What is Self Sabotage?

What is self sabotage? Where did it come from? I heard that back in the 80's there was this bug infecting mankind. A "Self Sabotage" bug that's out biting people which is contagious and couldn't be cured. No of course that didn't happen. Self-sabotage is nothing more than a mental block. It's not physical. It becomes physical but starts with mental images. The perception of who you are, in your mind's eye, how you see things, good or bad. I can't tell you how many times in a client has said, "I've really been postponing doing this activity." An example could be their business such as making calls. My client will tell me, "I just didn't want to call my clients today." They were scheduled to call the beginning of the month. No calls were made at the beginning, middle or end.

Now, there is tremendous amount of pain. Why? Why did my client not make those phone calls? Simply because he had a mental block. In his mind's eye, he saw something that wasn't good. He chose to see clients firing him. His mental image was the client telling him his services are no longer needed. So that's what he saw in his eye. It's all about the movie he saw in his head. As time went on it got more painful and there was a block. He self-sabotaged himself. The pain finally got him to move and take action and make some calls. To his dismay the calls went very well. The client was pleased to hear from him. What actually happened versus what he chose to see were quite the opposite. He realized the only problem was himself. After making one call and realizing it wasn't bad he made many more calls.

This wasn't a physical limitation - he had the ability to pick up the phone and dial. What blocked him was his mental image. Have you ever had a thought that something was going to go bad? How long did you let this mental image block you? The mental image our mind creates is our perception. Our perception impairs us because of the bad feeling we've created. I've worked with clients all over the world and seen it to many times. Self sabotage holds us back from what we truly desire.

Become aware that you are sabotaging yourself. If you find yourself saying something like, "I know what I need to do.... to become healthy, lose weight, build muscle, I know what to do for my business, for my profession, or as a parent." Whatever it is, they know what they need to do but they don't do it. "Why don't I do it?" Which then I tell them you sabotage yourself. You have this mental block that you allow, that you've conditioned over and over and over to the point where it is not conscious to you at all.

The first strategy in breaking through self sabotage is awareness. I mentioned this is a behavior that you've been doing for so long. You're not conscious of it - you don't see it. So, become aware in other words - wake up. Over the next 10 days put up your antennas and become aware of your sabotage behaviors. Are you going to continue to be your own block to success? To learn more listen to the replay teleseminar - Self Sabotage NO MORE! http://bit.ly/djisabotage

The Power of Your Mind!

I recently had a coaching session with a client and we discussed the differences between our conscious mind vs. subconscious. Let me give you a fact so you understand the reason for sharing my clients experience. Our conscious mind plays the smaller part of our behavior roughly 10-15 percent while the majority 85% of our behavior comes from our subconscious mind. Okay, those are the facts from our scientific world. So what is our subconscious mind? It's a tape recorder a data collector that has been taking it all in since day one. Our subconscious mind doesn't have any filter or judgement. It will play whatever has been conditioned or programed. Let's use an example to illustrate: driving the car. If you've been driving long enough, have you had a moment where you said, "Who's been driving the car?". You get to your destination and wonder how did I get here I can't remember the last couple of minutes? Well that's your subconscious mind taking over. So back to my clients experience. He was meeting with a very important person who he really respected and was somewhat intimidated. My client is allergic to cats and the person he was meeting with had 5 of them. Here's where the mind used it's power to serve. My client was so focused on the person and the value of getting everything out of this meeting. Through his emotional intensity his subconscious mind was able to step in and do whatever was necessary for him to not have any allergic reaction. My client said if I were anywhere else I would have been sneezing and coughing and having a difficult time to breath. This is the power of our mind - subconscious mind.

Make Money

What ever you're striving to achieve more money, better relationships, health or career. You need to tame your ego. Your ego will protect you with fears and limiting beliefs. Watch the video to learn more....

Make a REAL descision!

When you say Yes your saying NO to something else...

In one of my recent coaching sessions my client said something that was very profound. He said, "If you say "yes" to X you're saying "NO" to Y". That really made a ton of sense to me. I've worked with so many people and so many of them seem overloaded. Being overloaded is stressful and overwhelming which isn't healthy or much fun. What we don't realize is that every "yes" means "no" to somthing else. It can also mean more to do in our life. So before you say "yes" decide what you're going to say "no" too. If you're stressed that's because with every "yes" you're not saying "no" to something else. This is a very simple strategy but effective and powerful. Think before saying "yes" and your life will be better.

Daily actions compound to success

Success comes one day at a time. I believe there’s so much mystery around success. I actually think people believe it is just going to knock on their front door and say, “I’m here”. We have this instant gratification mentality. We want success now! What is success? Unfortunately, most people measure success by things; money, cars or house. If they don’t have these things, well, then they don’t feel successful.
I’d like to offer you an alternative approach to feeling successful. I’ve personally coached hundreds of people all over the world. So many of them have said, “I know what to do (actions)”. These actions for the most part are simple to do. Here comes a very important distinction – there also simple not to do. We have a choice everyday to do these simple actions or not to do. This is the secret to success. Success doesn’t just show up some day. There is a compounding effect of your actions. By the time you admit you’ve reached success most of the work was done a long-time ago. What you need to do to reach success are actions that are simple to do and simple not to do. Those who are successful understood this theory and disciplined themselves. Those who are still searching for success are dabblers. They don’t do the actions on a consistent basis.
Take one day at a time and make sure you reward yourself every day. Create a strong belief around this theory and allow it to serve you. Success is found when no one is looking – even you.

Concentrate, Focus & Resolve

The lack of focus is one of the biggest challenges with my clients. They can’t put their attention on one task. This drives them crazy because they know this is preventing them from achieving their goals. However their not sure how to fix it. They don’t understand why they can’t see their project through to the end. What they do know is they hate themselves for having this behavior.
I’d like to share a few ideas on how to keep your focus and accomplish your goal. First you must be very clear on what you want. Let’s take a look at an example, how about losing weight. If you’re goal is to feel better or lose weight, you’re in trouble. That’s not a clear outcome, is it? If you don’t know what your target is how are you able to focus? Clarity is really simple but we make it so complicated. So it’s vitally important to get clear. I want to lose 20lbs by April, that’s clear.
Next, get over your story and get out of the way. People lack focus because they have a story why their unable to focus. I don’t have the time… money… skills etc. Your story is the life preserver to get you out of the sea of being uncomfortable. Notice you have a story and ask yourself, “If I choose to keep this story where will my life be in 3 years?” Get the story out of the way because it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Having an empowering belief is another nugget to help you stay focused and achieve your goals. Deep within us we have core beliefs that are guiding us unconsciously. We have surface beliefs such as I don’t have the time or I’ll make it happen. Yes these are conflicting but that’s what surface beliefs do. When you dig deeper something like “It will take too long to accomplish” comes out and that’s the limiting belief that guides you unconsciously. So condition a new empowering belief that will support you and most importantly keep you focused.

Pain if you don't.... Pleasure if you do!

We make decisions based off pain and pleasure claims Tony Robbins. Not physical but emotional. It has amazed me how “we” have conditioned thoughts of creating terrifying scenario’s. In our minds eye we see something not working out which, most of the time, never comes to reality.

What you need to do is stop focusing on your pain. Pain ultimately is more of a thought than it is real. Look at it this way, the thought of burning your finger with a match versus actually burning your finger. The thought in your head creates enough pain for you to avoid burning your finger. If we focus on what we classify as pain it creates emotion which leads to our behavior. The question is what’s your behavior?

Typically we spend too much time focusing on our pain. However the pain comes from our thoughts. And our behavior is to avoid the pain so we stop. What I suggest is you focus on pleasure. Focus on the pleasure of moving forward. Think of climbing a mountain. It takes a lot of work. You huff and you puff your way to the top. You’re climbing and looking at the top and you’re thinking I have such a long way to go. Did you ever take time to just stop and turn around and look how far you’ve actually gone up the mountain? We need to do more of that.

Focus on the pleasure, the things that you’ve done already. That’s so important. We need to celebrate. You don’t want to wait to achieve the goal and then celebrate because it could take awhile. Are you going to be miserable the whole time? No, that doesn’t make any sense. We need to celebrate more. We need to focus more on the pleasure than we do the pain.

What you need to start doing is breaking that pattern. Celebrate everyday for accomplishing your activities.

Pennies to Success

Do you ever wonder how the heck you reach success? There are many theories and philosophies but what's really important is your very thinking. I'm an avid reader of books that help me live my potential. Jeff Olson the author of "The Slight Edge" is one of those books that really hit home. Jeff shares a story about a dying father who has two sons. The father wants to help his son's learn the value of decisions about their actions. He gives them two choices, take a million dollars now or take a box which has a penny inside. The box with the penny will double for 30 days. After they choose they need to come back and report their results. Well I'll leave what happens for you to find out. The moral of the story is that we need to do the actions that are simple to do but are also simple not to do. Success comes from compounding activities over time. Every day your actions are pennies, if you judge that specific day you only see pennies. You may get very discouraged and stop your actions. DON'T STOP. The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson is a must read.

Goal Setting for 2010

Well, the New Year is just around the corner, are you ready? I've had some clients tell me they are so ready for this year to be over. 2009 was a tough year. Well the New Year does reset the calendar however your current situation comes with it. Just because it's a New Year don't expect to wake up January 1st and all of your challenges have vanished. It's not going to happen. Life will bring us opportunities and challenges, that's a fact. What I strongly advise is to focus on what you control. That would be YOU. Remember the basic fundamentals hold tremendous value. So start today by setting goals for next year. There is a system for goal setting and I will coach on it in my upcoming teleseminar. Just click on the title of this blog for details. Get ready for 2010 and make it a fabulous year.