Marketing Strategies: Solutions to Self Sabotage

"I don't know why I'm sabotaging myself.” I hear this statement every day from clients and prospective clients. This sentiment is extremely common amongst both seasoned and new entrepreneurs. I hear many examples of self sabotage in my coaching practice and many pleas for help to reverse self sabotage.

Let's look at some problems and some solutions:

The first example of self sabotage that comes to mind is carrying around a belief, "I am not good enough". It is a very common self limiting belief in its sabotage your success because it doesn't allow you to "shine".

Instead of shining, you played small, held back off and tried to be invisible. Of course this is a prescription for failure. If you don't think of yourself as good enough you will project a lack of self-confidence. Your prospective clients pick up on this and are not attracted to work with you. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As you see yourself losing transactions, you tell yourself, "I must not be good enough."

What is the way out? What is the solution to this form of self sabotage?

The first thing is to find out why your belief system wants you to think of yourself as "not good". Here's a typical example "if I had that belief then I'll have more connections and acceptance from people."

That does not seem to make sense until you dig down a little deeper and find out the origin of that belief "I'm not good enough". In one case, my client learned as a child, that her job was to help others, to be a caretaker. She was conditioned to think that she needed to be in the background, helping others shine but not herself.

When she became aware of where that self sabotaging belief came from she then had the power of choice. Now she can choose to keep on thinking "I'm not good enough" or, she can work on letting that belief go and replace it with some updated Empowered Beliefs.

In this case, my client decided to install new, updated, empowered beliefs such as:

"I am more than good enough"

"I allow others to take care of themselves and I am only responsible for myself".

Another example of self sabotage is getting involved in interactions with your clients that are not win/win. The reason so many people do this is that they have the mistaken idea that if they are always nice and always accommodate their clients, then they will succeed.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If you frequently get into interactions where it is lose/win, in other words you lose and the other person wins, then you won't succeed. It takes too big a toll on you. You will be embroiled in stress you'll be exhausted and in many cases your health will suffer ill also begin to feel very resentful.

Your motto should be "it's either win/win" or no deal. That is straight from Steven Covey, author of "the seven habits of highly effective people."

What is the solution? How do you implement this? In every interaction, taking inventory on how you feel inside. Listen to your gut feelings, as they will always tell you the truth. If you don't feel good inside then you have fallen into a lose/win and you need to extricate yourself.

How do you do that? If you are working with a reasonable client, you say "I only do interactions that are win-win. For this to be a win for me we would need to make this adjustment_________________. What would it take for this to be a win for you?

If you can't come up with a win for both people, then pull out and put your energies elsewhere.

If the client is not a reasonable person, it probably won't do any good to have that discussion and is just need to find a way to get out.

Why did we get in the habit of lose/win? It always starts with the beliefs you carry on a subconscious level. You think you're not good enough or if you think you have to please people, then you will tend to take on interactions that are not win/win.

Change your beliefs and you change your reality. The irony is getting your client's approval isn't that helpful, they won't respect you if they can walk all over you. Win their respect by always committing to win/win.

Another example of a self sabotaging strategy that many people fall into is to focus on what you "don't want .”

How would you know what you were doing that? Look for the following signs:

1. You'd be feeling stressed and frustrated.

2. You would be focusing on circumstances outside of you, like the economy or the marketplace.

3. You would be focused on scarcity, not abundance.

If you are feeling anything less than hopeful and optimistic then most likely you're fretting about the lack of transactions, the lack of clients, and the lack of money in your bank account and so on until your consciousness is saturated with feelings of lack and scarcity.

Since our beliefs create our reality, if you're focusing on scarcity, what are you going to attract? More scarcity. Every time you start feeling bad about what you don't have in your life, your energy is contracting and becoming negative. That is not attractive to more business, in fact it repels business.

What is the solution?

It is a three-step process:

1. Notice the focus on lack and say STOP to interrupt or thought pattern.

2. Take a DEEP BREATH.

3. Put in a positive new thoughts like:

"Money comes to me easily and effortlessly"

"I do work I love and I'm richly rewarded”

After that, take a few minutes to write down what you DO WANT. Write down the money you want in the bank, the number of transactions you want in a month and so forth. Take a moment to feel how good it feels to have what you want and you will attracted to you.

A common belief that causes success minded professionals to get burned out is the subconscious belief, "to be successful, you have to work long hard hours, struggle and sacrifice."

We usually absorb that idea at a very young age, subconsciously, from our parents most of our parents either told us that message and drummed it into our heads or they just modeled it for us and we were sad to see how hard they had to work.

Most of our parents did not have the concept of working "smarter", not harder.

So, what do you do if you notice that your sabotaging yourself in this way?

The first step is to be aware that you are carrying this belief. Then recognize that it's only a belief, not a fact, and a belief can be changed. Remember your beliefs create your reality. If you believe that you have to work hard, then you will if you believe you have to work smart, then you will.

To make the paradigm shift, keep in mind this quote from Mark Allen, "in an easy and relaxed manner and in a healthy and positive way, I create total financial success, for the highest good of all."

Let that idea be your mantra, and remember to breathe deeply, throughout the day reminding yourself to relax and work smarter not harder.

To summarize, all self sabotaging strategies can be changed. The power to change a belief is always in the present moment. No matter how many years you have been sabotaging yourself, you can change it now. This article has given you some tips and solutions. The bottom line is to identify your self limiting beliefs, why you put them there in the first place, release them, and replace them with Empowered Beliefs that you can install immediately.