Critical Success Tip: Understanding Self-Defeat

Most of us try to find someone else – anyone else – to blame when we fail to attain the goals we claim to desire. However, the truth is we almost always hold ourselves back with self-defeating beliefs and limiting intentions.

If you pay attention to other people as they complain about goals not met, you’ll soon see clearly these individuals are actively sabotaging their own efforts. They probably aren’t aware of this, but the fact remains their thoughts and actions are in direct opposition to what they say they want.

And once you notice this trait in others, it won’t be hard to find it in yourself as well! If you always seem to be struggling in one or more areas of your life, yet you believe with great sincerity that you want success in these areas, it is highly likely some form of self-defeat or self-limiting beliefs and/or actions are at work.

I’ll give you an example from my own life to help put this whole concept into perspective. Today I’m an entrepreneur with a successful business; but a few years prior to this writing I lived in extreme poverty.

Let me be clear: When I say poverty I don’t mean I sometimes fell behind on my house payment. In fact I had no home at one time, and rarely (if ever) had a single dollar bill in my pocket!

Being completely broke was the normal state of affairs for me. Looking back I wonder how I managed to eat.

Anyway at some point I decided being dirt poor was no fun. I made up my mind to become a successful entrepreneur and generate lots of money doing things I enjoy.

I attained marginal success within a couple of years. But I soon hit an invisible ceiling and found myself unable to move beyond a certain level of income.

Money came and went sporadically. I often had to deplete my savings account to survive, and it seemed absolutely impossible to make a real breakthrough and enjoy sustained comfort and prosperity.

After going through this for some time I began to look closely at myself. Knowing that my results were the reflections of my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, I determined I could assess my state of mind to discover exactly what stood in the way of my desired success.

What I found was shocking. Over time I realized that whenever I thought about or spoke of large sums of money, I experienced a number of negative symptoms!

For instance, I might say I wanted to earn $10,000 within the next 30 days. Perhaps I would even write this down on my project board.

But as I talked about this amount of money, wrote it down, and tried to visualize myself receiving it, I became highly agitated. I sank into an instant and deep state of depression, my heart rate accelerated considerably, and I even became physically sick at my stomach!

Intellectually, emotionally, and even physically I was rejecting the idea of breakthrough success. And because I simply could not create a positive state of mind around the idea of big money it was literally impossible for me to manifest it.

On the rare occasions when I did create a major cash windfall, a problem would quickly arise to drain my funds. I was stuck in a viscous poverty cycle.

Why did I put myself through this?

For one thing, it’s likely I didn’t feel worthy of true success. My whole life had been spent in poverty, so who did I think I was trying to play a role that didn’t fit me?

Also the prospect of drastic change terrified me. I understood lack, scarcity, and struggle; but I had no idea how to cope with abundance, comfort, and plenty.

All of this may sound bizarre to you. But my story is not unique.

The fact is many people suffer from similar self-defeatist thinking and emotional states. Again, if you claim to want success in a particular area but inexplicably find yourself falling short despite your best efforts you should take a close and honest inventory of your daily thoughts and feelings.

Simply becoming aware of your own self-limiting thoughts and beliefs will go along way toward breaking the spell, so to speak. Once you see what is going on, you can challenge your mindset and shift it to a more desirable focal point.

The quickest, most effective method for overcoming this sort of deeply rooted self-defeat is the application of positive affirmations. Create a set of strong statements to counter your destructive beliefs and read these positive suggestions several times each day.

In my case, I created affirmations like: “Money loves to be around me. I always have more than enough money. I deserve the money I receive from multiple sources and I have fun spending it.”

As I repeated these positive suggestions over and over, day in and day out, my unconscious mind began to shift on its axis. Confident repetition literally programs the human mind in the same way valid source code teaches a computer system how to think and behave.

With sincere intention, self-awareness, and diligent affirmation I permanently dissolved my self-defeating thought patterns and attained the success I deserve. Certainly if I can do this, anyone else can as well!

Tagged with: Critical • SelfDefeat • Success • understanding

Filed under: Entrepreneur Tips

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