If you’re struggling in any endeavour, you’ll probably have a few unconscious saboteurs of your success. What are they? Well, they’re you! Or, to be more specific they are parts of you.
So if you dream of a lifestyle of freedom and unlimited income, but you’re not quite making the grade, there’s a way to uncover these hidden splinters in your mind, which are holding you from success.
“Why would you sabotage your own life?”
Did you know that many of the worlds lottery winners end up regretting their win? Many of them suffer lost relationships and 70% of them lose or spend their money within 5 years or less.
Changing your circumstances financially has an effect on more than just your bank balance. You could lose friends or even a life partner if it throws up some conflict or problem:
Unconscious Saboteurs Of Your Success – Your Own Cognitive Bias
Cognitive bias is an individual’s construction of reality, not necessarily the the objective reality. So if you hold a negative bias towards money, for example, it can act as a subconscious money repellant and stop you from attaining it.
While consciously you may be trying to build a profitable business for example, your unconscious money “tick” keeps you struggling. Why would you do that to yourself? It’s because there’s a payoff. Your subconscious mind is wise and listens to everything you say and think. So if you’re running a “program” in your mind which secretly hates money, or connects some negative attributes to money, it will “keep you safe” by limiting money in your life.
For example, if you believe rich people to be greedy, but you consider yourself generous, there’s a clear conflict if you desire to become rich. How would you reconcile becoming rich when you attribute a negative idea to “the rich”?
Here’s a few commonly held limiting beliefs which you may have some connection with:
- Rich people are greedy
- Money is unspiritual
- Money is the route of all evil
- The rich are deceitful
- You must be dishonest to become rich
- It’s nobler to be poor
Have a look at these statements and rate your agreement with them on a scale of 1-10. 1 = you absolutely agree, and 10 = you completely disagree.
Unconscious Saboteurs Of Your Success – Other Inner Conflicts
Having money might compromise some of your relationships too. Imagine if you suddenly doubled your income overnight. How would that affect your relationships? How would those closest to you see you differently? Would it create any difficulties with friends and family who don’t share your outlook and aspirations?
Do you have any bad habits which might surface when money is no longer limited? What is often cited as an excuse to not giving money to beggars is that “they would only spend it on drugs”! So, if you gave a homeless person some money, they might even drink themselves to death with it, or die from a drug overdose! Therefore you could cause their death, if you believe that.
But apply that same rationnel to yourself becoming wealthy. Do you have any negative habits such as drinking/smoking/drug taking which might be exacerbated when you have more money? Imagine at the same time if you lacked purpose and direction, how damaging this could be if you suddenly had large amounts of money to spend.
Sometimes your subconscious mind is keeping you safe by not allowing you to succeed past a certain level. Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap, calls this the upper limit problem, and it can surface in some negative event which sabotages your success.
Unconscious Saboteurs Of Your Success -Identity/Self Image
One of the biggest obstacles to success is that it would change your identity. Your self image, or identity is a large part of your model of the world. It’s a strong piece of the jigsaw which holds your world view together.
Your self image is often made up of the people in your life, your job, your purpose, and your place in the world. Having a big money shift can change a lot of things at once and damage your self image.
You might quit your job and lose your friends for example. This can be dangerous to your mental and physical health.
It’s well known that someone aged from 40-60 suffers a mid life crisis – a period of transition in life where someone struggles with their identity and self-confidence.
Sudden changes in circumstances can trigger these kinds of events and knock your confidence and direction in life.
Uncovering Your Success Blockers
So there’s some of the reasons why someone might sabotage their own success, whether they admit it or not. Often these things are sitting below the radar of the conscious mind and you haven’t even thought about them. Shining a light on these “success blockers” is a good way to get them out in the open. Once you do, you can have a conversation with yourself about them which can help bring clarity to the situation.
If, on the surface, you feel as though you’re struggling to attain something which never materialises, these could be your reasons to never quite get there, wherever “there” is! To help uncover some of your own, personal success blockers, make a list of all the potential reasons why you might NOT really want the success you say you want.
Success brings challenges – people will see you differently, it could change your relationships. You might face loneliness, separation and people might start asking you for handouts. Once you see these potential challenges and face them, they have a lesser hold over you. Once you have spent some time writing out your reasons NOT to succeed, write down all the reasons you want success.
- Write out all the reasons which might be holding you from taking action towards success
- Write out why you want success – how your life will be different, the benefits
Look At Your Lists
Did you learn anything from this exercise? If you haven’t done the exercise I highly recommend it. I learned a lot from writing out these two lists. In particular, I found I had a huge list reasoning why I shouldn’t be successful. I uncovered a lot of fear associated with success. My list holding me back was pretty long and filled with fears about the negative consequences of attaining wealth:
- How I would perceive myself differently (identity)
- How others would see me (negatively)
- The person that I would have to become (and the conflicts this brought up)
But on the positive side, I also found a number of reasons why I wanted success, many of which were practical reasons such as:
- Paying off debt
- Living where I wanted
- Being free of a job/boss
Unconscious Saboteurs Of Your Success – Summary
There’s many reasons why you might be struggling with attaining success on the surface which you may or may not be already aware of. But there’s also a bunch of reasons why you are unconsciously sabotaging your own success in more covert ways.
Pay attention to how you speak of yourself and your inner dialogue which runs in your head. Who do you hang around with and what are their views on you becoming successful? Do they value success or see it in the same way as you?
“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” – Jim Rohn
If your mind is predominantly filled with plans for your success and positivity, you are probably well on your way to the life you choose. However, if you fill you mind with contrary thoughts and negative influence, your subconscious mind has no option but to deliver results of a likeness to the thoughts and emotions you continually give energy to.
As Napoleon Hill shares in his book Think And Grow Rich: “The mind is a fertile garden spot in which weeds will grow in abundance if seeds of a more desirable nature are not sewn therein”.
By uncovering the ideas which you hold dear in your mind, you are becoming more conscious of them. When you do, you can become a more active “player” in the story of your life, rather than a victim of your unconscious bias. This way you are becoming a more conscious creator, rather than letting your unconscious mind sabotage your best intentions with unconscious counter-intentions.