Category: Self-Care

Self-Care looks are your internal perception of yourself, and looks at ways in which you can improve your self-image. If you feel like you don’t give yourself enough love, this is where to be!

Self-Sabotaging behavior: Here’s Why You Want To Fail
I’ve recently noticed a reoccurring pattern of self-sabotaging behavior in my life.

When something seems to be going well like a blossoming relationship, a developing friendship, or landing a dream job that has me over the moon, it never lasts – not because I can’t maintain it, but because I unconsciously sabotage it.

Therefore, I end up heartbroken by my own foolish decisions. I make no effort to maintain connections with those who were once like siblings to me. I’ve forfeited incredible opportunities because I didn’t play by the rules, and sometimes, I wonder what I could have had.

Whatever happens, I revert to a subpar life situation – dwelling in despair and wondering how I went so wrong. However, acknowledging that a part of me wants to fail is the hardest pill to swallow, but the most important.

In this article, I’ll guide you through my process of realization, healing, and transformation to finally end self-sabotaging behavior.

You deserve to have an incredible life, you just need to stop getting in your way.
What is self-sabotaging behavior?

Self-sabotaging behavior is your conscious or unconscious desire to derail a positive situation in your life. Think of self-sabotage as getting in the way of your own success because you have unconscious fears about being successful.

Recently, I sacrificed a dream job by not abiding by the rules. Even when the people I worked for adored me and looked the other way, I made sure to be a little careless.

So once again, I gave up something truly good for me, leading me into an uncomfortable but familiar downward spiral. Over the last several months, I had to take a hard look at my shadows and make a declaration to the universe that enough is enough.

Some of the common areas of life people self-sabotage include:

Healthy and meaningful relationships

Career and good job opportunities

Money and finances

Health and wellness

Enriching new opportunities and life experiences

Essentially, you can sabotage anything in your life that you don’t believe you are deserving of.

My sense of comfort and familiarity is attached to struggle. Therefore, there is an unconscious compulsion to revert to the familiar, even if it causes misery. This is why I have sabotaged good things in my life because I was familiar with the pain of struggling.

Why do people self-sabotage?

People tend to self-sabotage when they feel unworthy or inadequate of the things they want.

As soon as something is going well in their lives, a little voice kicks in saying ‘Woah, woah, hold up! Your home is back here in the shadows, you don’t really want to abandon your home, do you?’

Self-sabotaging behavior has been one of the most stubborn patterns in my life, and now I realize it comes from a place of inadequacy – believing I’m not worthy of the good things life is providing.

There have been a few instances of beautiful relationships that I have sabotaged because I didn’t feel worthy – despite my partners at the time believing so.

During one blossoming relationship with a beautiful Colombian woman who I felt was way out of my league, I decided to move to another country instead of pursuing the relationship.

Years later when I was in Mexico traveling with a wonderful woman, I complicated the situation by involving an ex-girlfriend, and everything fell apart.

Another relationship with a woman who founded a successful business when I was living in the United States fell apart because my insecurities came out in full swing and got the best of me.

So… here are the common themes.

These women were beautiful and like-minded, and we had great chemistry. They were all fun and down to Earth, and I could potentially see myself settling down with either one of them.

So what on Earth happened? How did I keep screwing this up in the worst possible way?

I ended (or caused an end to) these relationships because it was easier.

It seems obvious from an outside glance, but these are unconscious patterns, meaning I didn’t think about the repercussions. These actions were out of character – leading to the dissolution of the relationship and a whole lot of pain to ensue.

How do people self-sabotage?

Certain behaviors are common among people who self-sabotage. People who self-sabotage are unconsciously looking for the consequences – meaning they’re likely to act out of line to evoke a reaction.

Some common forms of self-sabotaging behavior involve:

Picking fights with people when there is a clear solution

Exacerbating small issues into big problems

Neglecting health and wellness

Abusing substances

Procrastinating rather than getting the job done

Being a perfectionist and focusing on trivial details

Remaining in painful, but comfortable life situations

Being dishonest or lying about something that will stir the pot

Being avoidant and deliberately missing out on good opportunities

Being intentionally late to something where punctuality is necessary

Being unattentive or unusually forgetful

Making basic mistakes that are easily avoided
How to correct self-sabotaging behavior

As with any painful reoccurring pattern, awareness is the first step towards true change. Without recognizing when you are self-sabotaging, you’re bound to continue doing it.

Think back to the different themes in your life where you could have prevented something good from falling apart. Where did you let yourself down, and how often has this happened?

What exactly did you do, and has it happened before?

Use the previous list of common self-sabotaging behaviors to identify if any of them seem familiar. Perhaps with awareness, you will notice when you’re slipping into this painful pattern, to deter it.

Developing awareness of self-sabotage requires taking accountability for your mistakes. If you’re caught in a victim loop or deferred responsibility by pointing the finger, these painful situations will keep happening.

So be honest with yourself to know what exactly you’re looking for.

Reflect on the patterns

Reflection tends to move the needle because it encourages insights that you may have previously brushed over.

By spending time thinking about why you did what you did and how you could act differently, you’re more likely to catch the pattern if it begins to reoccur. Essentially, you want to get to the roots of it. What is causing you to sabotage yourself? Does it come from a place of:

Self-hate

Low self-esteem

Inadequacy

Fear

Do any of these reasons ring true to you? If not, what do you think could be the root cause of this painful pattern? Reflecting on these patterns can hurt because you will confront aspects of yourself you wish you could avoid.

Perhaps you will encounter guilt or shame from a previous experience. Maybe you will see that you are the reason you’re failing, which is difficult.

But it is progress.

The more you think back to these patterns and reflect, the more this pattern will start to make sense.

Forgive yourself for being human

The hardest part about self-sabotage is the feeling of guilt that ensues after realizing I’ve (deliberately) let myself down. That guilt haunts me. In particular cases I carried that emotional baggage for years – the icing on the cake.

But I realized that I don’t need to add insult to injury. Sure, it’s important to learn from the situation to better recognize when I self-sabotage. But forgiveness is also important because guilt only adds fuel to the issue that caused self-sabotage.

See how you can get caught in a spiral?

Learn to forgive yourself for times when you’ve blown a good situation. You are only human, so don’t judge yourself for making these mistakes.

Make sure that you learn from your mistakes and move forward, otherwise let the past be the past.

Heal the underlying wound

A trauma response can drive self-sabotaging behavior. If you have an unhealed wound relating to a particular experience, you may sabotage related future experiences.

For example, if you went on a date and it went horribly, you may avoid other opportunities for dates because you don’t want to relive the previous experience. Even though you could be passing wonderful opportunities with incredible people, the negative experience influences you.

As the desire to self-sabotage comes from a wound, you’re bound to continue doing it if that wound is still open. That’s why it’s important to sink into the feelings associated with the wound and do the healing.

Another common wound that causes self-sabotaging behavior is feeling inadequate. Likely due to childhood experiences, you developed an inferiority complex.

Your lack of self-worth makes you believe that you cannot have good things when they come to you. If someone good does come to you, you push it away because unconsciously you believe you’re undeserving.

Now that you’ve identified the pattern, you’ve discovered the wound, you need to heal. Work on the root cause of this problem, and heal the darkness causing this behavior. You can get started with the article below:

Building Self-Worth When You Feel Inadequate

Stop identifying as a failure

Your identity drives your behavior.

If you identify as a victim, guess what you’ll do to reinforce that image?

That’s right, you’ll look for ways to be a victim because it reinforces your sense of self. But this sense of self is fundamentally broken which is why you need to change it.

Changing your identity can take time, but you want to continuously reinforce patterns and behaviors that align with a happier perception of self. Here you can utilize techniques such as affirmations or practice letting go techniques to remove an identity that doesn’t serve you.

When you form a healthier identity that inspires hope, motivation, and inspiration, you’re less likely to self-sabotage because you want to be congruent with this new identity.

Make a declaration that you are worthy

Now I want you to genuinely declare your intention to stop self-sabotaging once and for all.

Say it to the universe, god, Jesus, Buddha, whatever your faith is tied to, and say it from the heart. You need to affirm that you’re going to stop self-sabotaging because it’s within your power.

There is a lot of power behind declaring an end to something, but say it with heart. You need to feel it here and truly make this declaration. It should be a powerful energy that you bring into your life.

Scream it out or speak it through prayer, just make sure you say it.

You are worthy of having a good life. Having a wonderful life is your birthright, so don’t be afraid to take what is inherently yours.

By stopping self-sabotaging behavior, you set yourself on a better course of prosperity and happiness that you are deserving of. Be the best person you can be, but realize you have earned a good life.

Enjoy your life and stop blowing the opportunities.
1 April 2024
It’s Okay To Fail, You’re Only Human
Life seemed straightforward when we were children before being hit with the complexities of life. We thought we had it all figured out: Finish school, go to university, get a job, live a happy life.
It’s a simple road we ought to follow. So… we try to figure it out. We try to become our best selves. We try to fit into the picturesque bubble of a happy life we once envisioned. But sooner or later, you will mess up. You will fail. You will make mistakes.
But it’s okay to fail, to feel defeated, and to give up at times. It’s a core ingredient in self-betterment. In theory, personal growth is a linear curve. You identify an issue – You overcome the issue – You never experience that struggle again.
In actuality, the human experience is missing from the equation. Personal growth is a labyrinth. It’s messy, it’s erratic, and you’ll wind up at the same point, again and again, until you finally get it. If you’re striving for perfection, you’re on the wrong path. Perhaps the wrong planet.
Perfectionism is a flaw because the desire to avoid mistakes will cause more struggle in the long run. You are a beautiful, messy creature, and embracing the idea that you are only human is a step toward true realization – that you are so much more.

The human experience is messy

I’ve been on a spiritual journey since my spiritual awakening in my early 20s, and this journey has certainly taken me places. With that said, sometimes a challenge will present itself at the right time to knock me off my pedestal.
After backpacking the world and living in many interesting cultures, in 2023 I returned to Australia for the first time in 5 years. I stayed with my mum as I didn’t have anything to my name. No money, no car, no home, no job. Life has started again, and to be honest, I felt like a failure.
One night, I had a particularly painful argument with her. I saw a part of me I hadn’t seen in a very long time – a childish part I thought I had evolved beyond a long time ago. Regardless of how much shadow work I had done, my ego commandeered under the perfect storm of difficult circumstances, and it was out for blood.
I felt very guilty in the following days. The shame of regressing to old patterns layered on top of the pain I caused. After all this inner work, how could I revert to the wounded, insecure child I once was? I should have known better. I shouldn’t have been triggered after all the shadow work. I should have not been reactive like I was. I was ashamed that I wasn’t better than that.
The next day I made amends and patched up the situation best as I knew how, but the guilt remained. Then a moment of clarity came to me. This inner voice said:
Do you think you’re going to get it right all the time? It is your birthright to make mistakes, you’re only human. It’s okay to fail, get off the spiritual high horse!
From that moment, something clicked.
We are designed as imperfect beings to live imperfect lives. If we always got it right, there would be no improvement. Part of life is to make mistakes and fail. Sure, we should strive to do our best, learn from our mistakes, and grow, but failing is a part of growth. If you want to continue growing for the rest of your life, you must also continue failing.
Do not feel guilty about mucking up sometimes. Do your best to continually improve and recognize that to fail is to be human.
Stop aiming for perfection

It’s natural to make mistakes and you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself for doing so. Naturally, we’re going to spin our wheels sometimes by trying to have our shit together all the time. We like to think we have evolved beyond reason, that we’ve triumphed in all of our battles, but I assure you not a single human ever has.
We’re all trying to become the best versions of ourselves, but abandoning the fundamental truth that we’re humans for a reason.
We’re here to muck up and not have it all together. We’re here to make mistakes. The very essence of life is imperfection, and imperfection is within everything. If you don’t see it, look behind the scenes.
I was teased a lot during school for my difficulty learning, my lack of social skills, my lanky frame, two buck teeth, and multiple birthing defects – To the point I truly believed I was an abomination.
With time, I began my healing journey – Packing all my belongings into my backpack and soul-searching for 8 years, a journey I’m still committed to today. I wish I could tell you that I found myself and that I won all my battles. But the truth is, I found acceptance in my brokenness and beauty in my imperfection.
I see many people on their spiritual journeys who are afraid of being human. They put on masks to pretend they are sages and gurus. But this is a problem because trying to be perfect often results in:
A beautiful facade covering up the real dysfunction
An avoidance of shadow work and genuine healing
Disintegration of the true self
A limited expression of self
The development of a spiritual ego
In short, trying to be perfect results in spiritual bypassing. Not to mention that perfection is ugly. It’s robotic, it’s boring. Perfection is an oxymoron, a logical fallacy.
The soul shines from the authentic self, not a mask. So please, stop trying to be perfect and allow yourself to be human – for better and for worse. Transcending my limitations didn’t bring me fulfillment but finding peace with the human experience did.
I’m sure you’ve learned a great deal along your personal growth journey. You’ve become a better person and learned how to open your heart. There’s no doubt that your achievements are quite remarkable. Likely, you don’t even realize how far you’ve come until you look back at who you once were.
But you still carry the pain of not living up to the image you want to be. We tend to be our own harshest critics.
Whether it’s your figure, your lisp, your behaviors, or the way you view the world. I imagine you hate some of your flaws, and spend a lot of energy trying to fix them. While we should be striving for personal growth and transformation, we must not lose sight of who we are right now.
I’ve discovered that the true essence of life is in continuous learning and growth. As long as you’re always trying to improve but doing it genuinely where you’re in touch with your humanness, you’re setting a much better foundation for a happier, more authentic life experience.
Normalize your mistakes

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. It’s okay to fail. Failure must be normalized as a natural part of life rather than being perceived as something undesirable. Sure, it sucks to make mistakes. It’s painful to feel like you’re regressing into old patterns, but beating yourself up about it isn’t productive.
Mistakes are opportunities for growth and learning. If you were perfect, then you would stagnate. If you’re truly committed to your spiritual growth journey, stagnation is something you probably don’t want.
Growth is the spark that drives us. It’s what makes this human adventure fun, knowing that we’re constantly making mistakes, learning, and most importantly – progressing. Life is a dance, two steps forward and one step back. Two steps back and three steps forward. You may not be where you want to be, but you are moving.
Therefore, you must normalize mistakes as a normal human experience. You must go through the hard yards to become a better person. If it was easy, everyone would be spiritual masters.
Just because you’re failing doesn’t mean you’re regressing. This is an important distinction you need to make. As long as you are constantly learning from your experiences and doing the best you can do given what you know, regression does not exist.
If you’re constantly slipping into old patterns or winding up in the same painful situation, then you haven’t learned the lesson – which is why you continue to prompt it.
Although making mistakes is a part of life, aim to grow through each one of them.
Don’t use your humanness as an excuse to stay trapped in the same perpetual patterns. You want to be making progress too by leveraging each mistake for your self-betterment.
Acknowledge that you will make mistakes, but also do your best to learn from them.
Embrace your vulnerability

Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a key to embracing your humanness. Wearing a mask will only hide all the things you need to work on, but those issues are still under the surface, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Accepting your humanness means you need to be vulnerable.
Being vulnerable means to:
Be genuine with your true feelings and emotions
Allow other people to see your weaknesses
Openly display your flaws without trying to hide them
Look at your dark side honestly and with humility
Be honest with your insecurities
Allow yourself to feel like shit sometimes
By looking at yourself through an unbiased human lens rather than a filter of either self-depredation or self-centrism, you’re on a much better path.
Your vulnerabilities aren’t something to be afraid of. They make you human. People will relate to you better if they see you’re not a mechanical being who has issues. It brings warmth to the human experience, and that is something you can’t buy with perfectionism.

Be genuine

Most people wear masks to present an image of the person they want to be seen as. Wearing a facade has become so normalized in today’s world that many people lose sight of who they are.
I understand. We all want to feel validated. We want to feel approved of and like we’re important. That’s why you put up this image that you are a big success in life. This need for validation is why ‘spiritual people’ often come across as having mastered the ways of the universe.
It’s an ego trap.
Not being true to who you really are and where you’re currently at doesn’t serve you. It complicates your personal growth journey because you can’t be real with what you need. Just be yourself. Trust me on this one, it’s going to work in your favor.

Celebrate your humanity

Being human is a celebration of our flaws, vulnerability, and humanity. Appreciating the fact that we don’t have it all together is what gives this life journey soul. We were all born unique. Just how individual we all are is just one of the many wonders of life, and it must be celebrated, even if it’s tough. Even if it’s painful.
Anyone on a personal growth journey will come to a point where they need to accept themselves for who they are. Within your uniqueness is your power. It’s not by becoming the same as everyone else that you contribute to the world.
Service occurs by leveraging your flaws and bringing authenticity into the equation. Humanity needs the human touch more than ever right now because our world is so disconnected. People are lost, confused, and looking for comfort in our shared humanity, not our shared perfectionism.
Practicing self-compassion allows you to feel comfortable with your flawed self. When you’re comfortable with your flawed self, you will more easily express yourself as you’re not trying to hide in the shadows anymore.
When you learn to find joy in your imperfect humanity, you’re going to have much more fun within this small window of being a human.
Dissolving guilt of failing

As long as you feel guilty for making human errors, you’re weighing yourself down. Guilt is the final straw preventing you from fully embracing the human experience. So I ask you:
Can you forgive yourself for being human? Can you forgive yourself for being ‘less’ than the people out there flaunting their victory, wealth, status, or fame?
When you muck up, yet again, can you tell yourself that it’s okay instead of berating yourself for not doing better? In my experiences, I’ve found that forgiving myself is the best way to dissolve my guilt for making mistakes – whether those mistakes have been self-sabotaging, or genuine inadequacy.
Despite being on a journey of spiritual growth for many years where I’ve done some pretty cool stuff, I will always come back to the humbling conclusion, one way or another – that I’m only human.
By accepting that you’re only human, you permit yourself to truly live the human experience.
20 March 2024
Self-Empowerment Through Radical Self-Responsibility
Some people have a lot of misfortune in their lives, while others seem to be handed everything. When you accept that life isn’t fair, it’s easier to stop blaming the world and to play with the hand of cards you were dealt.

Let’s face it, the world can be a ruthless place. Life is going to hit sometimes, and there won’t be anything that you can do about it. To add insult to injury, sometimes it will be uncalled for, and you’ll be left with an important decision to make.

Am I going to play the victim, blaming the world and pitying myself? Or am I going to take control of the situation, leverage it for my growth, and get on with it?

One path is a nosedive into powerlessness. Other people might even give a shit for a moment, but sooner or later you’re going to be left alone wallowing in your self-pity, dependent on the world to cater to your every need.

On the other hand, if you take responsibility for the things that happen and understand that sometimes, life just isn’t fair, that’s a fast track to real self-empowerment.

So how can you turn your misfortune into a blessing? How can you leverage your unfair life situation to become much more empowered than people who have so much, but are dependent on things going right? Radical self-responsibility is the key.

Why radical self-responsibility is a spiritual game changer

Radical self-responsibility is an approach to life that involves taking complete ownership of your life’s outcomes. It’s the understanding that you’re the sole creator of your reality, where everything that happens within it is a manifestation of your consciousness.

Understanding that your reality is dependent on your consciousness is the key to radical self-responsibility.

You need to acknowledge that you shape your destiny, regardless of the challenges you face or the past experiences that have held you back. You are responsible for literally every aspect of your reality, even the things that are out of your control.

Radical self-responsibility encourages you to be the driver of your life’s journey, rather than a passenger. Simply put, your life changes in beautiful ways on both an internal and external level when you fully acknowledge that you create your reality, one way or another.

In this sense, when you understand your role as a creator, you start working the strings of life a little differently. This allows you to take control of your life trajectory, and achieve a quality of life that most people don’t (even those who are given everything).

Self-responsibility vs radical self-responsibility

Self-responsibility refers to taking accountability for your thoughts, beliefs, and everything that results from your actions.

Radical self-responsibility is a more wholesome, spiritual outlook of this phenomenon, where you take responsibility for everything that happens in your life.

The secret here is to take responsibility for the things that weren’t in your control. If a bad situation happens to you, radical self-responsibility is to explore why you attracted that particular thing to happen, and what lesson it serves. Self-responsibility is needed to be a capable and independent adult.

Radical self-responsibility leads to a deeper sense of empowerment and spiritual wholeness.

Are you ready to take control of your life?

If you want to be in control of your life, it starts by taking responsibility for every single occurrence that happens within it.

The reason why so many people play the victim is because it’s easy to be the victim. It’s easy to defer responsibility by pointing the finger at something else, whether it’s a person, the government, or god.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who or what you think is responsible for your life situation. And that’s the thing. If you think that anyone, or anything besides yourself is responsible for your life situation, then you need to try harder.

Embracing radical self-responsibility isn’t just about shifting blame: It’s about recognizing your capacity to create positive change within, and outside of your own life. When you take control of your life, you cultivate some powerful intrinsic qualities that change your life experience for the better.

Self-responsibility vs victimhood

The antonym for radical self-responsibility is the victim mentality.

The victim mentality is where you believe that external forces control your life and that there’s nothing you can do about it, but blame. As we’ve discussed in other articles, blame is a dense energy that certainly isn’t going to help you attract the life situation that you actually want.

But people blame anyone and anything anyway because it’s the easier pathway to cope with a difficult, or unfair situation. But victimhood is also a catch-22.

When people give off the negative energy of victimization, they start attracting negative things into their lives in the form of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and situations. Things go downhill, so they blame even harder, giving away more of their power until their life becomes a concoction of blame, powerlessness, and resentment.

Victimhood is a cycle that I see so many people get sucked into. The only way to get out of it, or avoid it is to cultivate an awareness of it and start building radical self-responsibility to overturn that table. Below are a couple of resources to further explore the victim mentality, and why it will ruin your life.
Signs of vicimhood

Blame shifting: People with a victim mentality usually shift blame onto other people. They rarely take responsibility for their actions.

Helplessness: People with a victim mentality often feel powerless to change their circumstances. They believe their happiness is dependent on others.

Resistance to change: People with a victim mentality tend to resist change out of fear that it will disrupt their familiar, but unhappy status quo.

Lack of accountability: People with a victim mentality rarely acknowledge their role in creating their circumstances. It’s easier to point the finger when you defer responsibility.

Impact of the victim mentality

Stunted Personal Growth: Believing that you’re not in control of your life prevents you from taking the necessary steps to grow, learn, and improve.

Strained Relationships: Constantly writing off problems to external sources can strain your relationships as it leads to an inability to reason.

Negative Self-Image: A victim mentality can erode your self-image, leading to feelings of inadequacy.

Unfulfilled Potential: By having a victim mentality, you’re simply not going to view your life situation in a way that instills optimism, hope, excitement, and all the good things that encourage you to make the most of your life experience.
Spiritual victimhood

Spiritual victimhood is something I also want to address here. Essentially, spiritual victimhood is using a facade to pretend you’re all spiritually developed and empowered, but you blame spiritual phenomena for your actions, behaviors, and so forth.

How often do you hear people in the spiritual community say ‘I lost my shit at someone and screamed at them, but it’s Mercury retrograde, so it’s not really my fault’. Ever heard that before? How about ‘The full moon made me a little bit crazy last night, sorry about that!’

Whether these phenomena actually do have an influence on you or not doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, you’re still blaming something else for your own actions, and you’re trying to shift accountability to something else besides yourself.

How can you get out of the victim spiral?

Radical self-responsibility is the antidote to the victim mentality. The victim mentality is a very disempowering view of life where everything happens to you.

You have no control over it and you deserve all the sympathy in the world because life isn’t fair. Radical self-responsibility leans in the other direction – towards empowerment.

People who have a victim mentality view themselves as helpless in the face of life’s challenges. They often see themselves as passive recipients of life’s outcomes and view their difficulties on external factors such as luck, other people, or circumstances beyond their control.

To get out of this spiral, you need to understand that it’s not the challenges you face or the situation that you find yourself in that defines you as a person.

It’s how you handle these challenges. So do it with dignity and honor. Be humble with your life. Because if you’re not, life can be a merciless teacher.
Practical Steps to Embrace Radical Self-Responsibility

When things go wrong, especially when they’re out of your control, the first instinct is to react. But it’s easy to react, it’s hard to think about why you manifested this situation. By taking responsibility for what you do, and the effect that your actions have on your life, you are going to push towards better things with better outcomes.

Let’s say you were caught in traffic and arrived late to work. It’s easy to blame traffic, but perhaps you should have left early if you had any suspicion. Even if you didn’t and there’s nothing you could have done, you need to acknowledge that you are arriving late and that it’s your error.

Not to say you need to take the blame for everything that happens, but it’s important to acknowledge everything that affects other people. It might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility to follow up with your commitment and make amends if you can’t do what you said you would do.

On the other hand, if your phone slips out of your hand and breaks, instead of yelling at your phone, you should turn that attention to yourself.

Don’t beat yourself up about it, but maybe you shouldn’t have been holding your phone, or you should have been more careful with it. The first step to taking radical self-responsibility is to take accountability for your actions.

Learn from your mistakes

You don’t want to go in circles with your life. What I mean by this is if you don’t learn from your negative experiences, you’re bound to keep repeating them. In the context of radical self-responsibility, if you never take responsibility, there’s always going to be something to blame.

That’s why you need to learn. Especially when something goes wrong, think about what you could have done differently to have changed the outcome.

A big part of personal development simmers down to your ability to reflect, process, and pick up patterns. So pay attention when you feel like shoveling blame, and remember to bring it back to yourself.

Make conscious decisions

Every cause has an effect. By correlating the cause and effect of every behavior, action, attitude, or thought, you’ll begin to see that everything you do has an outcome. Whether that outcome works in your favor or not comes back to the thought process that created it, which is why you need to be conscious about your decisions.

Realize that the energy you’re putting out will be returned in some form. If you put your energy into your work, the energy you receive will be money. If you put your energy into your growth, you will receive greater fulfillment. Therefore, be conscious of every little decision you make and know that those decisions all build up to create your life experience.

Don’t attach yourself to the outcome

It’s good to have plans and to move towards goals, but you shouldn’t be dependent on those outcomes for your happiness. When your satisfaction is independent of your material situation or life condition, it’s going to be a whole lot easier for you to accept outcomes that you didn’t expect, and to take responsibility for them.

Your metric for a fulfilling life should be to experience it. At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter how much shit you go through, and how much misfortune you have had. As long as you are present with your life experience instead of endlessly hoping, desiring… you’ll see that the outcome of your life doesn’t matter, as long as you did your best to enjoy it.

Practice Self-Compassion

A big part of radical self-responsibility comes down to showing yourself compassion. Don’t be too hard on yourself, because things aren’t always going to go your way. And it’s okay when things don’t go your way, or when you fail, or make mistakes.

Recognize that you are a human being who isn’t perfect. Accept imperfections and maintain a positive self-image, regardless of how much you muck up. Also, don’t let it get you down! Be forgiving of yourself as you work through the challenges of life. Understand that changes take time, so apply this self-compassion to this learning process too.
Taking responsibility for what is out of your control

Now that we’ve looked at the things you can do to take control of your life, radical self-responsibility is to feel accountable even for the things that happen to you that aren’t in your control.

There’s a fine line when it comes to taking accountability for everything. This can also spiral in a negative direction if you play the martyr or pity yourself. But genuinely believing that you have power over every situation that you go through in life can also be the most liberating experience you can imagine.

This is the yin dynamic of radical self-responsibility as it involves your perception, mindset, and outlook on life, typically from a spiritual perspective. Before doing so, I suggest reading the article below for context.

Understanding ultimate reality: A road map of the spiritual realm

Your life is a manifestation of your consciousness

If you follow my work, you’ll understand that reality is malleable. Your consciousness creates your entire life experience and calls in the lessons it needs to go through in this life. From a spiritual perspective, you are creating the difficult lessons in your life for your growth and evolution. Deep down, you chose these hardships.

Once you learn the lessons you need to learn, things will ease up and life will become much easier to navigate. If you believe this, then how can you blame externally when you know you’re the reason for literally everything you’re experiencing? Realize that all of this is coming from your reality, not someone else’s.

Your soul chose this life

You chose to be here. You chose all of these difficulties, all of the trauma, all of the dysfunctions you would face. At a soul level, you chose to be born into poverty, because your soul needed to experience that particular lesson to evolve. You chose to lose someone close to you, because, from a spiritual perspective, your soul needed to mourn.

You might not want to believe this. If you’ve been through something very traumatic, of course, the instinct is to blame whoever was responsible for causing that suffering. That’s fair. But if you want to do this thing, you’ve got to get beyond the ego that wants to play the martyr, because your soul chose to experience that particular lesson for its spiritual growth.

Build the muscle of gratitude

Gratitude is of the highest frequency we can experience. As gratitude signals that things are going great, when you build the muscle of gratitude by expressing appreciation as much as you can, your entire reality is going to change. Therefore, if you want to take radical self-responsibility, start pushing yourself to be more appreciative.

It doesn’t work the other way around. Life doesn’t hand you things then you become grateful. You become grateful for the little things, and life will start giving you more because it’s reciprocating to your vibration.

If you’re in a constant state of blame, your vibration is constantly going to be low, meaning you’re constantly going to be attracting more unpleasant experiences because they match the vibration. So turn this ship around, and take responsibility for your emotions, knowing they create your reality and aren’t dependent on it.
9 September 2023
How To Build Self-Worth When You Feel Inadequate

Do you feel like you’re just never good enough?
No matter how much you do, you’re constantly back to square one with nothing to show. You feel like a letdown, a failure, a loser. But despite how much judgment you get, nothing quite sizes up to the disappointment you have for yourself.

Many of us have self-worth issues that prevent us from achieving our potential because we believe we are not worthy of winning. This is a problem because feeling like you’re never good enough prevents you from trying in the first place.

But the only obstacle you have is the one in your mind. How hard you try is one thing but without self-belief, you bow out of the race before it has even begun.

With that said, here are some ways to boost your self-worth, to feel like you can take on the world and win.

Because you can.

Why is self-worth so important?

Self-worth is the belief that you deserve love, care, and respect. It is to value yourself and realize that you are as important as anyone else. As self-worth is connected to confidence and self-esteem, a healthy sense of self-worth allows you to feel good in yourself.

Think of self-worth as your internal compass that guides how you see yourself, and how you fit into the world.

Having high self-worth is about knowing that you’re important and that you deserve the things you want in life. Not only are you deserving, but there’s no reason why you can’t achieve those things too.

When your self-worth is high, you feel confident, handle challenges better, and build healthier relationships. Likewise, you’re better at getting somewhere in life because you believe in yourself and value your work.

On the flip side, when your self-worth is low, it means you don’t value yourself. As a result of not valuing yourself, you feel less confident, insecure, and disempowered. You push opportunities away because you feel like you’re not good enough to handle them, or that you don’t deserve them.

In this sense, low self-worth can lead to self-sabotage, self-victimization, and core shame because you won’t take what you deserve.

In a world that tells us we’re only as good as the number of likes we have on social media, it’s important to remember that your worth isn’t based on your external condition.

Even though it’s okay to have moments when you’re not feeling so hot, it’s important not to get stuck there, and take steps to make yourself feel more important.

Let’s distinguish low self-worth and high self-worth in the images below:

What causes low self-worth?

There can be quite a lot of different factors that contribute to low self-worth. Sometimes it’s linked to experiences from the past, like being constantly criticized or constantly failing at something. Traumatic events, especially in childhood, can really impact how we see ourselves too.

But it’s not just about what happens to us. How we interpret these events matters too. If we constantly compare ourselves to others or have really high expectations that we can’t meet, it can chip away at our self-worth.

Other people imposing their expectations that are too much can also be a cause. When I was a teacher in Vietnam, I saw this a lot among the students. In Vietnamese culture, parents often have super high expectations for their kids, and they all expect their kids to be on top of the class.

Of course, not everyone can be on top of the class, otherwise, everyone would be average. But since those students were letting down their parents (and I imagine many of them were pretty badly punished by them), the expectations of their parents affected many of my student’s self-worth.

With that said, our relationships also play a big role. Being in toxic relationships or hanging around people who put us down can seriously affect how we see ourselves. Even if it’s not intentional, the way others treat us can shape our self-worth.

There’s also this thing called our inner critic. You know, that voice in our head that always points out what we did wrong or why we’re not good enough? That little voice can be super powerful in influencing our self-worth.

These are just some pieces of the puzzle, but everyone’s story is unique. The causes of low self-worth can be a mix of experiences, thoughts, and relationships that shape how we view ourselves.

How to build your self-worth

After going through what self-worth is and why it’s so important to improve it, let’s get into the good stuff. Here are some suggestions to build your self-worth if you’re struggling with low self-worth issues.

Maybe people just didn’t care enough, but if you’re expecting others to come in and save the day, it might just lead to a whole lot of hurt. So you need to be there for yourself. This is where self-compassion comes in. If you visualize yourself being there for yourself, it can make you feel a whole lot better.

Now let’s look at some things you can do to build your self-worth.

Stop comparing yourself to others

A lot of pain is created through comparison. If you feel like you’re not where you want to be in life, you might notice that you tend to evaluate yourself depending on what other people have (or what they seem to have).

You see a happy couple and feel miserable because you’re not in a relationship. Even if you are in a happy relationship, you might see happier people, who look more successful, or who love each other more. Then you see someone who is wealthy, and you feel like a loser because you’re struggling to make so little.

But it’s all a trap.

There’s always going to be someone who has something you want. There’s always going to be someone who dwarfs your efforts. If you need to be the best, you’re always going to lose.

That’s the thing.

You don’t see these people’s lives behind the curtains, you’re just assuming all is good when I’m sure there are things that you have, internal or external, that they would want too.

As long as your sense of self comes from a competitive position where you feel you should be doing better than others – You’re always going to feel unworthy.

That’s why it’s important to stop comparing yourself, and instead focus on your progress. As long as you focus on your progress and what you can do now – you’re going to feel a lot better about yourself.

Watch the negative self-talk

When you feel like you’re not good enough, it becomes very easy to criticize yourself. With that said, self-criticism is usually an unconscious process, and it’s something that you need to look out for.

You blame yourself for not living up to who you want to become. You berate yourself, pity yourself, and probably sabotage yourself too, because you feel like you’re worthless.

Therefore, if you want to build your self-worth, you need to start drilling in more positive ways of talking about yourself. Make sure that you are growth-oriented which will give you valuable feedback about how to continuously improve.

Visualize a powerful you!

Visualization techniques can be powerful to create a healthier framework of your actions, behaviors, or self at large!

Mental rehearsal can also be a useful technique that allows you to picture yourself with more value. This essentially paves the road by accurately envisioning any particular reality and regularly feeling into it to embody it.

If you’re bashing yourself for not being good enough, you’re just going to feel worse every time you do. So be conscious of it. Every time you catch yourself putting yourself down, stop yourself in your tracks. Replace the negative self-talk with something productive, and think about how you can change the expression to be on your side.

Focus on where you are right now

Your fixation on the future is a big reason why you feel insufficient. Let’s face it, your present situation might not be perfect, but it’s good enough. If you were to actually sit with yourself and stop thinking about the future, or the past, you would probably feel a whole lot more content with your current circumstances.

The future can create a lot of stress when you’re too fixed on it. You’re always thinking about why you need to improve your situation, what you’re doing wrong, how you can be better…

Exhausting isn’t it?

But when you learn to drop into your body more and just allow the experience of consciousness to be what it is, you don’t suffer. That’s why it’s important to just enjoy life for what it is.

Be present and allow it to take you where it will.

Look at how far you’ve come

If you’ve been on the personal growth journey for some time, your reality has probably become a very different place. Not to say that there aren’t still challenges, but sometimes you just need to appreciate how far you have come.

When you’re getting bogged in self-pity, think about all the different things you have done. Think about the things that did work out for you, the adventures you have been on, the memories you have. You have gone through a lot. Sometimes you just need to give yourself some credit, and put it all into perspective.

If you feel you haven’t come far and have nothing to smile at (which I’m sure you do), it’s either because you just don’t see it, or it’s because you haven’t put in the effort.

Look at your core beliefs

These feelings of not being good enough likely come from persistent, core beliefs. We all carry around core beliefs that were cultivated throughout our childhood, our life experiences, society, and the culture we live in.

But without being aware of these deep-rooted influences, they run your life for you. Feeling insufficient could be the result of outdated programming

For example, we place a huge emphasis on our work in Western society, and people tend to base their self-worth on it. You might feel proud if you’re a successful doctor, but you might feel ashamed of yourself if you’re a 40-year-old bartender.

By really digging into your core beliefs and discerning what is authentic, and what you’ve just picked up as a byproduct, you can see whether your self-worth issues are justified.

Learn to value your work

The internal work is only half the job of building your self-worth. After looking at how to change your perspective to feel better about yourself, now let’s look at things you can practically do to create a life that you’re proud of.

You need to be honest with yourself. Are you doing everything you can to create a great life for yourself? Are you honestly doing everything in your power to change? Don’t just say you are when you’re spending hours every time watching Netflix.

If you feel like there are things that could be improved, it’s your responsibility to improve them. Whether this comes to improving your life condition by working harder at your avocations, putting in the time to learn new things, or developing the outlooks you need to feel complete, everything in life requires some work.

So don’t make excuses and put your growth off. Write down what you need to do. Take steps to improve those areas and hold yourself accountable for your progress. With the right mentality, you will see that you can achieve whatever you put your mind to, you just need to start walking the talk.

Create goals and track your progress

It’s good to have some structure in your life. You need to build a solid plan of what you need to do, to get where you want to go. Especially when you’re feeling low, it’s easy to get trapped in the cycle of non-action.

Write everything you want to achieve down. Set reasonable goals, daily – weekly or monthly, and take little steps – every day. These steps could be watching a tutorial about something you want to learn. Completing a couple of tasks for your business or avocation. Hitting a milestone in your practice of something you enjoy doing.

By adding some structure to your life, you’re giving yourself a ladder to climb. This way you can be sure you’re always making progress in your life, which is going to help with those feelings of not being good enough.

Strive to do big things, but don’t base your self-worth on it

A sense of purpose is a great propeller in life. With a sense of purpose, you will feel more motivated, and that motivation will drive you to accomplish more. By accomplishing more things, you’re bound to feel better about yourself, because you feel like you’re progressing.

It’s good to have big goals and to want to take on the world, but sometimes when we get too closely attached to a particular outcome, our self-worth becomes dependent on it.

That’s why it’s important to go after the things you want, but if it’s slow going, don’t be hard on yourself. Just by trying you’re already a winner, and the act of trying will help you value yourself more.

What interests you? Refine what you want in life by following your passions and keeping your eyes on the prize. Take small steps often towards larger goals.

Stop waiting for things to change, take action

Stop waiting around for things to change if you don’t like your current circumstances, and start taking action. When you take your learning curve into your own hands, it gives you an enormous sense of satisfaction.

If you don’t take action, nothing’s going to change. Stop waiting for something better to come along, and start making it happen. Take more of a proactive stance, and drive the change you’re looking for.

22 August 2023
How To Practice Self-Compassion When You’re Feeling Unsupported
Living a nomadic lifestyle, it would be an understatement to say that I haven’t been in some difficult situations. During my year living in the US, however, I was at an all-time low.

I was in a situation I didn’t want to be in, in a country I didn’t belong in, and things were not going to plan at all. I had no family or friends to talk to, and for the most part, I was completely alone in this journey.

During one particularly dark moment, that’s when I saw him. It wasn’t a person, it wasn’t a god. I saw myself, and he saved me.

If you feel like you’re desperately looking for something that is outside of yourself. You are the missing link. Only you can fulfill that need in yourself, and you do that by coming to your rescue.

Let me lead you through this process of self-compassion to genuinely feel all the love and support the universe has to offer.

Showing self-compassion during those dark moments

After several years of living in Vietnam, Mexico, and Guatemala, I made a detour to the United States due to difficulties traveling during the pandemic.

With a now-expired passport and no way to get back to Australia due to border closures during the pandemic, I was well and truly on my own.

I spent a couple of weeks couchsurfing with strangers and doorknocking for jobs. At the last minute, I found a job and a more permanent place to stay.

I was back on my feet, but during my time in the US, I felt very alone. Commuting by bus every day to work in a low-paying job waiting tables was a special kind of hell I didn’t want to be in. Then there was the fact that I felt trapped. I had no money to leave, and even if I did, I had no passport.

It felt like I had regressed to the hardest period of my life – and there was no way out. There was no escaping this emptiness I felt – Something I knew I had to confront if I wanted to figure out why the universe brought me here, and what I was supposed to learn from this experience.

What does it mean to be self-compassionate?

Being self-compassionate is like offering a warm embrace to yourself during tough times. It’s about treating yourself with the same understanding that you’d show to a close friend who’s going through a rough patch.

Self-compassion involves acknowledging your struggles without judgment, being gentle with your feelings, and providing yourself with the support and encouragement needed to navigate through difficulties.

If you have a strong support circle, maybe you don’t need to rely on self-compassion so much, because you get it from others. But many of us don’t have that, at least not at times.

Self-compassion is essential when we’re going through something difficult and don’t have a soul to talk to. When we feel like nobody else is there for us, we must be there for ourselves.

Generally, I don’t rely on self-compassion. But there have been situations in my life where I had to be there for myself. And because I was going through something alone, I genuinely felt compassionate for myself, which made me feel supported by my own eternal spirit.
Identifying the help you need

If you’re in a low spot in your life, ask yourself what you need. If someone were to come and help you get back on your feet, what is it exactly they would do?

It’s important to feel what you need in that moment. Is it support, love, encouragement? Do you just need someone to talk to?

Often when I see people coming to the aid of others without any hidden agenda, it jerks an emotional reaction. This tends to happen when I’m watching a war movie and reinforcements charge into battle to save their comrades. Or when someone goes back to help their friend despite risking their life in the process.

I get this emotional reaction when I see someone helping an injured or dying animal, or when someone sticks up for the underdog despite going against the odds.

Since I feel this way whenever someone comes to support or defend others, it tells me that there’s something there. Whether it’s a wound of neglect, betrayal, or abandonment, I’m not entirely sure. But it doesn’t matter.

These are triggers: Having a disproportionate reaction to something. A trigger might indicate a sore point, and this is how you can come in and save the day.

Exploring the underlying wound of your trigger

Paying attention to these triggers showed me that I had a wound around betrayal. I would get emotional when I saw people supporting others because I didn’t feel supported.

As I still have wounds of betrayal, I tend to attract situations in my life where I’m taken advantage of by others. It never ceases to sting because due to this wound, I always make sure I’m unconditionally there for others.

That’s the silver lining, but the wound itself was something I never knew how to heal. As these patterns continued in my life, I found myself robbed of energy with nobody to help me get back on my feet.

I was getting sucked deeper and deeper into this hole of despair. These painful emotions were bubbling, and I just wanted to get it all out but didn’t know what to do.

Stop Living Life on Repeat: How to Break Reoccurring Patterns, Once and For All
Visualize your higher self coming to the rescue

Feeling at my worst, I was hoping that someone would reach out to me. But nothing changed. I started to feel more desperate, more alienated, and more lost.

At one moment when I was curled up on my bed, that’s when something happened. Automatically, I saw myself coming to my aid. He walked in the door, looking a little older, a little wiser, and a little more mature than I am.

In this visualization, this higher version of myself walked up to me with a look of compassion on his face.

He said, “It’s okay, I’m here for you now, you are loved”. I saw him comforting me as if I was watching both of us from a third-person perspective.

That’s when I felt it. The entire dam burst as I felt the unconditional support that I had been longing for. I started crying because I felt touched. I felt relieved. I felt cared for.

I realized that it wasn’t another person I needed, I don’t think that would have created the same emotional reaction. This whole time I needed myself, for I had abandoned myself.

By visualizing this higher version of me filling that hole, there was a beautiful moment of healing, clarity, and integration.

Everything you need is inside you

We look for support from others, and we start feeling desperate when we don’t get it. After all, no man is an island, but it’s easy to feel that we need others, when there might be nobody to help.

Learning to visualize yourself coming to your rescue is such a powerful technique, and goes to show that we have everything we need within ourselves.

When you vividly picture a higher version of yourself coming down the giving you the support you need, it has the same effect (or more) than if someone else came to your rescue.

That’s because you know yourself. You know exactly what will help you because you’re the one who desperately needs it. And when you give yourself the support you are looking for, you will feel a tangible difference.

So visualize yourself coming to your aid, and watch it as if it is a movie. Watch the scene in as vivid detail as you can, and experience how it feels. Watch your higher self showing you love, supporting you, healing you, and being there for you, and see how you feel afterward.

Supporting your lower self

For integration, visualize yourself going into an old memory to support you when you need it the most. Maybe this was when you felt alone as a kid, or you were going through a time when you felt unsupported.

Image yourself going into that scene, and give your younger self the support and care they need. Imagine that younger version of yourself melting in your arms while you tell him or her that everything will be okay.

Going back into a past scene and being there for yourself helps you integrate a past version of yourself. In this scenario, you are the rescuer. You may feel some shifts within yourself.

So besides visualizing your higher self coming to your rescue when you’re feeling low, also visualize yourself going back in time to rescue yourself during times you needed it, but didn’t have it.

With this visualization technique, you’ll feel a whole lot more wholesome, and you’ll be surprised by how effective it is.
13 January 2023
How To Utilize Internal Self-Reinforcement To Accelerate Personal Growth
Developing self-love is an important milestone for anyone on a personal growth journey. Besides making you feel much more wholesome, self-love is required to cultivate positive characteristics such as self-esteem, charisma, and confidence.

The only problem is that lacking self-love is comparable to being caught in a tar pit. You’re stuck – And all attempts to climb out of this hole are futile.

Because you don’t value yourself, you feel worthless. Because you feel worthless, you value yourself less. Being caught in this pit is a universal experience – One we all experience at times. However, it’s not a place you want to stay as doing so degrades the quality of your life tremendously.

That’s why it’s important to learn the role of positive self-reinforcement – To help pry you out of this pit by drilling in healthier ways of viewing oneself.
What is positive self-reinforcement?

Your reality is a reflection of your self-image. If you see yourself as a loser, you’re going to carve out a reality that’s congruent with this identity. Your outer reality wants to have a congruency with your inner reality, as your reality is a projection of your inner workings.

Positive self-reinforcement is to associate desirable traits, characteristics, feelings, and thoughts with yourself via drilling and repetition. Think about positive self-reinforcement as reprogramming a faulty system to synchronize with a higher perspective.

In this article, we’re looking at your internal reality. If you want to learn how to alter your perception of your external reality, follow the link below:

Change Your Perception of Life to Transform Your Life Experience

A tool to facilitate growth and healing

The more you associate positive qualities with yourself, the quicker you will begin unconsciously shifting towards these ideals.

The most common barrier holding people back is their own perception of themselves, because the world mirrors how we think and feel.

Commonly, people experience self-worth issues – Resulting in being stepped on, pushed around and taken advantage of. But when people flip this perspective, the external reality accommodates this interior shift.

Building Self-Worth When Your Feel Inadequate

The antidote to limiting belief systems

Negative self-perceptions stunt your personal growth and result in limiting belief systems. Many of these limiting belief systems are unconscious, and you probably don’t recognize when you’re reinforcing something negative about yourself.

The key to stopping reinforcing negative self-perceptions is to identify each time you put yourself down. Here are some things to think about:

How often do you roast yourself for mucking up?

Do you beat yourself up for failing?

Do you believe you should be doing better in life by now, so you resent yourself?

What you associate with yourself can instill motivation, encouragement, and support, but it can also strip you of these things. This is why it’s important to treat yourself as you would treat your pet, your partner, or a family member.

To learn more about limiting belief systems, click on the link below:

Identify and Replace Your Limiting Belief Systems
Changing self-perception with positive self-reinforcement

Words and phrases anchor ideas. You want to anchor the idea that you are progressing in some way, that you’re going forward rather than backward. If you frequently tell yourself how much life sucks, soon you will believe it because you’re anchoring this idea into your reality.

The technique of positive self-reinforcement is to hijack this phenomenon, to improve the way you see yourself – By using a specific phrase to reinforce a better idea to yourself.

This is why you should practice anchoring positive and impactful phrases with yourself to reinforce a better idea of yourself. So watch your vocabulary, and be aware of how you think, feel, and speak about yourself.

The Stories You Keep Telling Yourself Become Your Reality

Drilling in positive perceptions of yourself

What becomes your point of focus heavily influences your life. You will gravitate towards a self-image corresponding with the traits and characteristics of your focus – So make sure they’re good for you!

Think of all the ideas that you associate with yourself. Write them out like this:

I’m nobody, I could never be someone that people look up to

I am awkward and don’t make friends easy

I fail at everything I do

I’m not worthy of respect or admiration

I should be doing better in life

Life is difficult

It’s scary

I’m dumb

Identify whether these ideas bring you up or down, and think of a more positive idea that you can replace with it. For the list above, some examples include:

People don’t know me well because I haven’t put myself out there

I’m working on my social skills

There’s many things I’ve done well in my life

I am worthy of respect because I am a good person

I’m doing the best I can

Life is a challenge

It’s an opportunity to grow

I’m learning more every day

Think of what needs improvement

Write down repeating situations or occurrences where you beat yourself up. If you are constantly reinforcing the belief that life is terrible, then you will continue to move down the path of a terrible life, because it has become your point of focus.

If you think of yourself as a loser, is this going to help you feel good about yourself? Likewise, if you don’t see yourself as someone who is sociable, is this going to help you become more sociable? No. In most cases, it’s going to have the opposite effect.

Exercise self-awareness to identify negative self-perceptions, and understand the repercussions of them. Replace these terms by adjusting your vocabulary and associating better ideas with yourself.
Utilize affirmations

Affirmations can be powerful tools to drill in certain ways of thinking about yourself. By affirming characteristics with yourself, you will begin to believe them.

An affirmation is when you repeatedly say a phrase and associate the feelings of that phrase with yourself. The idea of affirmations is to work on your conscious mind by deconditioning old programming that doesn’t serve you, and replacing with it healthier programming that does.

Here are some examples of different affirmations. You can use these, but I suggest making your own that are relevant to what you need to work on.

Affirmations can be worded differently. Experiment with different phrases to see what impacts you the most.

I am strong

I choose to be more assertive

I’m actually quite resilient

I like to challenge myself

I love the person I’m becoming

I am becoming happier

My life is getting better

I can’t believe how much work I’m doing on myself

Every day I feel a little healthier

Life is becoming exciting

I’m funny

Everyone loves me

I embrace new ways of doing things

I’m interested in trying new things

I’ve got this!
How to make affirmations more effective

Feel into it: It’s important to really feel the phrase you’re saying. It should be a feeling that you’re trying to resuscitate, not just words themselves. So associate the phrase with a feeling, and make sure there is meaning behind the words.

Believe it: The best affirmations you actually believe. And if you don’t you make yourself believe them. Have you ever hyped yourself up or assured yourself by saying something like “I’ve got this” without even realizing it? It just sorta comes out as habit? That’s because it’s genuine and you actually believe it. This won’t always be the case but try to believe the affirmation.

Take steps: If you go straight to “I’m powerful beyond measure” while you still feel weak and insecure, your unconscious mind won’t make the leap. You need to make steps as a way to bridge the gap between desire and reality. A better path would be to start with “I’m becoming more powerful”. Once you feel better about yourself, then go to “I’m powerful”.

Don’t use negative statements: A negative statement is something like “I am not insecure”. Even though the intent is good, the keyword is counterproductive. Your mind will make an association with that keyword and ignore the rest, so make sure the statement is positive.

I choose statements: While your unconscious mind can argue what you say you are, it can’t argue by saying that you choose to become someone/something. Try using I choose statements such as “I choose to be more assertive” rather than going for “I am assertive”.

Quality over quantity: Take your time to speak each phrase and load it with meaning. Take it slow, savor the feelings. Don’t just rapid-fire because they’re not going to do much.

Visualize self-compassion

Visualize yourself giving yourself love.

As your ability to visualize can actually really move things internally, constantly seeing yourself support yourself is a good way to reap the benefits of that support.

What I often do when I’m feeling down is visualize my higher self coming down and reassuring me. He will tell me that I’m doing great, and guide me to become more like him.

Try this yourself.

Let’s say you feel guilt about something. Picture your higher self appearing and telling you that it’s okay. Your higher self can sit with you and reassure you that we’re all human and make mistakes and that you shouldn’t hold onto something that happened.

The more you make a practice of supporting yourself via visualization, the more support you’re going to feel, so definitely give it a try. To learn about my own experiences with this technique, click on the link below, and let’s go!

Practicing Self-Compassion When You Feel Unsupported
3 March 2021