Saboteur

Have you ever wondered why it is that just as you are about to achieve success someone grabs the prize before you?  A little like the final stage of a race, where you are ahead of the field and then someone (who has perhaps been pacing better) comes out of nowhere and runs past you in the last few seconds.

Or sometimes do you find someone seems to work against you just after you have reached your goal and achieved success?  Completely destroying that success?  An unknown someone.  Invisible.

Does everyone seem to conspire against you, stopping you getting what you really want out of life?

These are very common problems, and probably most of us face them from time to time, if not all the time.  So perhaps we should try to find out who is working against us and why.

Well I think I can answer that question for you right now, even though I know very little about you, your circumstances, and what you are trying to achieve.  The person working against you is YOU!  Not any of your friends or enemies.  Just YOU.

Even when it seems to be clear who has done this, when you can see the person grabbing the prize before you, the culprit is STILL you, and only you.

How can that be, and why?

In the case of someone snatching the prize before you there are probably two factors involved here, both controlled by you.

Firstly, to use a horse racing analogy, you are pulling on the reins to slow the horse down just as the winning post comes in sight and the first prize appears to be within your grasp.  You hesitate.  And he who hesitates is lost.  For some people this is pretty obvious when they stop and think what has happened.  They don't mean to give up right at the last moment, but that is exactly what they do.  Others, perhaps you included, will object and will deny outright that they are slowing down just as it seems they are going to win.  But I can almost guarantee that is what is happening!

Secondly, in most cases you are mistaken in believing there is only one prize, or only a few prizes.  You may think that is the case, but it probably isn't.  Yes, if your goal was to become the president of the United States and someone trumped you to the post (sorry about my sense of humour!), there was only one prize there and you missed it.  But in all likelihood you had the wrong goal.  Maybe the goal should have been to become the president of the United States at some point in your life, in which case the prize has not been snatched away from you unless you are going to die before the next election!  More likely the goal should actually have been something very different anyway, as most of us misinterpret our inner desires, cloaking them in something that is vaguely related but not our true goal - and if we could truly see our real goal we would realize there are no limits there and that it doesn't matter if someone "snatches" the prize ahead of us, as there are many identical prizes.

In the case of the invisible saboteur, if you think really carefully you will realize that saboteur is you.  But why?  Why do you slow down right at the end of the race?  Why do you give up when someone else gains a prize but there are prizes on offer for everyone?  Why, when you finally achieve whatever it was you wanted to achieve, do you sabotage your own success, giving away the prize you worked so hard to achieve?  Why are you a self-saboteur?

There are a number of reasons for this, some of which simply need a change of state.  A change from a permanent negative attitude to a positive one.  Recognition that the world is your oyster and that the only limitations to achieving what you want to achieve are set by you.

But perhaps the biggest reason is that the "inner you" doesn't want change.  And if you are successful that will mean a big change.  Too big for comfort.  So the "inner you" pulls you back into your comfort zone.  Why?  Well it is a basic biological survival instinct.  You are alive, so what you have been doing up to now has ensured your survival.  But if you change things, then you are moving into the unknown, and your inner being believes there is a risk that you are moving into a danger zone.  Evolutionary pressure very naturally tries to steer you away from that danger zone.  Either by making you slow down and perhaps even stop before you reach it, or by making you return to "safety" when you get there.

Just recognizing this may be enough to stop this saboteur (you) in his or her tracks.  But if not, then at least you now understand the source of the problem and can enlist some external help (perhaps from a lifestyle coach) to re-train you so you don't keep missing or even throwing away the success you deserve!