#7 - Top 6 Success Saboteurs in Career and Business (Part 1)

Over the last few years since working with professionals who have their own business or who have a career, I started to notice a common theme around the patterns and issues that my clients were coming to me with.

It brought a wry smile to my face because I had suffered from ALL of these at some point but they had become a lot more apparent when I was building my business , i.e where the focus was on ME as my brand and the face of my business.

So here are the top 6 Success Saboteurs that I see over and over again - they are in no particular order because often there are more than one that may present at the same time:

1)???Impostor Syndrome

Described by Google as:

“Imposter syndrome is the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high-performing in external, objective ways. This condition often results in people feeling like "a fraud" or "a phony" and doubting their abilities.”

Essentially if you suffer from this feeling then you may be worried that you don’t really belong in this position and could be exposed as a fraud, or you are fearful of being seen for who you “really” are .? You may struggle to trust your own decisions and you may be plagued by self doubt.?If you have your own business, then you may feel “who am I to be talking about this…or charging for this”.

Whilst there are many famous faces who have declared that they have suffered from this at some point in their life (Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Lady Gaga, Sheryl Sandberg, Arianna Huffington, Oprah Winfrey to name but a few) it is clear that you can still be successful and in fact many people who struggle with this become high achievers as they consistently push to feel more successful inside.

So why do we suffer from this?

Well impostor syndrome is really a pattern that is masking the deeper feeling of not feeling enough inside.?I have worked with a couple of Directors who had risen to the top of their career expecting to feel amazing when they got there – yet they still felt the same inside.?

And that’s the key – if you are trying to fix something on the outside by doing it more, accomplishing more and getting accreditations and awards, then it still doesn’t fix the feeling you have on the inside.

A beautiful quote I was reminded of recently by Jenna Weakland is from a book by Junot Diaz who says:

“You cannot run away - not ever - the only way out is in” – “wherever you go….there you are”

In other words – if you are looking to change something in your life, and you are looking externally then you are looking in the wrong place!

So the answer is to look within - but when it is a BIG problem that affects you all the time, then it may be a sign of deep feelings of low self worth and self esteem. Maybe you were judged or criticised a lot as a child or only rewarded when you achieved something, so you are subconsciously seeking to get that feeling of reward when by achieving something.

When Impostor syndrome or deep feelings of low self worth and feeling not enough inside are affecting you, then this is definitely something I can help you with - simply get in touch and we can hop on a call.

2)???Visibility and Public speaking fears

Well this one is VERY prevalent in my Practice right now with 3 clients in the last week approaching me about this very same thing.?It is actually quoted as being the #1 biggest fear in the world, so why are we so fearful about public speaking??

To understand this, we need to understand a little bit about how our mind works because our mind has actually only evolved about 1% since our Tribal / Hunter gatherer days.?

In those days it was imperative that we connected with our main caregivers and our fellow Tribe in order to be accepted in that Tribe, so speaking out about something where others may disagree or reject what you are saying could have led to rejection from the Tribe.

And as you could NOT have survived on your own in those days, then your mind sees that "Rejection = almost certain death".?And as your mind is there to keep you alive, then this is perceived as a very serious threat and therefore most people will experience a level of fear doing this.

So it’s a natural and primal response for us if we are about to step out in front of thousands of people, or to do something that causes attention to ourselves….but sometimes it goes way deeper than this and affects us at a much more day to day level, which is usually when my clients come to me looking for help.?

Doing simple team presentations, meeting a room full of new people and doing anything where the attention is on YOU can be a very stressful situation causing a build up of anxiety beforehand and then sweating, blushing, shaking, heart racing when you’re trying to focus.

It’s important to know that any deep rooted fear that is affecting you so much that it is holding you back, is NOT something that you were born with. This means it is a learned behaviour that has come from a “traumatic” scene and (more importantly) a feeling that you experienced in the past – most often between the ages of 0-7 years old.

I should say here that a "trauma" can be very small (eg someone saying something unkind or hurtful) or very big (eg abuse, physical, mental or verbal) - so it's not the experience so much - it is the feeling that you have linked to this scene that is stored in the subconscious mind.

Now whilst ALL root causes are from different scenes from your life – they can obviously be very different from client to client.

But one type of scene comes up over and over again in my Practice.

A classroom scene where you, as a child had to stand up and do something in front of the class and either got it wrong, embarrassed yourself or got laughed at.?

Right there in that scene your little child mind would have created a belief that you will NEVER do this again, because the feeling feels so bad.?And that belief gets stored directly into your subconscious mind if you are between the ages of 0-7 years old.?My weekly newsletter last week focused on this topic if you would like to read more.

Next week I will spotlight 2 more of the top 6 success saboteurs that I see in my Practice ALL the time (and suffered from myself too!).

If you are really struggling with patterns of behaviour that you KNOW are holding you back, then this is what I help my clients with and I’d be happy to help you too - just drop me a DM and lets talk.

________________________________________________________________

??I support professionals and entrepreneurs to breakthrough their upper limits and subconscious blocks that are holding them back

??You could hit the bell if you’d like to see more or subscribe to my weekly Newsletter

?? Or drop me a DM if you’d like a “?????????????? ???? ??????????????” call

FREE PDF: Breakthough the #1 Barrier to Your Success https://mebutfree.com/5

#successtips?#subconsciousmind?#stressmanagement #impostorsyndrome #publicspeakingtips