How to Free Yourself from Self-Defeating Behavior
Posted on August 13, 2022 by Laura Lacy-Thompson, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
When you achieve success, happiness, and wealth beyond your comfort zone your subconscious, mind freaks out and will sabotage you. Here's what to do.
Fear will keep you stuck.
Have you ever sabotaged yourself after success in your career or business by abandoning a winning strategy? Started a fight with your partner after a wonderful day together?
This self-defeating behavior is rooted in a deep-seated fear of success or what’s called an upper limiting problem as defined by Gay Hendricks in his book The Big Leap.
What is the upper limit? It’s when you achieve success, happiness, and wealth beyond your comfort zone. When that happens your subconscious, mind freaks out and will do everything in its power to bring you back to what feels safe and familiar.
It can show up when you’re trying for your first client, or after you meet the “right” person.
And then when you get a promotion or are offered a sizable raise.
You may feel discomfort when you are striving for the first $100k or when you’re goal is 7 figures.
It doesn’t matter the level. It happens when you move beyond what YOU BELIEVE is possible for you. But it’s certain that if you continue to go for higher levels of success, abundance and happiness, you will eventually bang up against your upper limit.
Here’s what happens. When you set a big goal for yourself, your logical conscious mind wants to achieve it. You tell yourself that you’re ready for the next level of accomplishment and happiness. But your subconscious has been programmed to believe that a certain higher level of accomplishment, based on whatever limiting beliefs you’ve internalized, is not for you. So, when you achieve a goal or get close to one that is beyond your limit, your mind will do everything possible to sabotage you and get you back to what feels familiar.
Your mind was wired with these beliefs when you were a child somewhere between the ages of 0-7. Now as an adult, and unless you take steps to change, these beliefs you will continue to limit and hold yourself back from reaching your true potential.
You may interpret reaching your upper limit as proof that you can’t get to the next level. That somehow you just aren’t capable.
NOT TRUE.
You aren’t getting stuck because you’re not capable but rather because you may subconsciously believe you don’t deserve more.
If you were taught in childhood that having money is bad, you’ll keep yourself at a financial level that feels safe to your subconscious. Guilt that you don’t deserve more financial success, that you’re not worthy, or do not want to have more than your parents, will cause your ego to go into self-protection mode and engage in sabotaging your success.
So how do you deal with your upper limits instead of just surrendering to them and being stuck? How do you realign those subconscious beliefs so that they match the level of success that you’ve been working so hard to achieve?
1). Dealing with any limiting belief starts with awareness. Being tuned in to what your mind is telling you and noticing those patterns of behavior that seem to happen on autopilot is the first step in shifting these beliefs. Recognize that you are the one getting in the way of your big dreams but remember that it isn’t your fault.
2) Once you recognize that you are hitting your upper limit you can examine the situation and ask where these limitations are coming from.
Dig deep to understand the root of these beliefs. Reflect on messages you were given as a child about how much happiness, success, and abundance were deemed acceptable. Did you internalize a message about your own worthiness and the limits on what you deserved?
Over time you will see how these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have been repeating themselves for decades. When you get to the root of your beliefs the old programming from childhood will start to become undone and you create the possibility to wire in new beliefs and break through your old upper limits.
3) The final step in removing your upper limits is making a decision to respond rather than react in the same way you usually do. With the new clarity you have about how you’ve been sabotaging your success; you can choose a different action. For example, if you are uncomfortable with selling, instead of overscheduling yourself so you don’t have time to prepare for your sales call, you can decide to clear your schedule giving yourself the mental space you need so you are at your best to make the sale.
Dealing with your upper limits and the potential self-defeating behavior requires you to pay attention, feel the feelings, and understand what’s happening without judging yourself.
When you are celebrating an achievement notice the voice of fear that shows up and how it may make you feel uncomfortable and doubt yourself. This is the time to be compassionate with yourself just the way you would treat someone you love.
Understand that you can blame your brain for your upper limits but it’s up to you to remove those limits.
Once you do you will celebrate rather than sabotage your success.
