3 Thought Habits That Could Be Sabotaging Your Life

IF you've ever felt that ping of self-doubt and "imposter syndrome" that makes you hesitate when opportunities you know you really want to come up because you think "you're not good enough yet…" "You're not smart enough", and that no matter how much you do, how hard you work, how many degrees you get, how successful other people think you are, it's just not enough to call yourself an expert, then you may be a victim of your own thought patterns.

The problem is that even if you've done a lot of self-development, even if you've done therapy, and even if you have I've read every self-help book on the shelf, there are likely some unconscious thought habits that you are not able to see because they are in your blind spots. Driving down the road the other day, and I'm a careful driver, when I preceded to turn on my signal and change lanes. I have a fairly new car that has the blind spot detectors on them, but I'm old school so I still look to the side to make sure I'm not missing anything. The blind spot indicators were not lit, I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing, yet when I began to cross the line I heard a honk and suddenly saw that I was about to hit a big black SUV. I thought to myself "How in the world did I not see that?" The answer is that even when we think we've checked all of the spots, blind spots can still occur. Fortunately, I did not hit that SV, but what did happen is I became acutely aware of other things that I did not know I could not see.

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, even though you likely are reading this article because you are a person who is very self-aware, and pride yourself in doing the work to eliminate these blind spots, there are still likely thought habits that could be unconsciously sabotaging your success. The amount of thought habits that get in the way of people achieving what they really want in light is exhaustive, and I will cover the four most common ones that I see in my practice and trainings.

1. The first thought habit is thinking that you are at the effect of life. 

Now it's true that we all have circumstances. We have circumstances of money, relationship circumstances, work circumstances. Life is always happening. But where many people make the mistake is that thinking that life is happening "to me" instead of life simply "happening". What is the difference? It's those two little words at the end "to me." When we constantly think of life as happening to us, we put ourselves at the effect of the equation. But when we take a step back and recognize that happening that life is simply happening, it gives us access to putting ourselves back at the source of the equation. The source of the equation is where possibility arises and solutions that transform the "likely outcome" take place. Taken a step further, we could say "for me". When we take the case that life is for us, it allows us to examine the circumstance itself to find the opportunity within what seems to be a hardship. So stop thinking that life is happening to you and start thinking that life is happening for you.

2. The second thought habit is thinking that your past is not affecting your future. 

Part of what makes each of us unique is our experiences. It's how we write the story of us. But sometimes these stories can be traumatic and many times these traumatic events are NOT addressed. In our society, we are often encouraged to "keep it moving" … to "put these things behind you" to "stay strong and focus on the future"

The problem is that when you don't address significant emotional events.. these traumatic experiences whether big or little, they can cause a distorted view of life, of yourself, and of the people around you. And that can impact your actions and results in the present and certainly in the future.

So first you must acknowledge that your past has an impact on your present actions… then be willing to acknowledge the emotions and beliefs you've made up and finally, you've got to eliminate the stuck negative emotions and limiting decisions you have made about yourself others and the world. Now in my live mind remapping trainings, we are going to great depth about how specifically the past affects our future, and how to eliminate the impact of the past and the resulting limitation it causes for us too be our best selves and produce what we want in life. But the place to first begin is to acknowledge that there are things that you may be unaware of from your past that are in the way have you breaking your own personal glass ceilings.

3. The third thought habit is that change is hard, and that it takes a long time. 

The truth is that change is only as hard as you need to get full value from the change itself and that it can happen in instantly. That is because all learning and behavior happen at the unconscious level. Take riding a bicycle for example. Initially, the learning of riding a bicycle is a conscious thing. You fumble along with the bike trying to figure out how to get yourself balanced on two wheels (by the way, figuring it out is all conscious mind). Then something interesting happens. You discover balance. And you don't discover it consciously, he discovered it unconsciously. And suddenly you can ride a bike effortlessly if you've ever seen a child learn to walk, you've seen the classic example of unconscious an instant change. Here the baby is standing up holding on to a piece of furniture, and trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. Then one day, the baby can walk. After a few days of practice, once that baby is confident on his/her feet, walking becomes an unconscious and automatic phenomenon.

You probably can think of some things in your own life that have changed in a matter of an instant. But there are certain things in our life that we find it hard to change because in our mind it "should be hard to change". One of the things we talk about in my mind remapping NLP trainings to the mind-body connection and the underlying reason why change can happen so quickly, and how to bypass that conscious resistance that makes it difficult to drop bad habits and implement new good ones.

The list of thought habits that could potentially unconsciously sabotage 1 success is exhaustive, but these three foundational underlying thinking patterns that are the root cause of much of the self-inflicted suffering I see in my clients and students today. And invite you to take a deeper look at these three thought habits and explore how they apply to you. I also invite you to think of other thought habits that could be getting in the way have you operating in your high a state of excellence. A good way to start is to ask yourself "what are the results that I want to produce that I have not yet produced in my life?" Then journal all the reasons why you think you haven't produced those results. It is likely that inside of that journaling you will find some thought habits that you didn't know where they are if you look keenly. As you find these thought habits I'd love to hear from you to know what you're discovering for yourself, and what actions you plan to take to begin to Eliminate those thought habits at their source.

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Dr. Maiysha Clairborne is an integrative physician, Master Practitioner & Trainer of Hypnotherapy, NLP, and founder of the Mind ReMapping Co LLC. If you want to learn the tools you need to reprogram negative thoughts, emotions, and self-sabotage behaviors, visit www.mindremappingacademy.com to learn more about our trainings and personal breakthrough programs.