“There  is no such thing as self sabotage. The brain only does what it learns to do.  Some one labeled this activity as sabotage but it truly isn’t. It is a blessing not a curse. It just doesn’t seem like one at times.

Welcome to Part 12 of The Secret To Success And Happiness Few Know And Won’t Tell You. The series continues and this post continues from the previous two. Part 13 tomorrow. Let’s go!

Believe me you want the brain to do what it does the way it does it. It has learned  to do all sorts of wonderful things. Positive beneficial things and useless and negative things. The brain learns!

Success Is Not The Key To Happiness …

The brain is a learning machine designed to keep you alive. It takes care of your survival. It creates neural pathways and then runs those neural pathways thus establishing habits so you don’t have to relearn everything again and again.

Those habits are what it learned to do. When you want to change one your brain goes into survival mode. Not full fledged fight or flight necessarily, but for some people the feelings may be intense.

It opposes the change because what it is doing IS what it learned to do. It continues to assert the old habits while you are attempting to add in the new. Because of this conflict you or someone else labels it self-sabotage. Nothing could be further from the truth.

… Happiness Is The Key To Success

It is not trying to sabotage you. It is trying to keep you successfully doing what you have always done. The issue is NOW you have decided what you learned long ago doesn’t serve you and you want to change. YOU are changing the way things worked.

In order to make changes you now want, you need to do the very same things you did when you originally learned the programming you now don’t want. You need to condition your brain in the same fashion as your earlier conditioning  but with positive updates.

How?  By repetition and powerful emotion. Early on you were influenced by others, and by their emotions as well as your own. They gave you suggestions day in and day out. They didn’t consider them suggestions they just talked to you and in front of you.

The Capacity To Learn Is A Gift

You listened, you heard, you heard them over and over and you adopted them. Sometimes, because you were emotional and sometimes because they were. You took on their ways of viewing and approaching the world. We all did it similarly.

Many messages we got were how tough things are, how hard we must work, that some people are lucky while others aren’t etc. We got a variety of self-limiting messages that resulted in our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and the world.

Some people believe lies.

If you think, ‘I am stupid’, ‘I am not good enough’, I am too fat’, ‘I am useless’, ‘I can’t do it’, ‘I always screw things up’, ‘I am not worthy’, ‘I have to work harder’, ‘The economy prevents me from getting ahead’, ‘If only my parents had taught me better’, ‘I’m not educated’.

The Ability To Learn Is A Skill

Those sample thoughts are all lies. Yet, many people believe them. Why? because they adopted them while growing up. None of them necessarily are true or accurate but they will limit you if you accept them as true. You don’t have to believe them but you do.

That is the conditioning. It is not the mind trying to sabotage you. You could just as easily with just as much or little effort believe, ‘I can do anything I learn to do’, ‘I am capable’, I am worthy’, I am smart’, ‘Nothing can prevent me from reaching my dreams’.

But most people don’t. Why? Because they weren’t conditioned to believe this way growing up. The brain can learn either belief, it doesn’t care or judge. It just accepts them as is. Most people are stuck, not because they have to be, but because they believe the wrong beliefs.

The Willingness To Learn Is A Choice

They believe lies about themselves. They accepted them as gospel and they do nothing about it. They don’t like it necessarily and it may be uncomfortable but they believe that is who they are. They don’t realize they have a choice, UNTIL they realize they have a choice.

Here is the thing. All beliefs are lies. Positive or negative. The question is which do you choose to believe? They are either supportive or unsupportive. Which do you choose to believe? It is your choice.

This is how we go through life. We are born, get conditioned, accept that conditioning, have some experiences that verify that conditioning and lock it in. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) part of the brain is designed to do that. It finds matches.

Believing In Yourself Is The First Key To Success

Its job, beyond helping us survive, is to find a match. You say, ‘I am stupid’ and your brain goes ‘right you are’! ‘AND HERE IS WHY’ and provides you examples of screw-ups and incidents from your past and present that verify it. It looks for examples to prove you right.

Had you said, ‘I am marvelous’ your brain would look for those matches and find them just as readily. Even now you and I can say either and get matches. Most people get more of one type than they other because that is what they are most used to looking for.

Sad isn’t it. We want to change and it seems our own system prevents us. It doesn’t do it for nefarious reasons it does that for our protection and for keeping us consistent. We know who we are, what we believe and value. We will even argue about it.

It Is What We Think We Know That Keeps Us From Learning

We will fight to prove we are stupid, if we say it, and fight to prove we aren’t if someone else calls us that. Well, usually, sometimes we may agree. The point is we don’t have to believe any of these limiting beliefs we just do out of habit. We can be free of them if we choose.

Here is what it comes down to. After years of living with limitations we decide we want to change these. We know if we don’t change we will always do what we always did and continue to get the same old results we have been getting. Right? Unless we change.

That is what the brain is designed to do. To continue to get you the same results again and again reliably. You want it that way. You don’t want to walk through the door one day and into the wall the next. You want to get the same results day and night.

If You Are Not Willing To Learn No One Can Help You

NOW you want different results. So you make up your conscious mind to change. You want to lose weight or gain weight. Stop eating certain foods or begin trying new ones. You want to change your attitude. You want to feel better. You want more money.

Whatever it is you have decided you will change it. You may or may not think it will be hard to change, but sadly, most people go into it thinking it is going to be tough. It doesn’t have to be, but it is BECAUSE old habits die hard. Precisely, what you want. Remember?

You don’t want them to die off easily or the new ones wouldn’t stick either. You want it to be tough in actuality you just don’t want it to be tough for you. Am I right or am I right? You prefer it easy, yes? I understand. So do I.

If You Are Determined To Learn No One Can Stop You

In order for it to be easier you know it may take some time but you should think, ‘I can do this. It will be easy. Easy or not I will do this’. If you think it will be easy, while it may be difficult, it will be easier than if you think, ‘oh my god this is soooooo hard’. Get it? Read it again.

Your mind set determines how you go through or endure anything. Mindset, your attitude, determines 99.9% of your success and how you feel while attaining it. You want to learn to feel good no matter what. It is easier to change when you are feeling good.

If, when you begin to make the change the old habits rear up and you get upset, screw up, drop off, and decide, ‘It is too hard to change, I will never do it.’ You most probably won’t. That is a defeatist attitude for certain. Can’t throw in the towel and expect success.

Winners Have Simply Formed The Habit Of Doing Things … 

If you think, ‘I want to do it but I keep sabotaging myself’ that is as wrong to do as if you punched yourself hard in the face. You are labeling protective, survival processes your brain engages in to insure your success as sabotage. You are insulting your very self.

You are putting up additional opposition to your own ability to learn and grow. Instead of saying,’my brain is wonderful and keeps me alive and consistent’, you are saying ‘my brain is screwing with me. It sabotages me and prevents me’. Your emotions are conflicted.

Your thoughts are negative. You are not helping yourself. You are making excuses for not continuing and blaming yourself at the same time. Some people LOVE LOVE LOVE to blame themselves. They say things like ‘You don’t understand I sabotage myself!’

… Losers Never Do – Be Diligent And Win

‘You don’t understand I am chemically addicted’. ‘You don’t understand…’ as if their problems are the most significant ones in the world. No one has problems they do. They wear these as a badge of honor. They are proud they are unable. They suffer so.

They are good people and guess what? They learned to be that way. They learned to defend their unwillingness to change and blame it on anything and everything. They learned to feel good about feeling bad. It is habit for them. Yes, they can change it. Of course they can.

Tomorrow I’ll share how to change that. I give you some pointers in how you can eliminate self-sabotage for good. So be sure to read the next blog. Share too if you know people who could benefit. In the meantime, learn to be grateful for how you work. You work perfectly even when you don’t like the results you get. Love yourself.

Change Is The Result Of All True Learning

You can learn to change and get different results. So hang in there. But make it easy on yourself by loving yourself and appreciating how you already work. You change easier and more readily through acknowledgement and validation than through negativity and pain. Be grateful and celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes

How will you make each moment marvelous today?

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Horizons photo used with permission of Phil Koch.

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