Stopping Self-Sabotage (So You Can Finally Reach Your Goals)
Why your internal thermostat won't let you go beyond a certain level of success...
I started listening to the book The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks.
Again.
I listened to it some time ago but forgot all about it.
(This is why it’s OK to cover the same topics again and again. We people are terrible at remembering things!)
In the book, Gay talks about how we have an Upper Limit problem. That is, once we reach past a certain point of success that’s comfortable for us (our upper limit), we self-sabotage so we can get back to where we’re comfortable.
It’s like we have an internal thermostat set for every area of our lives, and once it reaches a certain point, it kicks on and brings the temperature back down.
If you’ve ever lost weight and then gained it back again, you know exactly what I mean.
That’s happened to me several times.
I can focus on losing weight for a short time. But once I hit my goal, I return to my old habits, and my comfortable weight thermostat kicks in.
This is something I also struggle with when it comes to money.
I have a goal of making it to $5,000 + per month with writing and simple digital products.
$5,000 is a good amount of money, but it’s not a lot. It shouldn’t be hard to create it consistently every month.
I can make it to $1,000.
But I can’t seem to make it past that amount. (Yet!)
As soon as I start to see success, I pull back. I lose focus. I lose interest. I want to burn it all down and start a brand-new project.
I self-sabotage.
The good news? Now that I see it happening, I can do something about it.
Why does this happen in the first place?
I’m still learning from the book what the causes might be, but it could stem from events in our early childhood.
I still remember (and cringe) when my divorced parents would fight about who was going to pay for my braces. (Money causes problems.)
Or it could come from other life-altering situations.
When I lost my cushy, high-paying job at a credit card company, I was happy about it because I hated that job and I wanted to be home with my kids. It was perfect timing for me.
But it caused a lot of financial stress that my husband still brings up sometimes. (Money causes problems.)
(I deliberately manifested that job loss, but that’s another story for my Master of Manifesting Substack.)
Maybe your life stories are different, but I bet you have things from your past that still hold your mind hostage.
And therefore you have your own internal thermostat you’re dealing with.
How do we combat this?
We have to reset our thermostat, and then raise it up.
Gay says we like to operate in our Zone of Excellence. This is where we excel and where we’re comfortable.
But we want to get to our Zone of Genius. This is a level-up and is uncomfortable (at first). It’s where we’ll easily crush our goals, feel fulfilled, let the money flow, and inspire others.
(Note: Gay goes into how to find your Zone of Genius in the book.)
From what I’ve learned, the most important thing you can do is recognize when you’ve hit your Upper Limit. Once you begin to see you’re starting to self-sabotage, you can stop and reflect on why it’s happening.
Then you can let it go and focus on the good that’s going to come from leveling up. If you start to feel anxious, stop and breathe. Then start creating a positive chain of thoughts.
“I’ve hit my upper limit, but that’s a good thing! It means I’m ready to take a new leap into something new and exciting. I can’t wait to see how this goes.”
Your anxious feelings are usually an indicator that you’re afraid. It comes out in these ways:
“I can’t try this new thing. I don’t have time for it.”
“My family won’t want me to do that, and I have to be with my family.”
“I read about how no one makes money doing that on the internet. It’s best not to waste my time.”
In other words, we make excuses not to try something new because deep down we’re afraid to fail.
Once we “see” it, we can brush the fear of failure off, and take the big leap.
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I found for me since we all have comfort zones, is to make mine about living outside my comfort zone as my new comfort zone. So it was consistently going beyond what I would normally do in just about everything from Extreme Parasailing to walking across the island of Cebu, Philippines and now building a One Person Billion Dollar Publishing business with the help of AI. I am challenged every day in almost everything I do. Sometimes my head feels like its going to explode. haha. But the next morning I feel fine and ready to push the boundaries again. I have to be careful when I take a needed rest and relaxation that I am not tempted to drift into a new status quo comfort zone. So far, so good.
Mel
I love this, Christina!
I actually overcame a similar problem by signing up for a $10K mindset coach. I was so nervous the entire time—I can’t even describe how uncomfortable it was! I’m not saying everyone should go that route, but it really opened my eyes to how much of it was my own mindset that kept me broke for nearly 40 years.