Conquer mountains: Turning Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery…
Plus 11 Ways To Truly Master Your Inner Game
In your life, you will go through experiences that will lead you down two paths. Self-sabotage or self-mastery and potentially both. The reason you take one over the other may not be all up to your conscious efforts as you think. You see many reasons people sabotage themselves, is because they’re conditioned to stay within a comfortable bubble, that if expanded too far, they sabotage their opportunity for success because they may not know any better.
From the book — “The Mountain is You”
“On the surface self-sabotage appears to be a product of low self-esteem, low confidence, self-hatred, or a lack of willpower. In reality, it is simply the presence of an unconscious need that is being fulfilled by the self-sabotaging behaviour. To overcome this you must go through a process of deep psychological excavation. You must pinpoint the traumatic event, release unprocessed emotions, find healthier ways to meet your needs, reinvent your self-image, and develop principles such as emotional intelligence and resilience.” Brianna West
The first step in moving towards mastery instead of sabotage, is letting yourself have as much time as you need to cry, vent, and release any energy that is built up inside of you that’s waiting to burst out. The key is once you’ve let it go, to now take a step forward knowing you no longer want to stand in the ruins of your past life. You move forward by realizing going through this release is the turning point for creating a better self-image and life. You have to release and heal, before you can grow and master. It’s just a part of the process, we all go through it at some point on our journey’s. It’s just a matter of how long that healing process takes, before you are ready to move on from your past, and create a new reality that has positivity, happiness, and success.
Success is typically at your finger tips if you are beginning to self-sabotage yourself. Potentially, it’s because that new success that you are receiving you are not use to it. It’s creating an image that’s not aligning with your past experiences, so you choose to sabotage yourself to move back to where you were before. This is typical, and many people are on the cusp of break throughs, when they choose to give up, or take negative actions that sabotage their own potential. The mind is very powerful, and if you have negative thoughts or a set boundary of what you’re capable of or supposed to have in your life, as soon as you exceed those boundaries, if you’re not consciously open to new growth and success, the mind will guide you back towards what it knows and feels comfortable with. Maybe that promotion you deserve has more responsibility or work, even though you can handle it. But, instead you make bad decisions and shy away from seizing the opportunity, even though it would make your life better and more aligned with better other opportunities. Wether that’s financially, educationally, or in relationships. If you can’t see it, you won’t believe it. If you don’t believe it, you can never achieve it.
The way to move on is to build something new. By working on placing better thoughts in your mind, speaking positive words as much as possible, and taking new actions when opportunities arise. You will begin to move past those hurdles that seem to be getting placed in front of you subconsciously. This will transform your way of thinking, speaking, and acting towards achieving your best life and highest potential. This is no easy task, but remaining mindful and present will ensure you make the most of what’s in front of you, and behave logically in your responses and decision making that could lead to sabotage or mastery.
Emotional intelligence is understanding you can not just deny or ignore your feelings. They will never go away by suppressing them or sweeping them under the rug. Those who do this have not developed adequate coping mechanisms to handle their feelings maturely. It is better to address each emotion objectively and learn from them, so you can respond better to grow from each experience that’s created from those emotions.
Stoicism is one way of looking at it; however, expressing no emotions can be detrimental as well. It’s about finding the happy medium between the two. From there you can choose when and where emotions need to arise appropriately. Too much emotions and you will be very illogical. No emotions at all and you will be very cold and robotic. You need to express your emotions, but your emotions can not control you. If you are present and mindful, your emotions will be responses you choose, instead of impulses triggered by reactions you are allowing to take place. Be responsive, never reactive. When the mind is not in the present, you have little control of how your instincts react. Instincts could lead you to getting angry, happy or sad. But, being more conscious than just an instinctual being, you will choose if those emotions are suited for the time being. Doesn’t mean you won’t feel them, but it may not be best to show them. All depending on where and when these emotions arise.
Understand, many people never get there, and barely realize that they are creating the waves in their life, and it is their job to learn how to ride them too. Most people get lost in their thoughts and feelings, with very little ability to control or sort through them.
Mastery is realizing you are equipped with the traits you need to overcome the mountains before you. The bitter sweet part of life is climbing these mountains in order to reveal your hidden characteristics that will be a part of the new you, who is destined to be great. However, choose to not endure the climb, and be left with the regret of never knowing how amazing you were destined to be.
Mastery is understanding the years of discomfort you endured were all a part of deeper self, informing you that you are capable of more, deserving of better, and meant to transform into the person you dream of.
Your healing process will create a ripple effect on everything else. You must claim it, and create it. If you want to change, you must change yourself internally. If you want to scale the largest mountains, you must change the way you arrive at the path. When you reach the top, you will look back and know that every step was worth it. More than anything you will be overwhelmingly grateful for the pain and suffering that led you to begin your journey, because it wasn’t trying to hurt you as much as it was trying to teach you.
11 Ways To Master Your Inner Game
1) Meditation
Meditation is one of the best techniques for creating stillness and harmony between your mind, body, and soul. This ancient skill is how the mind can align the subconscious and conscious mind to manifest what your heart desires. This technique of emptying your mind to objectively ponder upon thoughts that enter and then pass, is a skill that will help you reflect and detach from past experiences or trauma that is holding you back. Meditation is a focused yet unfocused practice, that’s based on what your intentions are set on. It can feel very relaxing or enlightening depending on your approach each practice. Sometimes it can feel very restful and easy going, other times it can feel really intense and full of tears or laughter. Either way it’s one of the best ways to receive wisdom from your own intuition and divine intelligence deep within you. The purpose of meditation is to reflect, heal, grow, and flow in the right direction. Your mind will point out everything you need to see and improve on. If you are not present, it will be very hard to have clarity and stability of your thoughts or the messages the universe is trying to send your way. Be open and free flowing, the more you meditate, the closer you will get to your divine destiny.
2) Self-reflection, journaling, goal setting
Journalling is how you engrave, remove and keep track of intangibles you are striving towards. Wether it’s goals, affirmations, negative habits, or daily stress levels. Each of these are necessary to write down and reflect upon for creating a better version of yourself for today and tomorrow. Reflection is needed in order to learn and grow. If you never reflect how would you know what adjustments to make? Many people skip this step and think it’s all going to happen on its own. But, like anything else you will have to practice it to make it permanent. Journalling is the best technique to engrave new thoughts into the mind, especially the subconscious mind. That is the hard part… Changing the part of your mind that is a collection of everything you’ve ever experienced or inhabited along your journey is challenging. The same way it takes 30 days to create a habit, it takes 60 days to break a habit. So, be careful of the habits you make, because it takes twice as much time to break it. The brain likes things set in stone, so it can perform these tasks effortlessly. That’s why it’s so hard to create a new habit because you consciously have to stay on track. The subconscious mind has not yet been engraved so it feels very tedious and tiresome. But, once you’ve created a habit, it’s like riding a bicycle, it will take very little effort to balance and maintain upright on your path. However, when you are first learning, you will have to be very focused on only the task at hand. Lose focus, and potentially fall and hurt yourself. So, just know, when you’re creating new habits, you will naturally fall a few times, but as long as you get back up and keep riding, eventually you’ll be riding hands-free and going places you never thought you’d reach. Reflect, journal, set goals and just stay consistent. Consistency and repetition will be your best friends for success.
3) Face your emotions and talk about them
Emotions are what make you human, but they do not need to control you. Emotional intelligence is a key skill that should be a primary focus in your lifetime. Lacking intelligence in this department, will lead you to suppressing emotions and having no control of what emotions you emit. If someone around you emits a specific emotion, and you are not able to control yourself, it will feel natural to mirror that emotion for good or worse. This is why it’s easy to feel happy around positive people. But, also angry or sad around people that are upset. Emotions are energy waves on different frequencies, and the more pleasant the emotion the higher the wavelength. The more unpleasant the emotion, the lower the wavelength. Hence why you feel light as feather when experiencing joy, love, happiness. Compared too hard and heavy as a rock when angry, sad, or bitter. Talking about your emotions releases any suppressed energy that needs to be released. If you don’t release it, eventually you will explode. The most mentally tough individuals allow themselves to be transparent and vulnerable in order to heal and move forward. It takes courage and bravery to talk about your emotions, but once you do, you’ll realize it feels way better to let them out, then hold them in. If you want to master your self, then express emotions logically, and with control. As well, let go of feelings that get built up, so you can remain positive and light as a feather.
4) Change your language and self-talk
How you speak to yourself is a big part of how you perceive yourself. If you speak positively you will experience more positive encounters with other people. If you speak negatively, you will experience more negative encounters with them instead. The universe just reflects whatever is within you. If you want love, love yourself. If you want patience, be still. If you want joy, be carefree as a child. Everything you experience externally is based on your perceptions and thoughts internally. Some see the sun shinning bright and seize the day. Others barely notice it and feel stuck in darkness. This is all based on their internal language and self-talk. Many people look very attractive to others, but in the mirror they are fixated on some imperfection because of others opinions. Causing them to feel insecure and disgusted with what they see. This can lead to very bad outcomes… As well, some may be labelled as un-attractive, but feel so free and authentic in their own skin, that they prance around relaxed and carefree of what others think. Your internal language will dictate your external words. If your words are harsh and sharp, expect the universe to deliver harsh and sharp repercussions. If your words are soft and sweet, expect the universe to deliver kindness and joy back to you. Now this doesn’t mean everyone is going to be kind or like you. But, they will have to raise their vibe to your level or feel as they need to stay out of your way, since you’re vibrating on a frequency they can’t match. When someone is trying to be rude or cunning, kill them with kindness and laugh at them, see how much more they will get upset… If you give them the response they want, which is getting upset and lowering your vibration, they will laugh at you… Learn from this and just remember to have the last laugh. Always choose kindness, but take no shit! If you want a positive life that you control, speak positively to yourself and have control of your thoughts. Your thoughts are the root of everything in your life.
5) Let go of the past
Letting go and detaching is vital for a healthy mindset and your best lifestyle. Holding onto anything for too long will create a heavy burden that holds you down and stunts your growth. Your past is just a part of your journey, that is meant to teach and shape you into the person you’re destined to become. Failure and trauma create more resilience and strength to tackle new challenges and passions with even more intelligence and wisdom. Everyday is a new day, and yesterday is always in the past. Whatever happened, learn from it, heal, grow, and move forward. Make adjustments and try again. They key to life is doing great things poorly until you eventually master them. No one is perfect, and if you beat yourself up for others or your own mistakes, you’re just making it even harder on yourself to live a positive and wholesome life. Let go of what you can’t control, and all you can control is here and now. If you want success, pay attention the the little details, focus on one task at a time, and be grateful for every opportunity you get today. Allow your mind to drift backwards, and miss the opportunities that will create the dreams you’re working so hard to achieve tomorrow. Be present, enjoy the moment, because one day you may look back and realize you forgot to enjoy the journey. Time is all you have, and regrets are very bitter. Make the most of today and lay your brick as best as you can. One day at a time, one brick at a time. Over time you will create the perfect road, that even others can walk down to figure out how to build theirs too.
6) Create a new image of yourself
Paint a picture of how you want to think, speak, act, and feel when you become the new you. You need to envision yourself before you can create a road map of how you’re going to get there. The mind needs to see it in order to achieve it, even if it’s just a mental picture. Having a focus on what you’re working towards will give you drive and ambition to keep striving in that direction, especially when you start to notice small wins and slight changes in yourself that are starting to reflect the new you that you’re trying to create. If you don’t believe it, no one else will. Whatever you want to create in life, first has to start in your own mind. Others may have an idea or want to see you grow, but until you see it and work towards it, it will remain a dream. Dreams come true by aligning thoughts and actions together. If you want to be stronger, wiser, smarter, you need to start exercising, listening to gurus and reading books to gain more knowledge. The thought is nice, but the actions create the manifestation into reality. This is why consistency and repetition build the new you, not just one thought and hoping it will magically appear. You need to constantly work on yourself and keep reminding yourself of the image you want to become. Talk to yourself as if you already are those traits, attributes or affirmations. So that the subconscious mind aligns with your conscious thoughts, and will try to help you achieve the new you. Compared to self-sabotaging because it doesn’t believe it is there yet or will achieve it. You have to speak to yourself as if you already are or am what you’re trying to become. This is crucial in helping everything manifest over repetition and time.
Let your heart create the brightest and best picture of yourself, and let your mind steer the way through challenging and rough waters. Believe it and you will achieve it.
7) Work on your weaknesses
If you only work on your strengths, you can never grow into your full potential. Working on your weaknesses will open up opportunities for exponential growth and developing a better balance amongst your skills and traits that contribute to your success or forward progress in achieving whatever you desire. Most people enjoy doing the things they are good at, but prefer not to attempt or work on what they do poorly. Anything great is worth performing poorly until you get better at it. It takes hard work, consistency, and repetition in order to truly be great at something. Potentially your current strengths were developed because you had more passion in pursuing those qualities, or you just naturally were born with them. Either way, it took time and effort to reach the level of competency and ability that you currently contain. Some people may be great listeners, but lack confidence in speaking with poise and integrity. The only way to be a better speaker is to try working on this skill. Potentially by joining sports teams, book clubs, trivia pursuits, and so much more. Maybe even taking a public speaking class at your local college. No matter how you go about improving your skills, just be open and willing to fail and make mistakes. Everyone has to go through learning curves in order to become their best version. Without weaknesses everyone would be the same; however, we know this isn’t the case, everyone is unique and we can all help each other grow in different aspects of our lives. Sharing is caring, if you’re a strong speaker but weak at listening, share with a great listener who wants to be a better speaker. You both can benefit from each other’s strengths and before you know it, you both are stronger individuals to tackle new challenges and move forward towards your passions with even more confidence and skills to achieve success.
8) Create a positive support team
Having a team is crucial for maintaining a positive psyche when times get tough, and when you deserve a pat on the back. A positive support system is what allows you to feel your success or failure is not just attached to you, but also all to those who put time and effort into seeing you succeed. It will give you a great incentive to remain ambitious and focused in achieving any goals or dreams that you’re pursuing. You always do better when you’re focused towards a team goal. If you want to be more self-less, then create a team with individuals who are on the same wavelength, and you all can work towards one similar goal. This way, others will help you stay motivated and inspired to stay persistent and positive when times get challenging. Plus, you’ll feel more inclined to keep working because you won’t want to let the team down. It gets very easy to take breaks and procrastinate when its just your own goals you’re pursuing. Because, no one but yourself has those specific goals. But, having a team focus helps everyone stay moving in the right direction, and receive the push or grounding they need at the right times. Remember, your tribe is your vibe. If you want to be an entrepreneur, surround yourself with entrepreneurs… If you want to be a millionaire, surround yourself with millionaires… It’s that simple. The people you hang around, are a reflection of yourself, and you will naturally pick up tendencies and traits of these individuals because humans are great at mirroring their environment. Whatever you want to become or maintain, create the right circle of friends or acquaintances that will lead you in that direction. Everyone will have specific goals for themselves; however, having a bigger team goal will guide you in the direction of achieving your niche goal within that team goal.
9) Remember you are human…
No one is perfect… No one has achieved great feats without failure, set backs and hardship. The difference between those who succeeded and those who didn’t, is their persistence, resilience, and ambition to grow. The most successful individuals are willing to fail more than most people are willing to attempt… That’s rough. But, they know the reward at the end of the tunnel is definitely worth it. Therefore, they’re willing to go through pain, suffering and making sacrifices in order to master their inner game. Understand, your mind may be conditioned today to sabotage itself, but that doesn’t mean one day you won’t master it. It just means that you need to be willing to put it to the test. Take the time to perform the work required to attain a controlled, collected, conscious and consistent mind, that will lead you to succeeding in all avenues of your life. When you let go of being perfect, you open up so much more potential to grow, because fear is attached to perfectionism. Fear will never allow you to take the first step out of your comfort zone, which may be stemming from the fear of failure, the fear of incompetency, or the fear of past experiences. You have to face your fears, but also let go of this idea that you’re perfect or need to be. When you place less pressure on yourself, you actually perform better and achieve more. Relax, try your best, and just make adjustments. That’s all you can do… If you want success, be willing to work hard and make mistakes. Just don’t allow negligence to be the reason for failure, that’s just a choice of not being present and lacking preparation. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail… Take it one step at a time, one task at time, one day at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are you. Perfectionism is only holding you back. Break free from this mindset, and just give your best effort, from there everything will fall into place when it’s meant to.
10) Practice make permanent, not perfect
The old saying “practice makes perfect” is a lie… As I mentioned before, no one is perfect, even the best of the best in each field make mistakes. Practice makes permanent. As in the muscle memory, thought process, routine, approach, technique, skill, focus, and mindset. Over time you will collect the knowledge, experience and wisdom that will give you better understanding of how to go about your passion with poise, confidence, consistency, and success. The more you do something, the better you get, that’s common sense. But, if you do something incorrectly over and over, you will not necessarily become great at it, as your practice is not aligned with what will create success. Quality over quantity… When you are working on a skill, you must be present, focused and attentive to details. If you are in a rush to acquire repetition, thinking it will create perfection, just know you’re setting yourself up for overtraining and potentially regressions. Too much of anything is good for nothing. Do as much as you can today, with 100% focus and concentration, once you reach your limit of mental capacity, take a break and come back to it, or wait until tomorrow to work on it again. There is a reason you need breaks at work, it’s typically not because you’re physically needing it, but over time your mind needs a break or it won’t be as productive towards working effectively. Employers have studied and know how long and when they should give breaks for their staff. If their employees aren’t productive or effective, it only leaves them with bad product quality or less integrity of their service. Typically 4 hours of consistent work is all the mind should do on one task before taking a break. Anything after that will not be considered as detailed or beneficial for either party. Take your time and lay each brick as perfect as possible, even if it takes all day to lay one brick. Just know over time you will create the best road you could have ever made anyways. Try to rush laying your bricks, and be left with the consequences of starting over or having cracks that lead to heartache and unnecessary work that could have been prevented by just taking your time and choosing the wiser approach. Slow and steady wins the race… Practice will create permanent, wether it’s good or bad. So be mindful of your what you’re repeating, because it may lead you to exponential success or starting over at square one.
11) Gratitude
Lastly, the more grateful you are the better of a mindset you will maintain. Gratitude creates the best attitude, and takes you to your highest altitude. When you’re shooting for the stars you need to remain grateful for everything you have including opportunities and necessities. Waking up with gratitude will give you the energy to be joyful and playful in all your endeavours. This will help you stay positive when things get tough, and gives you motivation to stay ambitious towards achieving your goals. It will also make the process fun and enjoying, which should be a part of your journey if you’re on the right path. The more you appreciate, the more positive energy you radiate. Positive energy makes people want to help you, and boosts your morale that you’re working towards the bigger picture. Being grateful helps you maximize your day, because you will want to jump out of bed, and potentially work even harder or longer knowing you have the opportunity to seize the day. A gratitude mindset is a key component of those who love their passion and truly succeed in life. Succeeding by living their passion, creating a wholesome life, and remaining conscious that success is earned never given. These people understand that they have to work for success, and that they’re also willing too. Knowing they have so much opportunity that others would die for… Literally… Gratitude helps remove self-sabotage because it keeps the mind very present, and helps in removing unconscious blockages that are stemming from missing what’s right in front of you. Remind yourself everyday of the big and little things to be grateful for, and watch how your life starts to completely change in your thoughts, perceptions, actions, energy, and reality. Be grateful you woke up today, many didn’t… Be grateful you have opportunity for education, many never will… Be grateful you have the ability to eat today, many won’t. Remind yourself of what you do have compared to what you don’t, and see how your mindset will lead you towards optimism and amazing success. The more grateful you are, the better the universe will treat you. It’s all up to your mindset!
Conclusion
Self-mastery may begin with self-sabotage. But, taking the time to address those issues, letting go and moving forward is already heading in the right direction of becoming a master within yourself. This is a long and tedious process, but the reward at the end of the tunnel is enormous. Confidence, positive self-esteem, grace, patience, joyfulness, happiness, and success beyond your imagination. All of these can be achieved if you’re willing to take the risk. The reason many won’t take this challenge to master their inner game, is because it takes too much hard work for too long of a time period, and can be very uncomfortable working on your weaknesses or becoming transparent and vulnerable in order to grow. The ones who are willing to let go and detach from their ego or pride, will blossom into beautiful flowers that everyone will wish they had chosen to become. However, those individuals chose to burn their old self into ashes for the soil, plant a seed of imagination to dream, grow roots to develop a strong foundation, slowly expand through their stem to reach new heights, branch out leaves to collect more knowledge, skills, experience and wisdom, and through this process they shine bright and unique as their authentic and best self. Self-mastery is a conscious choice, and like any other skill takes years to master. If you want your best life, start today by rebuilding yourself from the ground up, and stay focused on small steps everyday in the right direction. Nothing great comes easy, and nothing easy is great. Nothing fast will last, and nothing you want to last will come fast. Be willing to enjoy the process and love the journey. Enjoy the challenges as much as the success. This entire collection of experiences is what makes life so beautiful and worth while pursuing. If you want to manifest something in reality, develop it within yourself, before you know it, you’ll start to align with the people, places, and things that are associated with those virtues or traits. Be willing to fail and keep moving forward, make adjustments and be vulnerable. If you want to grow, you have to let things go. Stay positive and consistent, quality of repetition will create your success. Go with the flow and live life slow. Because, once you reach your destination, you can’t go back. Smell the roses along the way :)
Stay strong, stay consistent, stay healthy, stay in the moment, & keep developing yourself!
Level Up!
Love ❤️
Team Mindset
