#8 Do you know your saboteurs?
*This post is intended for your own self-reflection, and yes, as a coach in becoming, I've reflected on them too - anything I recommend here as a task/tool/exercise it's first tested and tried by yours truly
My Saboteur is a whisper, living on my right shoulder. He comes like the wind and tells me I am not enough, I am not doing as much as I should do like the others, and if others can doing it, why can't you? I will not describe him further as I don't want to give him that much power.
He comes whenever he wants, he tends to linger for a while, and then whoosh! He's gone.
When he says all that to me, I get this rush that I need to do as much as possible now like there's no tomorrow. And I start working and behaving as everything needs to happen at this moment because I fear I'll be missing out, which leads me to burnout.
And this is the story of my own personal saboteur, or gremlin, that inner voice that takes the form of fear, resistance, judgment, comparison, and feeling small. Sounds familiar?
So what can you do when that gremlin slowly creeps into your life?
First, look at past or current situation and check if that inner voice saying you’re not good is really you, your true self, saying that or it’s just the saboteur.
Check this free online assessment to identify and name some of the saboteurs that you might not know of.
Be aware of those voices and don’t fight them.
Easier said than done, right? But, taking a moment to notice what is going on and name it is a good first step. Do this imaginative exercise and describe it, give it a shape, a name, a color, and how you feel when that gremlin is in your life. When you're having all those thoughts, ask yourself, "What is true here?".
And how can you make the saboteur smaller? Maybe make fun of it or kick it out of the window?
Who would you be without this gremlin/saboteur?
How could your life change/improve if you were to let go of this gremlin?
What values are being highjacked?
When the saboteur will come back, what do you want to do?
I've been reading Taming Your Gremlin, which I encourage you to give it a go if you want to know more about this topic.
There's no magic formula to getting rid of the saboteur forever, but you can be aware of it and decide how you want to react to it. And you can definitely minimize it not to control you and live a fulfilling life.
Stay curious,
Flo
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