Pathwalking 164
How do you determine if you are your own saboteur?
This is a topic unfortunately near and not-so-dear to my heart. This concept has reared its ugly head on more than one occasion for me, and represents a major obstacle in my works to manifest the life I truly desire to have.
How do you sabotage yourself? This is something I have been trying to figure out for much of my life now, and I believe that getting at its roots is the only way I can successfully deal with the idea and end its ability to derail me.
The how of this concept varies, but the simple version is that I do one of several things. I second guess myself. I question my actions and thoughts and feelings on a matter to the point where instead of moving forward I either stand still or move backwards. I delay decisions so that my choices fade. I take actions that are counter to what I want, and invariably tear down what I have been building. I allow distractions to overtake what I should be focusing on, and lose sight of my goal. I jump paths.
All of these actions and inactions can sabotage my path. This has been a recurrent issue throughout my life, applied to relationships, to jobs, to opportunities missed. I will be traversing the desired path, and as I begin to succeed…I get in my own way. I don’t need outside influences conspiring to knock me off my path, I do it to myself with an uncanny skill.
The question this raises is – Why? Why do I do this, and keep doing this? Why do I allow myself to leave my path or worse to actively sabotage myself? What’s the issue here?
I am pretty sure that this all comes down to fear. Though there are very few tangible fears I have, the intangibles are often more powerful and destructive, largely because they are hard to see and as such hard to acknowledge and do anything about.
What kinds of fears am I talking about? Probably in large measure fear of success equal to fear of failure.
Fear of failure most people are familiar with. Nobody wants to fail, we as a society in fact have an unhealthy obsession with success. I say unhealthy because we tend to point to failure and decry it, make fun of it, exploit it. We are so obsessed with the notion that we have to succeed at all costs that when we see failure we apply a great deal of shame and loathing towards it.
We forget that many of the inventions that have made our world a better place were actually the result of failures. The vulcanized rubber tires on your car and Post-It notes being prime examples of this.
I fear failure I suspect for the same reasons most other people do. I don’t want to let anyone down, I don’t want to have to start over, I don’t want to be proven wrong. I don’t want to feel shame, I don’t want to alienate my supporters because I have failed. I don’t want to hurt because I have failed, I don’t want to experience the bad feelings I have been told by my society that I should feel for failing.
Equally powerful, and in many respects more treacherous, there is the fear of success. Everybody wants to succeed, we all want to achieve our goals, we want to successfully negotiate our paths and win. Our society in many respects has an equally unhealthy obsession with success, driving ourselves to the point where we lose sight of and sacrifice happiness and joy to succeed. We tell our children success is a must, and we have actually sacrificed meritocracy for mediocrity so that everyone can experience success.
The pressure to succeed can be so great that we can come to fear its results as much as we fear failing. Why? Because we see many of the so-called “successful” people in our world, and we see them as being alone, being tyrants, being egomaniacal, greedy and power-obsessed.
I fear success for nearly the same reasons I fear failure. I don’t want to let anyone down, I don’t want to have to start over, I don’t want to be proven wrong. I don’t want to feel shame, I don’t want to alienate my supporters because I have succeeded. I don’t want to hurt because I have succeeded, I don’t want to experience the bad feelings I have been told by my society that I should feel for being a success.
Yes, these opposite fears are in many respects precisely the same. They both come down to how my friends, family and loved ones will relate to me. I want so much to keep them close and keep them engaged that I am ultimately afraid of driving them off.
Whether that fear is based in reality or unfounded, it is, I suspect, the root of why I sabotage myself. I have written about fear and its power over me and the rest of the world on numerous occasions here, and it is not an easy thing to banish. What’s worse is that even knowing that this is why I am my own saboteur, it does not make repairing the problem any easier. In truth, it raises more questions.
How do I overcome my fears so that I can stop from sabotaging myself again? This is a question I have never directly asked myself before, and now that I have it is time to explore it, and find some answers. Please join me next week as I explore this particular obstacle along my path.
Do you ever sabotage yourself?
This is the one-hundred sixty-fourth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.
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