Are you rejecting yourself and sabotaging success?

Humans are a complex lot. Whilst expressing a desire for change and success, there can be mixed messages.  Are you rejecting yourself and sabotaging success?

I see so many exceptionally talented men and women executives and professionals sabotage their career and business success. Their desire to go to the next level or change careers and direction is marked with unhelpful limiting actions or inaction. 

Rejection of yourself and sabotaging success  isn’t always direct and overt but a series of attitudes and inactions.    

Feelings are transferred

Whilst talking about rejection of self seems counter intuitive, it does call to have a very honest chat with ourselves. 

If we don’t truly believe in our core value and what we have to offer the world, then how the bejesus can we expect others to believe it.    

Feelings and thoughts are just as loud as words and actions and the energy of sabotage and rejection jumps around and onto others like fleas in the garden. 

What we think about ourselves others will too.  And case in point here is around not feeling worthy and ageism and feeling too old.  If you feel it, others will also pick up on that. 

Don’t get me wrong, ageism is a beast and real.  But small nips of changes can start with you also.   

How sabotage manifests

Staying in a comfort zone over-rides courage and fear overrides confidence.  The self rejection and sabotage has many forms.  And everyone has done that to themselves at some point. 

Trouble is when it starts to impact on an ongoing basis versus differing times in lives and careers.

But when it comes to careers and job searching, self sabotage can show its pesky tentacles in many ways. It can be underpinned by a fear of success or failure and low self worth and self doubt.

It may manifest in not reaching out for advice, or ignoring it when it’s given.  It can manifest in trying to figure out issues yourself.  It’s like a form of self rejection in essence that you are not worth help and lacking.

It may manifest in diminishing or denial of your value and work. It can manifests in push back and hesitation to promote yourself and be truly visible.  

It can also hear it in giving  bulldust excuses including a lack of time or money for not putting focus on your objectives and job search actions.   

It shows up in not communicating with others and putting your best foot forward.

And the big one is it manifests in PROCRASTINATION

Hey I get it, I’m a human and I procrastinate also on the things I fear or are unsure about.  And its part of that pesky human nature we all live with.

BUT, and here is the but, it’s why we sabotage and procrastinate that matters.  You should take a deep honest (yes hard stuff) look at your heart and inner thoughts.

Why people self sabotage

In my experience a big reasons is around a lack of self respect and self  belief  of worthiness and value.

The self talk can polarise, for example:

• Who am I to sound and look so professional (aka why so many have terrible LinkedIn profiles).
• I cannot ask for that
• I don’t feel worthy of that  
• If I get more visible there will be more pressure on me to perform and I don’t have the confidence
• I don’t think I can live up to expectations 
• I might lose friends or relationships if I become too visible and successful
• I’m nobody special
• I can’t look to be successful as I will be judged and trolled
• I don’t deserve to be acknowledged as I only contributed a little bit
• I just was in the right place at the right time and didn’t do much
• I’m not good enough to reach out to those people
• I fear being rejected
• The list goes on and it keeps people stuck and on the mouse wheel of sabotage and procrastination.
• Its selfish to spend time on myself when other people need me

Moving forward   

Dependent on the how deep the issues are, you may need some formal counselling.  And please do not feel ashamed about that as it’s part of strong self care and career development.    If the foundations of sabotage and self self esteem issues are not strong,  no amount of career and personal marketing will be long lasting.   

Sure you may have a great resume, cracker LinkedIn profile, personal brand valued website etc.  But if the inner gnawing of rejection and sabotage continues, success will be all over the shop and frustrating.  And consistency and attention will be too sporadic to render long term results.

If you just needed a little wake up call or tough love  nudge and ready to tackle your career direction or job search,  then strategy and tactics to reach your goals is next. 

If you are looking for a new job, change of career or promotion, building a small business or launching a new consultancy, you owe yourself to apply all the tools, time, creativity and attention to succeed.

Don’t ever forget, that whilst we all will sabotage and reject aspects of ourselves at times: 

  ‘no one does what you do in the same way you do it’.

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