Can I Please Stop Second-Guessing and Self-Sabotaging Myself?
I would very much like to be done second-guessing and self-sabotaging.
Despite the effort I have been making for over a decade to live life on my own terms, choosing my own paths – there is an ongoing challenge I can never seem to shake.
Every path I choose, every approach I take, even when I am being super-mindful – I am second-guessing and self-sabotaging.
Having just finished reading Gary John Bishop’s Stop Doing that Sh*t: End Self-Sabotage and Demand Your Life Back, I have a much clearer view of the how and why of my self-sabotaging behaviors.
That clarity is great. Now it’s up to me to apply it.
I am going to share this with you now because I believe that might be the best means by which I can stop doing it.
How am I second-guessing and self-sabotaging?
According to Mr. Bishop, self-sabotage comes from conclusions that were made long ago that embed themselves into your subconscious. There, they are rooted – and jam up the works when said conclusions are challenged.
Mr. Bishop asserts that there are three conclusions we draw that becomes the root of self-sabotage.
Conclusion one – the self
Is the root of my self-sabotage based on the long-ago made conclusion that I am unworthy? Do I keep sabotaging myself because what I have concluded about myself is that I’m not worth it? Is that why I sabotage my jobs, my relationships, my health, my everything? Does it all, when it comes to me, boil down to a conclusion made long ago that I am not worthy?
When and why did I conclude that? Probably when dad and mom divorced? That’s the most logical point of origin.
Conclusion two – other people
Okay, other people conclusion. Have I concluded that people are capricious? Judgmental? Volatile? Unreliable? Some combination of all the above? When it comes to my family it is definitely judgmental. But what about the likes of that infuriating acquaintance? Is it more that people are inconsistent?
I think the overall conclusion is that people are capricious. Maybe simpler – people are inconsistent. But it’s somewhere on the above spectrum that my conclusion of what people are lies.
Conclusion three – life
Life conclusion. This one is hard. I am uncertain exactly what it is, but I have worked a long time to avoid it, bury it, and disregard it. Ironically – the opposite of my overall approach to (non-toxic) positivity.
Life is unfair. But that’s not quite it. Life is challenging. Maybe it’s more like life is unreasonable? Or maybe life is painful. Arduous. As I consider the possibilities, I think the conclusion I reached is this: Life is an unfair uphill battle.
It’s not so hard to see these three saboteurs for what they are in this light. If my default conclusions – all negative – are that I am unworthy, people are capricious, and life is an unfair uphill battle? Those deep-rooted beliefs, unattended, keep me repeating the same shit over and over.
All these conclusions I determined after considering what Mr. Bishop’s book shared. As I have sat with and chewed on them for a few weeks, now, I’m convinced these are it.
Here’s the thing – they can’t be altered, changed, or undone. Identifying them is all well and good – but Mr. Bishop says you can’t use them as the basis for change. Because you cannot change from the past to get to the future.
It all needs to begin in the now. This moment. And that means, of course, conscious awareness via mindfulness.
Awesome. Now for the snag.
Second-guessing and self-sabotaging in the now
Here I am, mindful and consciously aware. And frustrated as all get out.
Why? Because in the here and now I have a broad litany of challenges, issues, and frankly problems.
I had started to write them out – but that is, truth be told, another form of self-sabotage. I am not ignoring them – I can’t. But neither will I empower them by whining about them here.
Here and now, I can recognize and acknowledge how I am engaging with those self-sabotaging conclusions and work from the now, where they don’t live.
Ah, but in the now, their cousin is alive and well: Second-guessing.
I just paused to write in my journal, and as I did, I started to second-guess myself. It went something like this: What if I’m just fooling myself here? Am I truly cut out to be my own brand and make my way as an author/entrepreneur? Is it time I just accept that I am much better off working for someone else and being their number two?
Both part-time jobs I have can be expanded in different ways. Each could, along that way, allow me a modicum of the freedom I desire that is part of what drives me to build my brand as an author.
And if all the second-guessing I’ve shared above isn’t self-sabotaging – and I don’t recognize and acknowledge it as such – I don’t know what is. And worse, if I don’t recognize and acknowledge it I’ll never stop doing it.
The questions above totally play into all three of my delf-sabotaging conclusions. Since I am unworthy, people are inconsistent, and life is an unfair, uphill battle – fuck it.
That’s not just how it reads – that more-or-less exactly what those thoughts above say. Self-sabotage.
I am not my thoughts or feelings
Rereading Gary John Bishop’s Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life, there is a whole chapter dedicated to this notion.
You are not your thoughts.
Tied to that, not only am I not my thoughts – but I am not my feelings, either.
This is important because second-guessing and self-sabotaging originate as thoughts. The brain weasels chittering away, telling me I am unworthy and undeserving, that people are inconsistent, and life is an unfair uphill battle make me feel bad. And that combination of thought and feeling gives them agency in my head.
All of this plays into my subconsciousness. While I could do a deep dive and try to root it out – that’s not all that productive.
Instead, I need to be here, now. Mindful. Consciously aware of my current, conscious thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
Then I need to take action to drive my life. Actions that move beyond the second-guessing and self-sabotaging thoughts and feelings. And starting them here and now, in the present, mindfully, circumvents the subconscious conclusions that cause second-guessing and self-sabotaging.
In the words of Yoda
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
I’ve got this. Recognizing and acknowledging my second-guessing and self-sabotaging behaviors is the key to acting on my own behalf rather than letting them derail me.
While I can’t necessarily stop the second-guessing and self-sabotaging thoughts and feelings, I can leave them behind by taking intentional actions. With mindfulness and by being present in the now, I am empowered to make it so.
Deep breath. I’ve got this. And I will keep getting this.
What do you do when you find that you second-guess or self-sabotage yourself?
This is the five-hundred and thirty-fifth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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