How not to sabotage yourself – the 1% Challenge

Are you aware of how you may sabotage yourself? Would you like to learn how not to sabotage yourself?

Do you start something – a project, a workout routine, a mindfulness routine, healthy eating – only to find yourself stopping before you even finish or get the results you wanted?

This is likely because you’re sabotaging your efforts, and I bet you have no idea how or why you’re doing that.

99% of the time, when we sabotage ourselves, it’s because of overwhelm and fear. We are terrified of failing, succeeding, being seen, not being seen. being told we’re no good, exposing ourselves as failures, getting minimal result the from maximum effort (which is EXHAUSTING), so you set audacious, bodacious goals that force you to give up because it’s just too damn hard.

The problem is that you take on way too much all at once. You’re a smart, successful, hustling woman – you don’t do things half-assed. I see you there, going all out trying these things that you know are going to be healthy or helpful to you, but they’re simply not realistic.

This all or nothing mentality is quite frankly no longer serving you. 

It’s totally fine for you to have ambitions and want to be more, have more, do more. I encourage and applaud that! You are a woman on a mission! And without this burning desire to get shit done, you wouldn’t be where you are right now.

But check your intention, and check your reality and how much you can or even should be doing. 

How to avoid self-sabotage:

Do the 1% challenge.

Instead of committing to an entire overhaul of whatever it is you want to do better at, consider the hardest challenge of all: doing only 1% more.

I spoke to a kick-ass hustling woman the other day who was full of ass-kickery in all areas of her life except where taking better care of herself was concerned. So I asked her what could she do to start implementing some healthier habits so that she was feeling more energized and therefore able to hustle even more.

Her reply was to hire a mother’s helper so she could shower, do her makeup every day, work out every day…

My reply was: “Yeah, ok then. How much work is it going to take for you to find and hire a mother’s helper!? Do you know how long it can take to find the right person to take care of your kids? What if it takes you months? What do you do in the meantime? Never shower?”

Her knee-jerk reaction to hire a mother’s helper was a 50-100% more reply, yes it makes complete sense, and it would solve a lot of problems BUT (see my argument, above)!

So I asked her, what if you only did 1% more today, how would that feel, what would that look like?

She said her 1% more was just doing her makeup. Putting on makeup makes her feel badass and strong, it’s her cape, her superhero costume that she dons when she needs to step up. 

If I had just left her at the mother’s helper stage, there is NO way she would have done that. She would have started to look into it, but she’s already super exhausted and overwhelmed and once it dawned on her how much work that would require, it would get pushed to the bottom of the list. Along with showering every day. Instead, now she can do one small thing that will have a massive impact in how she shows up to the world.

While 1% may seem so simple for the all or nothing superhuman you are, this will be your biggest challenge. Slowing down to speed up!

In her mind, when she realized she was taking on too much she wrote: “That’s an ALL or NOTHING and I will absolutely “fail” because even if I did one of those things, I wouldn’t have done them all and in my eyes… I would have done nothing. What if the ALL was doing my makeup (1%) and anything else I had time for and that felt good was MORE?” 

Now go and take any other thing you’re trying to achieve and plug it in the above – whether it’s uplevel your business, find a new man, learn a new skill. Whatever – break it down into bite-sized pieces – one-percent-it, be realistic about where you are now, celebrate the small victories, and only do what you WANT to do, not what you SHOULD do.

In my Make Peace With Food Guide, I go deeper into your potential Sneaky Sabotage style, grab the guide here to find out which one you have!  Grab the guide here

Grab your copy here