Sometimes when we embark on something new in our lives, such as a new career, moving cities or working towards a promotion, a little voice appears inside our heads, which can be extremely chatty and creatively cruel at times.
And unfortunately, to our own detriment, we sometimes listen to this voice and succumb to the negative feelings it conjures up. This voice is our internal saboteur and it can be extremely debilitating. Preventing us from changing our current situations. Preventing us from being something better. Boldly telling us that we are no good, not clever enough or completely undeserving of happiness and success.
How can we remove this little voice and its crippling agenda ? How can we move past the feelings of unknown and doubt it creates?
Well, the most powerful tool is to simply face your internal saboteur head on. By not cowering and hiding away when it starts its negative speak. First off, give this little voice a name. Become aware of its presences when it gets chatty and start recognising those times when it starts to dominate your thoughts. For example, it could appear when you have to speak in front of a large group of people, and tells you that you are a poor public speaker. Or it appears when you are in a conflict situation and tells you that you are incompetent, useless at confrontation and less important than the other party.
Once you have labeled your internal saboteur and recognised its favourite topics you can start dealing with it. These topics are what you can call limiting beliefs. I think it, so therefore I am it. The more you entertain those limiting beliefs the stronger your saboteur becomes.
An easy exercise that you can do is to firstly challenge the limiting belief. Start to actively question where the limiting belief came from? Is this belief in fact true? Where is the proof?
Then begin to change the negative thought into a positive one. Honestly recognise your weakness and come up with an action plan to improve it. This is were you start taking the control back. At this moment the saboteur has had the wind blown out of them.
So you might be a poor public speaker. So what can you do to improve it? Take charge of your saboteur and turn the situation into something productive. You might need to attend a public speaking class, or ensure that you try to speak only to smaller groups. The options are endless. Once you stop letting the little voice take over, you are able to see things clearly and you can proactively change your situation.
If your saboteur is preventing you from achieving in your life, don’t you think its about time to take control?
Name it, question it, recognise it, create an action plan, and move on!
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