All the roads lead back to kindness. The most powerful tool we can apply to our own lives and to others. The act of being kind is so powerful and it’s also really difficult to extend to oneself. When you have perfectionistic tendencies, combined with a competitive nature and an ambitious drive, you can become incredibly critical and dismissive of yourself.
It is so subtle that you often don’t recognise you’re even doing it, but it does creep up in our behaviours and it does result in self-sabotage. There is no greater critic that we can have than ourselves! Often we are not able to maintain an objective view of our own life experiences so when you look at things subjectively, you can easily lose sight of the truth.
It’s important to be aware of the ways in which you self-sabotage and to create a clear picture of how you would like to show up in the world differently, if you could be more aware of these self-sabotaging thoughts and tendencies, then you could free yourself from yourself.
I’ve noticed a few of my self-sabotaging tendencies at work recently and I recognise that these are driven based on how I have shaped my beliefs about myself and how I fit into the world based on the opinion of others. This is the unintended consequence of being raised in a culture that is collective, combined with being surrounded as a child by adults who are perfectionists themselves and who don’t display self-confidence in an unapologetic way. Additionally, being bullied as a child and then going into unhealthy relationships whether it be friendships, romantic and or professional ones, you start to get more input from people who are not supporting your growth, rather they’re supporting your ammunition for self-criticism and self-doubt.
So, fast forward to today and I seem to self-sabotage myself by giving my power away to others instead of keeping it for myself. I’ve become so afraid of not belonging or being rejected, criticised, mocked, misunderstood, dismissed and or devalued that I am unwilling to show all my true colours and to step into the workplace with the confidence that the way that I am in the world is valid, acceptable and more than enough.
I am ready to turn the page on the beliefs that have been shaped based on my unpleasant past experiences and to start forming and applying beliefs that bring me joy and enhance my day to day life, even within work. I don’t want to operate from a place of fear and I want to show up authentically aligned to all my values. Knowing that career progression isn’t about being likeable, it’s about being respected and being good at what you do. I would like to focus in on my strengths and to learn the areas that I can develop so that I don’t have to feel so crippled by these thoughts and narratives that are trying to self-sabotage me.
In short, I need to be more observant of myself at work, how I show up and how I behave so that I can understand what the gap is between how I am today vs how I want to be in the future and then start taking baby steps towards the outcome I want to achieve. This will be a big challenge because there are so many automatic learned responses and ways of working that I’m not even aware of but which I need to become more sensitive to so that I can pick up on them as they arise, only then can I learn from them.
It gets exhausting when you are constantly trying to prove that you belong somewhere and or that you belong to a certain profession. It’s exhausting having to prove others wrong and or trying to show them that you can add value. I would really like to shift my focus with my career so that I am more aligned to my values in how I operate and also what I do. I would like to become a fearless operator who authentically shows up without the need to be something that I’m not in order to be liked and or accepted by the business I support. But mainly, I like to get my own power back and know that even if things do escalate it is not a reflection of my self-worth and or capabilities, rather it’s the nature of the game we play in a business environment.
This is a big transformation, but I’m up for the challenge and the Soul Journey ahead.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 