How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself in Order to Create the Life that You WANT

August 9th, 2011

When you’re feeling like your life is off track or that you’ve lost sight of who you really are, it can be tough to know where to begin. It can also feel like no matter what you do or try, that you’re always sabotaging yourself or constantly ending up at square one, with no progress to show.
You’re not incapable of making changes, you’re just missing an important piece of the puzzle.

Why you can’t get to where you WANT to be…

This is something I learned from the fabulous Bryan Franklin at Rich Happy Hot Live last year. Brian’s talk was focused around the ecology of self sabotage.
In short, our ecology is the environment supporting our life and is made up of our community, stories about our life and our relationships. Our willpower (the strength to ACT) gets us to where we are now. Because of our ecology, when we attempt to move forward from where we are now to where we want to be… we experience the rubber band effect of constantly snapping back to the now and we assume that we are sabotaging ourselves. In reality, our ecology simply doesn’t support where we WANT to be.
This is awesome news. Why? Because you can change your ecology.

How to create an ecology that supports what you want:

1) Start by creating an ecology that supports the NOW.

You MUST BEGIN by creating an ecology that supports the NOW. When your life now becomes sustainable, supported by those around you and easily maintained without much willpower on your end, you then have the ability to take the next step forward toward where you want to be.
Ask yourself, how do I make NOW sustainable? How can I love and approve of where I’m at? And more importantly, how do I do this in a way that builds the supporting framework for where I want to be?

2) Be mindful of areas that are out of alignment.

If your current life is feeling off course, there’s a good chance that you’re surrounded by people, environments and belief systems that don’t support the life you want to lead. For example, if you’re a lawyer working in a large downtown firm, yet you long to start a small vegan cupcake shop… you’re not likely surrounded by the people who will support, nurture and push you to follow that dream.
Be mindful of these areas and begin to brainstorm ways you can create the needed support. Could you start attending baking classes to meet other like minded individuals? Could you join an entrepreneur mastermind group that provides inspiration, knowledge and collaboration?

3) Start dating yourself!

If your soul longs for more creativity, exciting experiences or a certain passion, slowly infuse more of it into your life by dating yourself. If music is your long forgotten love, start attending free concerts and listening to live music. Buy a new album and listen to it from start to finish. Pick up an instrument and start playing around. Take a cooking class, sign up for a writing workshop, go to an event featuring your idol, listen to a talk by an expert in the field, buy a book on the subject, peruse the isles of your favorite art store…Flirt with it. Get to know it all over again and soon you’ll be alive with passion and enthusiasm, just as you desire.

4) Travel slowly, but deliberately.

You can’t take a plant that thrives year round in Hawaii, move it to Michigan and expect it to survive. That’s just not going to happen. You have to remember that while your current ecology is unsupportive of where you want to be, you can’t simply uproot your entire life and expect to thrive. You have to move slowly, but deliberately in the direction of your dreams.
So tell me, what action will you take to begin building an ecology that supports the now, while moving you in the direction of what you really want?