Today, I want to talk about self-sabotage because once we recognize self-sabotage we can address it. And then once we start to address it, we are on our way to becoming peak performers in business, in our relationships and in life in general.

So when I talk about self-sabotage, I have to talk about paradigms because they are intrinsically linked.

So what are paradigms?

Well, think about wearing a pair of glasses and the lens is basically how we experience the world beyond the glasses, right?

That’s what paradigms are. They are our belief systems, our paradigms are basically the filters through which we observe our life, through which we experience our life.

They are a multitude of habits, repetitive thought patterns lodged in our subconscious mind and these repetitive thoughts, opinions, perceptions, beliefs, go on to become our habits; the things that we do or the things that we do not do. And we are basically on autopilot.

So all of us have a bunch of paradigms.

We have money paradigms. We have relationship paradigms – the way we show up in relationships. And we have paradigms that control the use of our time and our logic.

Now you may think it’s perfectly illogical for your income to go up by 50% in a few months or a year, but that would be somebody else’s lived reality.

It’s neither good, nor bad. It’s just a reflection of your money paradigm. 

How else does a money paradigm play out in your life? How you think about money, that’s what the paradigm does. The paradigm controls your relationship with money. It controls how much money you allow into your life.

It controls what you believe about money. 

Do you know anyone who is in the habit of earning more or less the same amount of money that he or she has earned over the last five years?

Why? Because that person is locked into a certain idea that keeps him or her from earning more. It’s just as simple as that.

Do you know anyone who is extremely risk averse when it comes to money? Even though there is an opportunity cost to the money that (s)he’s not earning, that’s the paradigm.

Do you know anyone who feels really awkward or embarrassed even talking about money, that awkwardness reflects his own attitude towards money.

Can you imagine this person doing business? He will never earn more than what his paradigm allows him to. No matter how hard he works, he’s really never ever going to have a thriving business or the success in business that he aspires to.

And the problem is the paradigm keeps you locked in. Even if things are getting problematic, the paradigm is going to keep you locked in.

The bills might be mounting. Some people in your team might be consistently underperforming. The paradigm will persuade you to ignore it.

You might have certain ideas you want to work on, but you’ll say a few years from now. That’s the paradigm.

You know stuff has to be done. You’re noticing it. You believe you can do it. You should be doing it.

You’re not doing it.

It’s important for you to recognize this because there is a cost to not acting. 

The paradigm is keeping you from going in the direction that you want to be going.

And maybe you have a certain way of doing things and it’s gotten you some results until now. And now it’s repetitive.

It’s the same set of results.

You think you might want to be making changes, but you’re not making them. Is it possible to be more efficient and productive in your systems, processes and how you use your time?

Of course, but the paradigm will say, forget it. It’s not worth it. It’s too hard. You are fine as you are – there’s a conflict between you and the paradigm.

And the paradigm wins more often than not because it’s in the subconscious mind. It’s been there longer than we think it is.

But the good thing is once we start to recognize that there is a paradigm at play, then we can make conscious choices that say that, all right, we will not allow the paradigm to keep us from the health, wealth, happiness that we deserve.

So you have paradigms in all areas of your life and they’re sitting in your subconscious mind and they’re controlling your results.

They make up all of you. The umbrella paradigm is controlling all of your results, 98% of your results. So you could be working very, very hard and you’re not getting the results that you want.

It’s the paradigm. It’s not you.

You could be getting a shift in your results for a little while, but for a permanent change in your results, an exponential improvement in your results, you need to go to the root cause of those results. And those are those old thinking and doing habits that no longer serve you; and these habits are in the sub-conscious mind.

So I have combined for you, a bunch of beliefs, perceptions, opinions that a lot of people have. They’re very common wealth and success blockers. Download the guide and see for yourself which ones apply to you because it’s really a matter of shifting your paradigm and it will give you different results.

But remember they’re sticky and they’re stubborn and they will make you believe that it’s not worth it. You may choose to do nothing about them, oh why bother and that is your paradigm again. 

You know you should be doing something about some of these beliefs and opinions and perceptions, but you don’t, that’s the paradigm at play again.

Get uncomfortable for just a little bit, start to notice how you’re holding yourself back. And then we can talk about what, if anything, you want to do about your paradigms.

Check out the Free Guide to Identifying Your Money and Success Blockers (paradigms).