Self-Defeat: When you Vote Yourself Off the Island

They say no man is an island unto himself.  This is true, however sometimes we choose to put ourselves on no man’s land intentionally.  Remember the TV Show Survivor where everyone voted the most annoying person off the Island and the rest of the world watched and conferred along with them.

Sometimes I believe we form our own conspiracy theory against ourselves and vote ourselves off the island.  Remember you are not the only one who sees it.  The world is watching when you treat yourself that way too.  They confer along with you and then you form an alliance of self-hatred and the cycle continues. But you are better than that.  Deep down you know your just stuck.

Sometimes we suffer self-defeat to the point that we shut down, turn off the lights and say when others call, “Nobody’s home here.” In short, we short-circuit ourselves or give up on ourselves.  We can’t tolerate our own annoying habits or quirks.  We can’t forgive ourselves for not being perfect.  Who ever taught you that you had to be perfect.  They were DEAD wrong!!

These feelings may be rooted in a loss of approval or loss of love you felt at some point in your life from someone who loved or approved of you less for some behavior.  You may have experienced rejection from family or a spouse. They did you wrong.

Life has many challenges and battles to fight, but if we spend most of our time battling our own inner demons we will never move forward to face LIFE and conquer the larger battles.  This isn’t true for everyone.  Some people have higher levels of self-acceptance about their faults and some of us just plain beat ourselves up about them.

So, when struggling with self-defeat, how do you move forward?  You have to stop focusing on yourself as the problem. You must accept where you are at, show yourself the same grace and kindness you might show someone else struggling with those nasty habits.

Now I am sure I don’t have to name self-defeating behavior, but if you want it spelled out for you… excess spending, eating shopping, gambling, drinking.  Maybe you just can’t stand the fact that you waste time, daydream, procrastinate or can’t ever get MORE ORGANIZED.

Behaviors are learned and can be unlearned.  When trying to replace a self-defeating behavior with a non self-defeating behavior you have one major obstacle.  YOU!!  Stop getting in the way of your own success.  Focus on the solutions not belittling yourself.  You may be the messiest or messed up person in town but you can change ANY behavior.

Give yourself a time frame to work with.  I will do X by this date.  Now FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS, Whatever you can’t stand about yourself you can work on.  Be realistic.  There are experts you can consult, I have seen a book written on every subject known to man.  You may need a life coach.

Break your own cycle.  You know what happens if you get stuck on a bicycle?  It goes round and round and you never get off.  You also annoy the people around you to death and you even stop peddling fast enough after awhile.  You shut down.  So whatever it takes for you to climb up off that bicycle- DO IT! Change begins with a goal, a desire, an end result in mind.  Break things down into micro steps.

Ever see the movie What About Bob?  Bill Murray plays a very compulsive and dysfunctional adult who can’t even get on an elevator or go anywhere without his psychologist.  Richard Dreyfuss, the psychologist, then teaches him to take BABY STEPS.  He learns to combat his fears while saying things like baby steps to the elevator, then baby steps out of the building.  It is quite funny. Laugh at yourself!

When feeling overwhelmed with changing something difficult, recognize your baby steps. That is how a baby learns to walk, one tiny step at a time and then the beautiful metamorphosis to a full-fledged adult who takes larger steps.

No more voting yourself off the island. You are a valuable part of this human race and you can learn to be unstuck in any difficult area of your life.  Just don’t quit on the most important thing ever- YOURSELF!