An old friend recently spoke with me about her struggles to become who she’s always wanted to be. For years, Lisa has known that she wanted to move to the beach and open her own bakery. She has the means, the skills and the desire, but thoughts of failure and fear of the unknown kept her working at a job that made her feel unhappy and unappreciated. Lisa has been hijacked by her inner saboteur.
Exposing The Inner Saboteur
The inner saboteur is the voice that tells us that we’re not good enough. It often sounds like “I’m not good enough to…,” “I don’t deserve happiness,” or “Everyone’s going to find out that I’m not as good as they think I am.”
Everyone has an inner saboteur and it usually rears its ugly head when we’re feeling blame, guilt, shame, fearful and insecure. The inner saboteur is similar to an overprotective parent. At some point in our lives–usually in childhood–it guarded us from threats to our physical and emotional survival. It protected us from failure and kept us safe. But by the time we become adults, it’s actually preventing us from getting out of our comfort zone, which is essential to growth.
Many of the people I have coached identify working with the inner saboteur as one of the most valuable aspects to achieving their goals. Saboteurs are a normal part of being human. However, until you identify them and understand their influence on your behavior, it is unlikely you’ll be able to take the action necessary to improve your life and expand your potential.
Meet The Judge
According to Positive Intelligence, there are a number of different saboteurs that hijack our minds, but the main one is “The Judge.” The Judge is the master saboteur that activates other ‘accomplice’ ones. It is the saboteur that constantly reminds you of past mistakes, keeps you up at night with worry and obsesses over future uncertainty. By conquering your judge or ‘inner critic’, you can remove your greatest internal enemy and its army of other saboteurs. Only by doing so can you begin to live a happier, healthier and more fulfilled life.
Positive Intelligence has a wonderful free assessment to help you identify your most dominant saboteurs.
Understanding the Inner Saboteur
Unfortunately, the inner saboteur is not going anywhere. While you may will it to simply disappear or resolve to fight it off once and for all, the imposing inner critic will continue to appear.
You may try avoiding negative behaviors and keeping a positive attitude only to find yourself held back again by your insecurities and fear. Why? Because those patterns of your inner saboteur have become soft-coded in your brain’s neural pathways. Your thoughts, feelings and reactions are working on auto pilot. Without the awareness and strategies to soften its voice, challenge it and redirect your thinking, your inner saboteur will hijack your conscious mind.
The good news is that you don’t have to allow your inner saboteur to wreak havoc on your life. In fact, you can heal it. Although it may feel as though you don’t have a whole lot of control, you can decide at any time to develop a new relationship with it.
It’s natural to hate the part of yourself that tells you you’re not good enough. However, by building a new relationship with your inner critic or saboteur, you can begin to create a new perspective that will better serve you.
Your secret weapon is your saboteur’s counterpart: your sage. The sage is the deep, wise part of you that reassures, empathizes and reminds you that you’re a deserving, capable person. The sage sees meaning and purpose. It acts without fear. It feels empathy for self and others.
Tapping into your sage can help you push away those self-doubts, find opportunities and growth in setbacks, come up with creative solutions and move your life forward in the direction you want. It is an important first step on the road to self-mastery. And, who knows? It may even help you reach that big, audacious goal … like Lisa’s move to the beach and opening the bakery of her dreams!
Check out the free tool “Removing the Block” below for the skills to overcome your inner critic and other barriers to your success and happiness.