The Real Reason Why You’re Sabotaging Your Goals
Even though you know it’s making you miserable
Have you ever set goals, only to procrastinate on taking action?
Or committed to change but sabotaged every step?
Maybe you even know exactly what you want from life. Yet, year on year, find yourself stuck somewhere else.
When I first started my business I thought I’d done everything right.
I completed an MSc, specialising in female success, following years of independent research. I trained as a coach. I had a background in sales and marketing.
Launching my business as a Female Performance Coach should have been a breeze right?
Yet day after day I found reasons to not do the work.
After two years of oscillating between motivation and sabotage, I burnt myself out.
Stepping back, I realised the problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do.
Or that I wasn’t capable of working through fear, failing fast, getting scrappy or any of the other silicone valley cliches.
The problem was that, deep down, I didn’t believe I deserved what I was working for.
The sabotage gremlins
You see, whenever I started to see success, I’d change tracks and start over.
Like I was repeatedly hitting an invisible ceiling that broke me mentally.
The leading psychologist in the field of self-esteem, Nathaniel Brandon, tells us that there are two key elements of self-esteem:
The confidence we have in our own ability to be able to do things, and the belief that we are worthy of success and happiness.
Without having these two things it doesn’t matter how many performance hacks we use, mindset strategies we employ or big crazy actions we take.
We will always bring ourselves back down to the limits of our self-esteem.
(Btw: Read his book here, it’s phenomenal. You really should stop reading this and go buy it now — actually don’t. Finish this article, clap lots — send it to a friend and then go and buy the book)
Trying to take action without having self-esteem is like wearing a rock on your ankle and entering a swimming race. Competence doesn’t matter, you’re held back from the start.
But rest easy, because both these elements can be built by anyone.
Switching your mindset
The journey starts when you stop trying to build a house on wobbly foundations and instead focus instead on strengthening your foundations,
Because I know that if you are here reading this, then you are a sharp, driven, competent and resourceful person who is fully capable of realising your ambitions.
And I’d hedge a bet that deep down you know that too.
But I also know that until you believe that, nothing will change.
So here’s the secret.
Stop with the courses, the books, and the performance hacks.
Turn your 5am alarm off, stop creating plans and PLEASE stop the endless beating yourself up.
Instead, change your focus to building your self-esteem.
But how?!
Your journey to self-esteem starts with identifying which pillar needs building, or maybe it's both!
If you need to build confidence in your ability to do, then start with parallel experiences.
That is, things that don’t trigger but test you. Set a challenge and create a clear deadline and outcome.
- Meditate daily for 30 days straight
- Complete a couch to 5k
- Learn to sing the song you love most and do it in public
- Write a poem and ask for feedback
- Take a shuffle class
However if, like me, you don’t believe you are worthy of success, then you need a different strategy.
Now word of warning, this can feel counterintuitive. Even pointless.
But the way to prove to yourself that you are worthy of success is to act in a way that reinforces the idea that you are worthy as a person. Without needing to prove yourself to others.
Instead, you can build your worth from the inside out by doing things for yourself that serve no other purpose than because you deserve it, or you want it.
You can:
- Make a list of your favourite childhood foods and get one today
- Schedule in the thing that makes your soul feel nourished
- Call in sick and spend a day reading in cafes
- Invest in the pointlessly expensive hoodie because it makes you feel snuggly
- Clean your bedsheets because you deserve a fresh bed
- Make a delicious candlelight dinner for one because you damn well earn to enjoy the food you are putting into your body
Moving from goals to self-esteem
When you stop focusing on your goals and instead focus build yourself up from the inside out a beautiful thing happens.
You end up pursuing your ambitions anyway, but from a place of wanting to, not from trying to prove you are enough.
Your motivation becomes intrinsic. Your journey becomes driven by joy. Best of all? You lose the insidious fear that if you fail it’s becausethat you are a failure.
And when that switch happens, I promise you, the growth is more powerful than you could ever imagine.
