Best Of: Dealing With Self Sabotage

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Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendan show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes online to take of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on.

Some stages across the world.

Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're going to really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts even in these special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategies that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendon.com monthly that's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon show's best of trainings.

How come I keep sabotaging myself? You know, I get a little momentum and then I stop. I get excited for my goals and then I stop. I know I shouldn't be doing this one bad habit, but I keep going back to it over and over and over again. Why is it I keep getting in my own way all the time? If you've struggled with that or known anyone who has, you're going to love this training. Beware of labels. You know, well, Brendan, I'm self sabotaging all the time. Really? Is that what it is for you? Oh, Brendan, it must be self sabotage. Here I go again. Is it really self sabotage? You know, the term self sabotage became very, very popular in the late 80s, early 90s, and everybody thought they had it like an affliction. Like, you know, like people think they have an addiction to coffee Today is what everyone thought they had back then. It was like, oh, must be self sabotage. Everyone blamed that for it. Sometimes it's not self sabotage. Okay, maybe the label is, I'm just lazy today. That's okay. Maybe the label really is there's a lot of fear right now. Maybe the label is you're uncomfortable with all the change going on in your life, so you're scared to get out into the fight again. Maybe the label is really that right now it's just procrastination because you don't have a map, you don't know how to begin. Like, you're a driven person, but you're just unsure of what that next step is. And I say all those examples because maybe what it is, it's not really self sabotage. Self sabotage means you know what you want, you are working towards it, but you keep getting in your own way by running old patterns, routines, or beliefs that prevent you from ever possibly having it. Meaning basically, you're your own worst enemy, right? You've got this clear goal, and as you move towards it, you do things almost on purpose to prevent you from getting at it. Now, a lot of people say, well, self sabotage is unconscious. And I'm like, that's an interesting conversation, but in the short amount of time we have right here, I can't conduct a therapy session with you. So I don't know. I do know that most people miscategorize self sabotage even when they say it's unconscious. What they're really saying is that right now people are having difficulty making decisions and setting up habits and commitments that move them forward. And so they do things that are easily triggered from past circumstances. They do a habit that they know they shouldn't. They know they shouldn't be angry with people because that Prevents them from moving forward. But they keep getting triggered and they're angry or they have these beliefs about themselves that, you know, well, I'm not good enough. And so even though as they try to achieve good things in their life, they sabotage, as soon as they get a little momentum, they go, well, you know, I'm going to mess this up. And they stop. And that's what really self sabotage is. It's as you're getting momentum, you sabotage it by questioning yourself, by questioning the process, by questioning the struggle. It's the question in momentum that makes you stop. That is really self sabotage. See, it's not a label. It's not, you are a saboteur. It's not like you are an awful person. The label of self sabotage is usually misapplied. It's really just what's happening is you're asking yourself questions just as you get going, just as things are gonna turn out well, just as soon as the relationship seems really great, you start saying, but what if he's a real ass? Or what if I'm going to get my heart broken again? And you pull back. It's the question as things are going good that is the root of real self sabotage. The questions we ask about ourself, our worth, our capabilities. So let's not just say it's a big label of self sabotage. Let's just get down to it. The real label is you're asking yourself questions that are disempowering right as things get going well. So our job is to say what's going well in my life and where am I questioning myself? That's sort of being a hindrance to momentum that's slowing me down. That's the real insight and the real look into self sabotage. Because again, if you don't have any momentum, trust me, it's not self sabotage. It's just you haven't begun, you have limiting beliefs in other areas of your life that are preventing you from even beginning. Or like I said, you, it's fear, it's procrastination, you're not beginning. And if you're not beginning, that's not self sabotage. If you're not beginning, it's fear, it's lack of a plan, it's procrastination, it's worry, it's a million other things that we could label it. If it's self sabotage, it means you've got momentum and you keep stopping as things are getting good because you question yourself. Does that help? I just want to clarify that a little bit more because People often think that they're self sabotaging. And I'm like, you haven't even started. Trust me, you're not self sabotaging. Right? If you think about a great spy movie, the sabotage happens as momentum is happening, right? They've got the nuclear weapon on the train and it's going along, right? It's going exactly where it's supposed to be. Everything's going great. And now the saboteur comes in and derails the tracks. So remember, without momentum, there's really not self sabotage. The second thing that we're going to have to do for you is to help you learn not to catastrophize. What that mean is sometimes people think they're self sabotaging and they're really not. They're beating themselves up for these little things that they're globalizing and making big things. They have a temporary setback and they go, oh, here I am self sabotaging. It must be my childhood from, you know, when I was in third grade. And usually it's like, dude, you forgot to take a shower today. Calm the hell down. You know what I'm saying? It's like they make something so big. And your job in getting more perspective about who you are and where you're going in life is to just step back and go, am I making a really big deal about this? Am I hating on myself for no real reason? I mean, it's like death by a million paper cuts for a lot of people. You know, it's just like they do all these little things and they make them all these big things and then they stop the momentum. Let me give you like a tangible example. Like if you have a fight in your relationship, all of a sudden that fight in the relationship, you say, oh, well, clearly here I am self sabotaging once more. You know what? Relationships for me just don't work. And you kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater, as they say. You globalize. The problem isn't just this fight or this argument. It's the overall relationship, your overall life, the overall world. You globalize. You make everything a big problem. And what we've learned from learned helplessness studies is that you also make that problem permanent. They like to talk about in psychology, this sort of challenge that a lot of pessimists have is they often make a problem pervasive. So it applies to all parts of their life and permanent. They believe it's going to be there forever and personal, they're the cause of it. They're always going to be the problem. Everything's awful. That's called learning to helplessness. And, and that has a lot to do with self sabotage is that we make a big, a little problem, a big problem that we believe is going to be a problem forever and that we're always messing it up. When the reality is that little problem, it's just temporary. If you have a mindset that you can learn and grow, that you can work yourself through that little problem, everything will be fine. You'll work yourself through, you'll figure it out. So it's not going to be a problem next week and next month and that. You know what? You got this. If you've ever been to High Performance Academy, you hear me saying this over and over and over again. One of the most powerful and important personal beliefs that you can ever have that will help you end self sabotage is this. I believe in my ability to figure things out. You got this, you know, this problem you have in your life, you can chunk it down and just take it bit by bit and move through it. It's almost like you have to learn to compartmentalize your problems a little bit. A problem right here in this part of your life doesn't have to mean everything else in your life is horrible. And that's a big thing that self saboteurs do. They have one problem here and they make it apply to everything over here. Oh well, work went bad. So I'm going to be an ass at home and I'm not going to dream for anymore and I'm going to set up bad habits. And it's like they let a problem snowball into this big thing and that's why they're really self destructing as they're going along is they're letting things snowball into all of the areas of life. It's the guy who can't let a bad workday live at work and walk into his house and be cool as a father. It's like they're not compartmentalizing. So they are, they're sabotaging their relationships because they're allowing all the other problems in their life to, to come into the relationship. Does that make sense? And so you have to say, okay, is there any struggles I'm having in my life that I'm letting be too big of a deal that's holding me back from being good or helpful or happy in other parts of my life. And that's a really good activity for all of us to do on a continual basis. I like to set up habits for things as you know. So set up a Sunday habit to ask yourself there any problem I had this week that I allowed to bleed into everything else? And just by asking that question, you get more awareness in your life. With more awareness, the more ability to change. So have a look at yourself and say, are there any problems I'm having in my life that I'm making too big in a way that they're invading other parts of my life and slowing me down? Because that's where self sabotage usually happens. One little problem becomes a snowball, wrecks a life. All of a sudden the train with the nuclear weapon blows up from one little problem. Okay? So really pay attention to that. I want you to make sure that you don't catastrophize. Next time a problem comes up, look at it and say, okay, I'm going to box this problem in a little bit. I'm going to see where does that problem really live. I'm going to understand the boundaries of that problem and realize it doesn't have to affect everything in my life. For right now, here's what it is. I recognize the boundaries and then I believe I can figure this out and start working at that problem specifically, don't avoid it. Most problems in our personal growth come from avoidance. I want you to pay attention to it. Don't make it bigger than it is. See it for what it is and start addressing it.

All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor, go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. Just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendon show because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendon.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like you just heard. But we do that every single month and there's some live Q and A there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B R E N D O N show.