“I craft most of my own tragedies without ever having even the remotest understanding that it is I, myself who have done the crafting.”― Craig D. Lounsbrough

We all want to win. In reinvention, life, love. Despite this we still fail.

A big part to play in that failure is our own unconscious self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is any behaviour, thought or action that interferes with the attainment of goals. We want something so badly but our actions result in the opposite.

In the past week as I navigated through challenging decisions, I noticed a web of action that compromised my reinvention.

Thing is, I didn’t think of it as sabotage at the time.

What self-sabotaging behaviour did I recognise and what I did to beat it.

1. Pride

Professor of Psychology Jessica Tracy explored the concept of authentic and hubristic pride in relation to self-esteem and narcissistic tendencies.

Genuine pride is when we feel accomplished and fulfilled from the effort in our achievements. Hubristic pride is driven by ego or entitlement and a driver for aggression and anti-social behaviour.

I am faced with two options: A and B. A is hella scary. But it gives rise to opportunity for exponential growth and possibility. B is the safer option of the two; remaining within the status quo.

A part of me thought ‘I had out-grown’ or was ‘too good’ for B. I was beyond that. Reality is I have limited capacity to steer either option. There are no guarantees. I’m doing all I can, the rest is the waiting game.

What if I didn’t get what I wanted?

I’ve had to shift my headspace back to one of gratitude and surrendered expectations.

To do this, I understood that I was ready to move towards A because:

• I had prepared
• Put in hard work and educated myself as best that I could

Irrespective of the result between A vs B I would reassess and move accordingly.

Questions to consider: Are your decisions filled with pride based on expectations and an inflated version of yourself? If so, what alternative routes or options can you ‘deal’ with? What are the deeper reasons you strive for things? Are you trying to prove something to someone

2. Expecting things to happen too quickly

In a world of rapid technology, overnight success stories and the whole ‘test assumptions, break things and move quickly’ mantra of start-ups we expect things to happen in the blink of an eye.

Paradoxically reinvention is a marathon not a sprint. We are encouraged to start, create and deliver briskly, however growth is reminiscent to a fine wine.

Good Life Project Jonathan Fields speaks about ‘the unfortunate middle‘ and being a victim of the ‘relative success virus’.

The unfortunate middle is where we are stuck between simplicity (things work blissfully well) and sustainable complexity (challenges we manage consistently).

With the relative success virus we compare ourselves to others with the notion of “the grass is greener”.

We seek shallow and wide over narrow and deep. In both situations we want things to happen fast.

I’ve learnt that we need to build the framework and momentum necessary for scalable growth.

Last week I had a ’10x session’ and mapped out a Reintention kanban. There is much more to do to in order to grow this blog and not just what I was doing (regardless of how much I prayed to the blogging gods).

There aren’t magic pills or silver bullets. There are no shortcuts. If I wanted Reintention to work in coalescence with option A, I needed to do all of the steps.

Some of these steps I was aware of and some would come up along the way.

Questions to consider: Have you mapped the activities, metrics and ways you can reinvent or pivot yourself? Do you have measurable and realistic timelines for these activities? Is there a balance between challenge and doability with your tasks?

3. Overthinking

I am hands down the queen of overthinking. It’s a double edged sword. While it is important to weigh up options, analyse and make informed choices, don’t let overthinking inhibit action.

The first example of my overthinking was starting Reintention. Recall, I spent over 3 months perfecting the blog name. I recount nothing short of 50+ names.

“Too much thinking leads to paralysis by analysis.” ― Robert Herjavec

Get out of your head.

In my current A and B predicament I time boxed 20 minutes to write a pros and cons list for each option. I didn’t give myself too much time to prevent convincing myself out of anything.

There is plenty of science around gut feeling and deep down that my gut has steered me down the right path. It’s there to protect you.

Keep in mind gut feelings need to be levelled with your emotions and with enough information to distil a choice.

Would you rather be safe and mediocre or take a chance on awesomeness?

Questions to consider: Do you require ‘every’ bit of information to make a decision? Do you bounce between so many ideas and options that prevent execution? Do you go around in circles because you can’t stick to one decision and go through with it?

4. Looking for answers externally while needing to know everything

Searching for answers to everything outside yourself is common overthinking. It is also a mechanism for indecision and procrastination.

The reason we seek answers outside ourselves is to get validation that our decisions are acceptable or ‘right’. Problem is people have different lenses based on their experiences and perception.

Gary Bolles recommends seeking permission from a valued person to appease isolation in reinvention. Seeking permission allows you to feel supported and can provide insights to your blindspots.

When decisions between A and B were laid out I froze a little.

As a person who leans more towards being extroverted, I often get light-bulb “aha” moments while talking to others. So I did. I spoke to numerous people but realised that I ultimately had to take a stand and make a choice.

What were the advantages and disadvantages of each option? I ranked these in order of priority and weight and considered things I valued.

The desire or need to know everything is self-limiting because we can never know everything at one point in time.

This need is also systemic from a fear of the unknown. People are hardwired to crave for routine, habit, and certainty.

Understand that variability is not bad. Learning and growth is parallel to action and delivery and not a waterfall approach.

Options A and B are incomplete pictures. Instead of pushing and fearing what I didn’t know or couldn’t control, I opted to equip myself with alternative options that I could handle.

If A didn’t work out, I could chose A concurrent with C, or B could become A in time.

A was great, but was not a stand-alone option. How could I further grow A?

Questions to consider: Do you search for answers or validation from others to ‘confirm’ a decision? Do you hold other’s opinions above your own instinct?

Are your actions dependent upon knowing every bit of information? Do you overanalyse and reanalyse based off what you know? How are these actions holding you back?

5. Grinding through what I didn’t enjoy

Mindset and regimen is critical in setting up positive practices, but inevitably there will be things we don’t enjoy in reinvention.

There is a difference between doing things we don’t enjoy and doing unenjoyable things for the sake of doing so.

Angela Duckworth’s Grit examines how perseverance and passion is required in achievement besides pure hard work.

When working towards goals, the tasks or areas we aren’t strongest at become tools to sharpen our sword. The ability to navigate ambiguity and master complexity is energy giving.

We feel fulfilled, rewarded and excited. These actions speak to us on a greater level.

Eventually weaknesses may become strengths or we may be able to automate or eliminate them (hooray).

Regardless of how much hard work we put into something, if we don’t feel passion, reason or will, we will never reach that same excellence. It becomes a mundane chore.

I spend days getting material and writing blogs because I enjoy and feel fulfilled from the process. Recognising that option B was draining my energy was a confronting realisation that I needed change.

Questions to consider: Are there aspects of your life or reinvention that you are doing for ‘the sake of it’? Is this simply a mindset shift or a change in course of action?

6. Doing what everyone else is doing

“You will never reinvent yourself by doing what everyone else is doing”.

This was said to me last week. Followed by “You need to forge your own path”.

Recalling our teenage years involves some humorous life choices; from our fashion sense, things we liked or how we spoke (bad hair and typing LyK DiS anyone?).

I am all for standing on the shoulders of giants and leveraging lessons and failures off others.

However doing what everyone else is doing won’t differentiate yourself nor yield disruptive success.

This is not about rejecting incremental improvements rather finding your spark or value proposition.

It the unique or difficult to replicate value that you possess and can offer. Understand that this proposition will nurture and grow with you over time.

Still you may think there is a plethora of self-improvement, reinvention material out there, but my current spark is that I am creating Reintention while reinventing myself.

I don’t know how this may look in 1 month, 6 months or 1 year’s time, but that’s the magic in it.

I’m brave enough to acknowledge that I’ve learnt more from creating and writing this blog in two months than I have in my comfort bubble within the last year.

In embracing vulnerability, choosing option A is going against the grain but I believe it will catapult me to the next step.

As Oscar Wilde said “Be yourself, everyone else is taken”.

Why opt to be a coverband when you can find your own spark of genius?

Questions to consider: Do you follow the wind, or walk against it? What areas of your life do you drift along and how is this curbing your reinvention? What small changes would create big results? What is the the spark in your life and do you recognise your value?

7. Isolating reinvention on only one aspect of life

All aspects of your life are interlocked in an ecosystem where each element is reliant or influenced by another.

Initially I thought my focus had to be on my “career”. In fact reinvention also encompassed my health, relationships, finances, spiritual and mental health and personal learning and growth.

A degrade in one area significantly impacted the others.

If I’m stressed or my mental state is not great, my body shows it. I get sick. If I’m struggling in relationships it drowns out my creativity and focus. I’m constantly tired.

Spark and Grind author Erik Wahl brings the concept of duality in growth. He says that in order to succeed your mind needs to be agile. In today’s world is it not “or” but “and”. We need to balance ideas with action, execution with exploration, expanded consciousness with pivots.

It is not enough to be one or the other.

Running an empty tank or spinning around in the same hamster wheel will not propel you to success.

As challenging as it may be, other aspects of my life had to be healthy in order to propel my “career”. This involves making tough choices and sticking to that resolve.

Cleaning up my mental, emotion and relationship slate. Eating well. Exercise. Feeding myself with positive people and removing myself from situations that weren’t serving growth.

Between options A and B clearing up the ‘noise’ to see clearly. Rome wasn’t built in a day. But each day you work a little bit at it and it moves you closer.

Reinvention is not a noun, but a verb. A process.

Questions to consider: Are you focusing your reinvention attention to only 1 aspect of your life? Do you propel at one aspect at the expense to other? What is the true cost of your silo focus? How can you build a framework to nurture each aspect of your life in reinvention?

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