The Infamous Self Sabotage Method

If you’re anything like me, it would be safe to say that youhave had a solid amount of experiences both good and bad in your lifetime. Perhaps more good than bad, or in the worstcase: more bad than good. Maybe you’vebeen fired or laid off from a job that you felt was going to lead to awonderful career and your heart was broken.Maybe you’ve spent hours in the gym and on the field or court trainingfor an athletic competition and you came up short of your goal, you lost orwe’re beaten by a less worthy competitor and your heart was broken. It may have been the test or certificationyou stayed up hours on end into the early morning studying for, registeredcountless amounts of time in the library or lab preparing yourself for the examthat would get you that so passionately desired title or credit you needed toboost your credentials for a promotion or higher position. You came up short and your heart wasbroken. Or maybe it was the man or womanyou thought you’d spend the rest of your life with, tried so hard to please,sacrificed your own personal goals and desires to make them happy, investedyour time and energy in them and they left you behind and your heart wasbroken. {{more}} All ofthese situations and circumstances register feelings of severe disappointment,sadness, anxiety, frustration despair and heartache. Whatever the emotion may be, none of them arecomfortable and sometimes even seem intolerable and overwhelming. Maybe we we’re instrumental ourselves in thereason we didn’t come out on top. Perhaps we didn’t sacrifice enough, or cutcorners, attempted to achieve or keep what we want so badly unfairly orwrongly. Even possibly we sabotaged therelationship because we assumed the person we were with would harm us or behavethe way the individuals we found ourselves with prior to them did. Thisself-sabotage method can be one of the most common denominators in ourfailures, disappointments, losses and breakups.If one were to truly examine how some things tended to go South after we”tried so hard” and “put in so much work” into that job, or that game or thattest or that relationship. What did wetruly do to contribute to the outcome?Maybe because of a previous employer or past incident at a job we workedat prior, we tried to get ahead in an unlawful or unethical manner and itcaught up with us. Despite somethinglike that never happened at that current occupation. Perhaps in that game or contest we doubtedour self and our ability to perform and succeed, to win because we were unableto achieve that platform of success in the past competitions or lost to thatindividual or team before. Despite thefact that we trained harder, were more disciplined and were much more prepared. It could’ve been that test we needed to passto get to the next level that eluded us ever so tauntingly and we cheated onit, despite being fully prepared and having spent valuable amounts of timestudying, but because “it was too difficult last time”. We responded improperlyand failed again. Or maybe because our lastgirlfriend or boyfriend was so awful to us at times, or acted unfaithfully tous and put us through so much stress and torment that we automatically assumedthe person we were with now, despite them having never behaved that way oracted in that manner would do the same thing to us as the partners of yoredid. All of these situations resultedin: termination, loss, failure, orbreak-up. And if we really look at itclosely; we sabotaged something that could have been great by gaging ourcurrent situation on those of the past. Havinglearned quite a bit from circumstances like these; the most effective approachin combatting the self-sabotage method is to look down at our feet, realizethey are firmly planted on the ground, and stay right there: in themoment. Not worrying about what wentwrong before and what could go wrong in the future but enjoying the happinessof the now is quite the reprieve if we allow it to work for us. This philosophy prevents us from letting ourmind escape to harmful even traumatic situations that took place from days longgone and projecting future outcomes based on those hideous events oroccurrences that are completely irrelevant to our current era. We can remember those times, feel them andlearn from them, but not carry them into new avenues of our life that areflourishing happily and carry a potentially wonderful future. By training our thinking to remain in themoment, we allow ourselves to be happy and alleviate any stress and anxietythat past and future situations accommodate.This is the ultimate anecdote for the miserable self-sabotage methodthat we exhibit ever so obliviously, reminding us never again to throw away thegift of the present when we never even opened it to begin with.