Self Sabotage: The Secret Reason You’re Afraid to Achieve Your Dreams

I was talking to a friend recently who has quite a negative self image when it comes to dating. We were out at a social event so were telling him all these positive qualities about himself to motivate and hype him up.

And then I thought hold on we’ve been through this before, lets try something new.. and then a thought came to me,

‘Stop Being Afraid of Your Own Power’

I said that and he paused... smiled and nodded

As I stood watching it hit him I then went quiet contemplating my own life.

Anyway I finally got round to journalling about it this morning so I’m just gonna share it with you now because I want you to have the same realisation about self sabotage that we both had.

Your deepest fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

- Marianne Williamson

Why is this?

I think it’s because we get so used to striving for the things we want that we lack, that we come to accept this as the normal state of our being.

Then when it comes to actually getting what we want it brings about such a massive change to our normal state of being that it scares us. It’s not necessarily that we fear the achievement it’s that we fear the change associated with it.

Many people don’t like change because it causes uncertainty, its stepping out into unknown territory which could contain unknown dangers.

We know deep down obviously that this territory is where what our heart desire lies.

So why can’t we just go there?

Why can’t we seem to shake this uncomfortable feeling that its surrounded by booby traps?

You believe that you can’t cope with the uncertainty of change so your mind receives this message and does everything it can to prevent you from changing or taking decisive steps forward.

And the thing is we underestimate how good we are at justifying staying the same.

Have you ever heard of plausible deniability?

Its basically saying something false in a way that appears as though you’re unaware of the truth and therefore not responsible for it.

I suppose the key that differentiates it from lieing is that everyone is actually aware of the truth but choosing to ignore it.

A common example is when people go on dates and invite each other back home to have a coffee or watch a movie––

Or just about any reason they can think of that the other person should be in their house other than the actual reason- which is to have sex.

So then both parties agree to the suggestion knowing full well the true intention but can justify it based on the plausible deniability that they didn’t know the true intention

Oh yes I just came for the coffee so I can go home and sleep afterwards… ;)

Our ego gives us plausible deniability to avoid the positive actions which move us towards our desires but also cause us a great deal of fear.

People do things or don’t do things based on the content of their thoughts. If you’re afraid of doing something that you want you’ll feel very uncomfortable.

This stems from the internal battle between your ego which wants to protect you from danger or risk indiscriminately and the real you which has the desire.

The Ego Formula

For most people the ego wins and therefore they don’t take the action forward. It’s at this point that the ego has to justify itself by telling you what you want to hear.

This is the plausible deniability ‘the coffee’ invitation.

It says ‘you’re better off without’, ‘you’re not good enough’, you’d make a fool of yourself’, 'you’d end up failing and you might die’,

What if, what if, what if and it basically goes on until its completely smothered the life out of the desire you had in the first place. Now you feel more relaxed about not doing it.

But if you didn’t already know just be aware that your ego has essentially played the same game with you as that f boy/girl or politician to f*ck you and then deny any responsibility.

And this cycle can continue for years for any given desire whether its finding a partner, getting in shape, changing your career, starting your own business.

It was 3 or 4 years ago I remember saying I wanted to start a YouTube channel to educate people on health conditions in a way that was more relatable and accessible.

And during those years my ego kept winning the battle and preventing me from doing this thing that I felt called to do because it would introduce a change into my life.

The key here is that the ego doesn’t discriminate, not only does it not want bad things to happen to you, it also doesn’t want good things to happen.

Because that will lead to an unknown situation in the future in which it has no control over and potentially something bad could happen.

This is what I call the Ego formula

Change = Uncertainty

Uncertainty = Bad things

Bad things = Death

Therefore Change = Death

 Self Sabotage

This is how you end up self sabotaging, you get on the verge of something good coming into your future and then tell yourself that something bad will inevitably happen due to fear of the unknown.

Rather than face the possible pain of going from good to bad you would rather just keep things bad and stay the same hence you take actions to sabotage yourself.

And the crazy thing is that all this happens on a subconscious level, you might not even be aware you’re doing it until you meet someone who’s able to reflect it back to you or have therapy.

Self sabotage happens when you’re on the verge of something good - but fear the pain of going back to something bad so much that you would rather just stay in something bad.

Our deepest fear is not standing at the bottom of the rock face. Its standing at the top and falling back down.

When you’re on the ground at the bottom of a rock face you’re safe. You can repeat the same pattern of trying to climb up just as far so that your able to jump back down without injury.

The real fear is having everyone look up at you from the bottom. You think they’ll see all of the weaknesses and flaws that you believe you have based on years of living in fear at the bottom yourself.

You don’t believe you’re worthy of standing up there as a symbol for others to look up to, you feel like the gaze will somehow make you lose your balance and fall back down.

The truth is that you will never get up there in the first place unless you believe it’s possible.

But once you’re up there, it’s confirmed. There’s nothing your ego can say to knock you back down. Being at the top will become your new normal and if you truly want to, you can go ahead and climb the next mountain and tell your ego to STFU!

Believe that its possible for you to have your dreams and just focus on that rather than the possibility of something bad happening or failing.

Then you’ll just do it. You won’t have space in your head for the ego to distract you with all its justifications for staying the same and being safe.

You’ll realise that what’s actually safe for the health of your soul is to follow your dreams, push through that discomfort and win that argument.

I can’t give you any specific actionable advice on this but just journal, it really helps. This whole blog post its pretty much copied from the entry I wrote to myself based on the simple prompt:

Stop Being Afraid of Your Own Power

Confront your fears, embrace the uncertainty of change and

Don’t let your Ego hold you back

That’s all for now

Lewis