5 Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Beautiful Life (And How to Stop)
I'm currently living the best time of my life.
My husband and I live in a beautiful 4-bedroom house. We both have amazing jobs and a rental condo that's practically paying for itself. We're living the "dream life" in Canada (one of the most expensive cities to live in) and we're only 28 years old. Most days, I'm grateful for it.
But other days, like today, I can't help but feel anxious.
I worry. I constantly ask myself, "ugh, why aren't I there yet?" I've been trying to become a successful content creator for years, but I've yet to see the success I crave.
And I realize that these are self-sabotaging behaviors. Here are five signs of them and how to stop them.
You have an unhealthy obsession
Right now, I'm a little obsessed with YouTube.
I've spent thousands of dollars trying to grow my channel by buying a fancy camera and a fancy mic, hiring coaches, buying Ali Abdaal's $3K course, hiring an editor and I've yet to see any significant success.
I wake up and think about YouTube. I go to sleep thinking about YouTube.
Like I said, I'm obsessed. But today, I got exhausted.
There's this thing called the Backward's Law, a term coined by Alan Watts. He says that "the more you want something, the more you repel it."
So, if you want something, you have to let it go.
And I've witnessed this multiple times. When I refresh the analytics page every few hours, it doesn't change. But when I focus on living my life, and I don't check for a few days, I notice the sudden growth in subscribers and comments.
How to stop:
You and I have to practice the law of detachment. This law suggests that, " xxxx " . Also, remind yourself of where you are right now and how far you've come. Remind yourself that this thing you're obsessed with is not you. It isn't who you are as a person. It's simply an extension of a part of you. It feels big now, but it will be a teeny-tiny experience of what's to come ahead in the grand scheme of things.
Thinking that good things will be taken away from you
Some days, I'm scared that things will be taken away from me. '
I sabotage myself by thinking I don't have enough and should look for a job that doesn't value my skills (i.e., a low-paying job). The next thing I know...I'm submitting my resume to random hospital jobs because I "believe" that it's impossible for me to live my dream life where I work part-time doing things I love and being supported by my husband.
So I end up thinking of going to a job that I hate with a low-paying job instead of taking advantage of my current situation where my husband is very supportive of me to pursue my dreams, whatever that means for me. I know I'd end up taking this action because of fear. But the problem is when that happens, you operate from a low vibe.
And when that happens, the more you're going to do things that will further sabotage the good things that's happening to you. Every time you get something good, you'll end up taking action because of fear.
How to stop:
Learn how to feel secure in your current beautiful life. If you've gotten here without nothing, trust and have faith that you can do it again. That's the beautiful thing about coming from nothing. I know that no matter what I can pick myself back up. And you can do that too.
You feel guilty that you're living a good life
Coming from the Philippines and growing up in an immigrant household, I learned that suffering is the norm.
You have to do hard things to get good things. You have to suffer to be successful in life. Therefore, living this beautiful life without suffering now makes me feel guilty.
But slowly, I'm learning that you don't have to suffer to be successful.
I have a part-time job where I work in private dental offices. I get paid almost $50 per hour for doing easy nursing tasks. I talk to the patient and their families before the procedure. I assist a doctor to intubate the patient, and then I recover the patients.
During the procedure, I have so much downtime that I work on my content creation.
I also pick and choose my own schedule.
But the truth is that it wasn't always like this.
About 3 years ago, I was an overworked emergency nurse in the pandemic. I thought that being an E.R. Nurse was the only "real" nursing specialty. But it turns out, when you learn your priorities in life—physical, mental and spiritual health, you can learn to give a different meaning to what you have right now.
That's when I realized that there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a boring or easy job if it'll get you closer to the life that you want.
How to stop:
Recognize that you're not responsible for what other people think. You don't have to carry the weight of your family. You're not responsible for the life of other people. It's okay to succeed on your own. You can only hope that your success will inspire the other people around you, but if not, that's not on you.
You let your doubts win over your intuition
Self-doubt is an underlying symptom of low self-confidence.
Not too long ago, I ran an experiment on Instagram. I was struggling to show up because of so many "different strategies" told by different creators. I had so much self-doubt that I didn't want to show up. Then one day, I decided to experiment. I decided to do things that felt natural and authentic to me. I decided to listen to my intuition.
I noticed that every time I listened to my gut, my stuff performed better. I stopped writing on this platform for a year because I stopped listening to my gut and I have a little regret. So this year, my goal is to learn how to listen better to my intuition and to let it win every time.
How to stop:
Recognize that feeling doubtful is normal especially if you're on a hard journey. Have a system in place when you're feeling doubtful. Have a go-to routine like working out, going out for a walk, taking a cold shower, and actually look inward and ask yourself, "what's making you so doubtful?" Sometimes, it's because you don't want to do it, but most of the time, it's because you have to do it. Be good at discerning what's for you and not for you.
You create situations that make you unhappy
Sometimes, I will fight with my husband out of nowhere.
And I realize that because I'm living a beautiful life with my loving husband, I feel like I can't be too happy. So I create a situation that will make me feel upset. Gay Hendricks, the author of Big Leap, calls this upper limiting—the idea that we only have a certain happiness threshold. So anything that goes over that happiness line we're used to is "too much."
So we end up being upset, mad or creating these negative emotions so we can bring ourselves back down to the baseline we're used to.
How to stop:
You need to raise your happiness standards. Tell yourself, "from now on, this is the bare minimum of things that need to be happening around me." You've gotta normalize your level of happiness so that you can keep levelling up. You can strive for more while still feeling appreciative of the life you have right now.
It's not either/or.
Final Thoughts
You've worked hard for this life.
I hope that you can remember that every single day. Our brain is pretty good at only remembering the good times and we tend to forget what it took to get there. So take this opportunity to reflect on how far you've come and ask yourself how you'll use this opportunity to even have an ever better life.
Humans need challenge, because if we're not challenged, we're not growing.
So how will you accept this life and still grow?
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Jerine Nicole
