let’s take confidence, you would brainstorm what you could do to be more confident behind the camera.

Is it :

• get a confidence coach,
• binge watch Youtube videos on building confidence,
• is it wearing your favorite shirt.

You begin to methodically up-skill the items you have identified to be successful. 

 

But remember always start with seeing yourself as it is already done first. 

Because ultimately if you don’t believe in you know one else will. 

 

When Is The First Time You Felt This Way?

The other thing you can do when it comes to self sabotage is think of the first time you saw this pattern in your life.

I guarantee you this is not an isolated issue.

If your the type of person that always quits, then when was the first time you quit something?

Think back to why you quit can you find any incites about underlying motive for quitting.

Often times self sabotage is based in other emotions, like fear, loss of love abandonment etc.

I can give you an example.

I remember when I first started being an entrepreneur I would try and bring anyone and everyone along with me.

So excited for this new found awesomeness I had uncovered I wanted everyone to know.

Friends.

Family.

Basically anyone.

But one thing that started happening.

People started saying I thought I was better than them.

Those are the ones that decided to never even try.

Then there were those who did try and hit a stumbling block and quit.

Then they turned on me because I suggested it and believed in them.

Rather than seeing it as part of the process to get better they quit and in a lot of cases, I lost the relationship. 

 

This baffled me for many years.

You know what happened I subconsciously began playing smaller.

I began to have huge dips in my business ... and I finally realized I was sabotaging myself. 

 

I use journaling to process my thoughts.

One day I opened my journal and it hit me. 

 

It was a cloudy overcast day in Colorado.

The air was thick with that deep earthy smell of fresh rain.

I was in my room with my new Home Goods Macrame lamp I had got that day. The lamp gave off soft warm lighting on my journal.

I had on my favorite forest green sweater and an ex-boyfriend's grey sweatpants.

There was a Studio Ghibli pen on the ground.

You see anytime I feel really down like life is not working I clear my head with my journal.

I never really felt understood by anything but my journal.

As I was thinking about recent fallouts with people I really love friends, family, and acquaintances over trying to help them start their business the truth emerged.

I loved these people and wanted nothing but the best for them.

But people can only meet you how far they have met themselves.

These fallouts had nothing to do with me.

I was shrinking and playing small because I loved them.

I didn’t want them to see me negatively or for them to think I was better than them.

I wanted to love them and be loved by them.

But what I realized is you can drag someone to the next level that has to come from within. By doing so I was lowering both our lights.

I had to evolve independently of the people around me.

Give myself permission to live life on my terms and release them to do the same.  

 

I closed my journal. 

 

You see how my self-sabotage revealed itself.

It wasn’t clear to me. I had to get still.

I was unconsciously muzzling my greatness so I could keep the people closest to me comfortable.

What I concluded instead of not living my dream so others wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

I stopped pushing entrepreneurship at everyone.

Honestly, not everyone is designed for this self-motivating, tough at times lifestyle.

Instead, I found a tribe of people that were going for their dreams like I was and my family and friends I talked other things. I no longer shared that with them so neither of us would be uncomfortable. 

 

Sometimes self-sabotage whispers. 

 

You must listen and behavior modify so your dreams don’t die.