Fixing Self-Sabotage with Mental Fitness

I am restless. Constantly bouncing from one thing to another. I somehow find distractions. Shiny objects. I am energized by new ideas. I love tickling my brain in different ways and my typical “Full Day” like today is a mix of reading, working, an improv class, getting outdoors, and hanging with a friend. I like to go to bed tired and fulfilled.

My work these days is primarily consulting, presenting and coaching and I love diverse activities in a typical work week. My weeks involve coaching sessions, consulting work, workshops, Zooming, live and virtual presentations, philanthropic endeavors, and business development.

That’s a lot.

There used to be a lot of event emceeing and a touch of auctioneering as well.

Yes, that’s a lot. Like too much!

And, don’t get me wrong, I love all of it but I’ve had to compartmentalize “all the things” into buckets so I could move forward in few areas.

I like “doing” a lot of things. But being busy vs. “doing” undermines what I know are the best things for me to focus on. Being busy keeps me from going deep. Being busy can fill my day with the little things. And it’s really hard to have a focused marketing plan for a business that is “all the things” ????

There is an interesting dissonance between those two things: being restless and going deep.

Restless is more than an adjective. Restlessness can undermine my desire to be of greater impact. A form of self-sabotage. Once I could put a label this saboteur I could see the patterns, the lack of focus, and the resulting scattershot approach.

Awareness is noticing patterns.

Mental fitness is taking small steps towards building new patterns one rep at a time. Now I understand the importance of focusing my attention on a few things and giving space to all of the other things as “fun but not my primary focus” bucket.

Being focused is building up the mental muscles needed for the heavier lifts in my life.
So how do you self-sabotage? What are those voices inside your head telling you?

Are you are overly focused on achievement, pleasing others, attention-to details, overthinking, avoiding conflict, controlling variables, or hyper-vigilance.

Taming my Restless saboteur was powerful and it didn’t take long. The Restless voice is now at volume 1 instead of volume 10. By strengthening mental fitness I now move forward with more ease and flow and focus on doing what serves more people with more impact.

Awareness was the first step.

Try this free Saboteur Assessment and see how you self-sabotage.