Watch Your Words! 7 steps to beat self-sabotage

Have you noticed that some of your great intentions just never make it through to reality?

Why is it that you can’t seem to initiate or sustain those positive changes in your life that you had decided on? Sometimes you may make a start, then after a while, things begin to go back to the old ways again. You may think: “At least I know that I can do it, and I’ll start again when the timing is better in my life.” Sound familiar?

Also familiar might be that when you try to implement these changes again, the same thing happens! After a while, you revert to the old ways once again.

So why can’t you keep it going? You’ve made up your mind to make these changes happen, and even proven to yourself that you can (for a while at least), so what’s the problem??

Whilst you’ve taken great steps in making some changes in your life, you may not have considered how you talk to yourself – I mean really talk to yourself!

The words you use may not seem to be such a big deal, but the words in your head are actually very powerful, and the way in which you talk to yourself is likely to be right in line with how your life is panning out and whether or not you are able to achieve your goals. So watch your words!

Especially important are the words that may be buried underneath the outside ‘chatter’ of your mind: the softer voice that holds words of deeper meaning for you, and the voice that holds your self-beliefs. These are the words that matter when it comes to progressing your intentions to the world of reality. Whilst the readily accessible voice in your head might help to formulate great intentions, and affirm you for being so motivated, the deeper, quieter voice might already be saying: “No you won’t!” or “No you can’t!” and you probably already know which voice will win out in the end!

So how do you stop this powerful and sometimes hard-to-hear voice from interfering and sabotaging your intentions and efforts? The following steps should help:

1. When you announce your great intentions to yourself, notice whether there is a little voice rejecting it in some way, such as: “No you won’t,” or “No you can’t.”

2. Ask a question of the little voice – “Why not?”; and importantly:

3. Notice the response. It might be something like: “Because you never follow through,” or “You’re not smart enough to do that,” or “Some people (mother, father, friend) won’t like it” or something else. These are the words that are dragging you down!

4. Try to understand why you hold on to these words (typically you hold them from earlier experiences in your life.)

5. Ask yourself whether these words are still valid today for you. Perhaps they were when you were younger, but do you really want these words to determine your life now?

6. It’s time to let the negative ‘put-downs’ go, and form new words to take their place.

7. Your new and positive affirmations are now the words to repeat often to yourself so that they can become your new beliefs and the new words spoken by that little powerful voice in your head.

Now you are in a much better position to succeed with the changes that you wish to see in your life!

Finally, don’t hesitate to seek professional help to assist with debunking the words that are sabotaging your efforts to move forward.