Ten things holding you back from Achieving the Epitome of Personal Growth
Life is plentiful and amazing, yet most people never open their eyes to the beauty around us, because they’re too busy building their own cages of misery.
Luxury is about living life in a way that you make the most of this incredible chance you’ve been given and the world is waiting to see your potential. So, let’s check which of these ten ways you are sabotaging yourself!
1. Poor Prioritization Skills
It saddens me to see that some people can’t tell the difference between what’s important and what’s urgent. This leads to some people going through life just trying to put out one fire after the other until they eventually die. That’s no fun way to live!
Being able to prioritize your long term health, happiness and relationships over trivialities is one of the biggest differentiators between people who live a successful life and those who are just merely alive. Take this moment to ask yourself, ‘What is actually important for me to do in the next couple of years? What do I want from this life? Who do I want to be?’ Write it down and then do everything you can do to get that done. Stop allowing bullshit to come between you and what would make you feel fulfilled.
2. Imposter Syndrome
People often think they’re not good enough to do something. Wikipedia defines Imposter syndrome as a psychological pattern in which one doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite their competence.
Here’s a secret: Everyone starts at the bottom of the mountain! You just got to keep climbing one foot in front of the other. The problem is that people only look toward the end result. Stop comparing your level one character with someone who has maxed out everything. All you can do is get started and learn things along the way. Your credibility comes from your results, not from your expectations. As long as you keep putting in the work, even the smallest increment pushes you in front of everyone who’s wasting time on the couch.
3. Always Being late
Did you feel attacked? It’s because you know it’s true. Poor time management shows everyone, including yourself the type of person you are. You don’t take yourself seriously, you don’t take others seriously and you don’t value the one thing that we all care about the most: TIME.
You’re not late because of the traffic, you knew it was going to be like this. Yet, you made the decision to watch one more episode before you got ready. It was your decision to let eight alarms go off in the morning and skip the first six. If you don’t value your time, you seem to notice that it is fading away quicker than before. The first thing, anyone who feels like their life is chaotic, should do is start taking time seriously and you begin by not being late anymore.
4. Being a Pessimistic
There are some people who only see the bad in things: the Forever Pessimists! They believe things will never work out and you know what, they’re right. Statistically speaking, negative people will miss more opportunities than everyone else. Why? Because they assume things are not going to work out anyway.
My advice: Be a Realist. Take the good with the bad and bring them together because you get one shot at this life and you might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
5. Not taking care of your body
Your body is constantly telling you things and you’re ignoring it. We’re pushing ourselves harder than ever and yet still getting nowhere. That’s a big way of how people self-sabotage. If your body requires rest, then rest. If your body requires energy, give it food and water, instead of excess caffeine and energy drinks. It’s similar to using a Band-aid over Internal Bleeding. Futile.
We push ourselves to become these artificial versions of what we think society expects from us and then we’re shocked when we don’t like who we are becoming. That’s why so many people are dealing with depression on a scale like never before. Take the utmost care of your body, as it’s the only place you have to live in!
6. Trying to keep up with everyone else, just for appearances.
You don’t need the Balenciaga sneakers or the off-white hoodie to be the envy of your peers. Nobody ‘needs’ anything that’s trendy. ‘Trends’ are the result of smart people, sitting in a room, figuring out ways for you to buy things you don’t need, under the pretense of making you feel happy and accepted. That’s what Marketing is!
Focus on what you actually need in life. Time with people you care about, good conversations, healthy food and comfortable home. It all boils down to Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. People try to fake their way to the top layers of the pyramid without securing the foundation and that’s why it all comes crumbling down.
7. Staying in toxic relationships.
It’s sad to see a lot of people stuck in meaningless and even toxic relationships, just because they’re too scared to have a difficult conversation and start over. But think about it, you’re going to spend your rest of life with someone who isn’t making you happy because you’re scared to try something else?
This is how a lot of people self-sabotage. They accept misery as their destiny through choice. People stick with their childhood entourage despite realizing it is holding them back.
Ever noticed in airplanes, they specifically ask you to first put the breathing mask on yourself before helping others? That’s what you have to do in life. You have to take care of yourself. As the adage goes, you can’t pour from an empty vessel. Do what’s right for you and then hold out a hand and help up those who want to grab it.
8. Inability to control your Mind and Emotions
We’re all emotional beings. We feel things. we desire things. we urge for some and we are scared of others. Here’s how to think about it. We are what we do, and everything that we do begins with a decision in our minds. Very much like a seed inside our minds, certain ideas grow. they influence our reality, our actions, what we do every day and much like soil, our mind grows whatever we decide to put in it and almost every successful individual out there is aware of this.
Overcoming the demons that lurk in everyone’s mind and putting them to work for personal gain is one of the main reasons people become successful.
9. Not asking for what you want
Most people never get what they want in life because they never asked for it. Believe it or not, people would’ve said ‘Yes’ many times if you simply had the courage to just go for it. Many of you are probably thinking about the old flames and crushes when you were younger, but the same goes for life opportunities. You didn’t get any of the internships you didn’t apply for. You didn’t get a raise because you didn’t ask for one. Instead of asking people what you actually want, you settled for mediocrity.
This is why some people get ahead in the game of life. If you never ask, the answer’s always no.
10. Being scared to step out of your comfort zone
People are scared of the unknown, of public humiliation, of proving to themselves that they’re not good enough. We’d much rather stay put and live the life we already have.
In order to bridge the gap between the person you are currently and the person you aspire to become, you have to get off your lazy ass and get it. It’s meant to be hard and it’s meant to seem difficult because if it was easy, everyone could have it and nobody would value it. Remember Old ways won’t open new doors.
