In our lives, we face a lot of opponents. They challenge us, try to defeat us and take away our dearest dreams. “Homo homini lupus est”: man is a wolf to man. If you’re an athlete, your challengers will do everything they can to spoil your goal to become a champion. If you’re an entrepreneur, your competitors will fight for your market share. If you’re not strong and smart enough to beat them, defeat is what you will always get.

When it comes to your personal development, do you know who your toughest enemy is? The biggest barrier between you and your goals? It’s YOU! Yes, you are your worst enemy, your fiercest wolf. You keep sabotaging your own plans when you fail to wake up early or feel too lazy to go to the gym, each time you procrastinate to do something or give up trying.

If you can overcome these internal self-limitations, you will reach your full potential and become the best you can be. But how can you beat yourself? How can you put an end to self-sabotage?

Put an end to self-sabotage

Have the courage to confront yourself

First, you have to face yourself to realize who you are today and where you really stand. Admit your mistakes and weaknesses. In a sense, know your enemy! Stop being complacent: how further will you go if you delude yourself into thinking you have arrived already? Don’t be blinded by pride and ego. Accept that you can improve, understand that you can change; and in order to change, fight for it! Fight indolence, fight irresponsibility, fight the lack of discipline. Don’t let them take over the battlefield. Declare war on them and regain inner peace.

Erase your self-doubts by doing what you think you can’t do

A self-sabotage behavior induces doubts and negative thoughts that will make you back off on your main goals. It’s like an inner voice always telling you that “you can’t do it” or “you’re too weak to do that”. Although it may seems to be protecting you, it prevents you from going out of your comfort zone and achieving the best you can achieve in life.

If you listen to it, your comfort zone will gradually shrink as you get more and more afraid to fail. You’ll target lower, do less, and enter a vicious circle of self-depreciation. Trust the real you instead, silence that deceitful voice, have faith in your dreams and goals.

If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent van Gogh

Outwork yourself

Be careful, your “dark self” won’t give up easily, he/she is stubborn and persistent. It’s always there lying in the shadows to distract you away from your aims. It continuously encourages you into developing or maintaining negative habits. To conquer it, you have to be more persistent and more dedicated than your dark self. In other words, you have to outwork it. You have to counter it by tenaciously working to form constructive habits.

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

Jimmy Johnson
Outrun yourself

Outrun yourself

Get speed and timing on your side. Consider everyday as a new battle against the little devil within. If you let it take over the first minute of your day, chances are, it will crush your entire day. Don’t let him breathe, plan your days ahead, know what the next step is and move into the motions.

Make the decisions and organize yourself when you are sharp and fresh, preferably in the morning – then turn your soldier hat on and march on.

Outsmart yourself

Don’t jump into the battle without the appropriate gear and weapons. Use tools and apply data science to outwit your worst self. You can leverage apps to spy yourself, track your behaviors, and identify patterns. At goalmap, we help you track your activities, visualize your performance and assess your progress to overcome your worst self and become who you really are. On goalmap, you can define your #lifegoals and start tracking them, analysing your results and finally achieving them. You can also leverage personal tracking devices such as Fitbit, Withings or Jawbone to assess your level of activity, apps like Calm to guide your meditations, or Busuu to learn languages in a community-based environment.

Finally, don’t stay alone, reach out to friends, get support from like-minded peers, and seek inspirations from your loved ones or other personal growth warriors who also fight the inner war. The more we are, the stronger we will be. We shall overcome.


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