Your saboteurs are the voices in your head that hold you back from reaching your full potential. They are the creators of your negative emotions, including anger, frustration, guilt, and blame, and they aim to keep you swirling in a negative mindset. They take up space in your brain without paying rent. They’ve been with you so long, that you may believe all the harmful things they say.
Please know that you’re not alone. Every one of us plays host to a particular cast of characters that too often get into the driver’s seat of our internal dialogue.
So, what if I told you that everything you hear from the saboteurs is a lie? That judging voice that tells you you’re not good enough? Liar! And the voice of the hyper-achiever that wants you to believe that you have to keep reaching ever higher goals in order to feel worthy and accepted? Liar! Or the pleaser voice that says you have to make sure everyone else is happy in order to feel happy yourself? Definitely a liar!
This is the really tricky thing about our saboteurs. Every one of them lies to us to justify their very existence. Not only do the saboteurs lie, they actually deliver the opposite of what they promise.
Before we go further, pop on over to connect2potential.com/mentalfitness and click the button to take the free saboteur assessment. It takes less than 10 minutes and you’ll get the results right away in your inbox.
Now, with your results in hand, check the info below, which gives highlights of the saboteur lies and the ugly truth that they actually deliver. See if they ring true for you.
Avoider Lie: I’ll make your life pleasant by allowing you to avoid unpleasant tasks or situations. It’s good to be the peacemaker and avoid conflict.
Avoider Truth: By putting off unpleasant tasks, you’ll get behind and the pressure will build. The tension in that uncomfortable relationship will grow and fester. Relationships will be held at a superficial level. In the end, the stress caused by avoiding will create a very unpleasant reality.
Controller Lie: By keeping a tight grip on every detail, I’ll help you stay safe and produce better results. People need to be pushed and controlled. If you don’t stay in control, you might be controlled by others, and that is entirely unacceptable.
Controller Truth: By controlling every tiny detail, you may produce good results in the short term. But in the long run, you’ll be burnt out from over-work, and you won’t have allowed anyone else to develop their own abilities. You’ll never be able to spread the workload well. People will shut down from being micromanaged. Many situations in life are simply uncontrollable, leading to more anxiety. In the long run, the quality of your results will suffer and your well-being will be in danger.
Hyper-Achiever Lie: I’ll make sure you always get to win, to be the best, and to achieve the highest status. This will allow you to finally feel worthy and content.
Hyper-Achiever Truth: By constantly driving yourself to achieve more and more, you lose sight of your important relationships and you put your health at risk. The people on your team can sense that you are just seeking glory and status for yourself, so they stop trying so hard. You don’t allow yourself to celebrate these great achievements before setting your sights on the next goal. In the long run, you realize that your achievements have brought you no closer to feeling true contentment.
Hyper-Rational Lie: Fact-based decisions will lead you to create the best possible results. Why would you want to be anything but rational?
Hyper-Rational Truth: The need for more and more data can hold you back from taking important action. Meanwhile, some areas of your life are not well-suited to data-driven decision making. When you approach your relationships as purely rational equations, the people you care about are left feeling empty and invisible. In the end, your heavy-handed rationality doesn’t always produce the best outcomes.
Hyper-Vigilant Lie: I’ll keep you and the people you care about safe by anticipating and guarding against every danger.
Hyper-Vigilant Truth: Because you’re always on high alert, everything looks like danger and you can’t easily tell the difference between what’s truly dangerous and what’s not. You are exhausted by the “always on” stance. You’ve cried wolf so many times that others no longer spring into action when you send up the alarm. As a result, you and others may not respond adequately to a real threat.
Pleaser Lie: If you put the needs of others ahead of your own needs, you can make them happy and they will respond by doing the same for you. This is the path to creating deep, lasting relationships.
Pleaser Truth: When you operate in service of other people, while expecting them to recognize and meet your needs, they will likely disappoint you. Since you don’t speak up about your own needs and they can’t read your mind, you end up feeling resentful. Meanwhile, because people can sense that you’re only bringing your “happy face” to the conversation, they may not fully trust you in the relationship. You end up with shallow connections and unmet needs.
Restless Lie: By spending time on this person, activity or situation, you might be missing something better. If you keep hopping from one thing to the next, you’ll never get bored and you’ll reduce the risk of missing out on the best experiences.
Restless Truth: Because you are always looking to see what you’re missing, you are never fully present to the people and circumstances that are right here, right now. As a result, you completely miss out on the best stuff life has to offer.
Stickler Lie: Everything needs to be precise and perfect. If you’ll put that extra bit of time and energy into making it perfect, you’ll be rewarded for it. This is your responsibility to do things the “right” way. Your perfectionism is a good thing. Eventually others will respond by doing things the right way, too.
Stickler Truth: Your rigidity makes it difficult for you to deal with the inevitable changes that life presents to you. Having to deal with other people and their varying styles is a source of anxiety and frustration. The people around you feel constantly criticized and resign themselves that no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to please you, so they stop trying.
Victim Lie: Nothing ever goes quite right for you, and as a result you are uniquely misunderstood and disadvantaged. Your need to be rescued may be a way to get some of the love and attention that you deserve. You are right to be a martyr.
Victim Truth: This attempt to draw people closer by highlighting your disadvantage actually pushes them away. They may become frustrated, feeling guilty and helpless that they can’t put more than a temporary band-aid on your pain. The self-pity you express is a poor substitute for self-love.
If any of this rings true and you’re ready to do something about it, check out the Mental Fitness Boot Camp, which is designed to re-wire your brain in 7-weeks so you can intercept these harmful saboteurs and spend more time in a positive mindset, fulfilling your true potential.
In the next article, I’ll share some personal stories of how my own saboteurs lie to me and what I’m doing about it.
And before you go, check out this short video about how my clients tend to want to hold on to their saboteurs.