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Sabotage and Relationships


Think about all the relationships you have in your life: family, friends, professors, students, co-workers, bosses. You probably come into contact with a lot more people each week than you realize and, while you only have power over your own brain and your own actions, you can absolutely use your power to influence the relationships in your life. Most of us watch people and life pass us by as we sit on the sidelines and do our own thing, but how much more interesting is life when you become aware of how your actions affect how others view you and vice versa. Are there ways in which you are sabotaging yourself that you don’t even realize?

Relationship sabotage happens for many reasons: laziness (mental laziness and physical laziness), lack of communication, fear of failure, fear of success, and so on. If you can pinpoint things in your life that prod you to sabotage relationships (fear, love) you are better able to manage your thoughts around them. And when you see a familiar bump in the road that in the past has led you to self-sabotage, knowing it’s there and it’s coming may very well help you to steer clear of it.

We talked in great detail a while back about the pain of receiving an unexpected bad grade and what you will make that mean for you. Will you let one poor grade define you as a student? Will you release your toddler-brain to run rampant with negativity? Will you see that one grade as a data point, just a blip on the screen, and a method by which to learn? How you react to grades not only affects you, but it affects how others see you. If you let your toddler-brain loose and share that negativity with your classmates, how does that make you look in their eyes? A champion for students everywhere who receive poor grades or an unhappy student who doesn’t take responsibility for their own actions? Students often unintentionally alienate their classmates with negativity. When you let your toddler-brain loose and spread negativity, you are isolating yourself from the best resources you have in any classroom: yo
ur classmates. You have literally sabotaged your relationship with your best resources to appease your toddler brain. On the other hand, if you take ownership for your grades you can then build on your relationship with your classmates, use them as study resources, and build lasting friendships. Sounds like a much better deal, right?

While you’re in school, you are likely working a job that may or may not be a career job. In either case, hopefully you are doing your best work and being your best employee. You’re always going to run into people (co-workers, bosses, HR people) who you just don’t mesh with. Not everybody gets along with everybody – that’s just a fact of life. But are you going to let your maniacal toddler brain loose in the workplace (Susie doesn’t like me and that’s OK because I don’t like her either, our boss is an idiot who couldn’t manage employees if he tried)? If you engage in this type of idle gossip, you’re going to alienate the best of your co-workers, who know better than to get involved in office drama, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by a few of your co-workers who do little but complain and blather (this is the literal bottom of the workplace heap – not where you want to be if you want to keep your job long-term and/or be a prized employee). Again, you’ve sabotaged your reputation at work to satisfy and satiate your idle desire to gossip. Having and maintaining good working relationships involves staying positive, focused, and out of the watercooler gossip. Encouraging your teammates, listening to criticisms with an open mind, and diligently taking instruction from your superiors is what will get you noticed (in a good way!). That doesn’t mean you have to agree to everything everyone says, but it does mean that you have to disagree in a mature, adult, professional manner. Now that you’ve made these choices, you’re no longer just an employee – you’re a rising star and a leader.

If you’re still living at home (or not), consider your relationship with your family. Are you willing to sabotage that relationship for the whim of a girlfriend or boyfriend? Are you willing to sabotage that relationship out of laziness and not doing your part to keep your corner of the house (and your laundry) clean?

Finally, consider your relationship with yourself. You and your brain together are the captain of your ship and tell the story of your life. When you self-sabotage by telling yourself stories (I’m not good at that, I’m too lazy to try, I’ll never be successful) you are setting yourself up for failure – you’re literally brainwashing yourself into believing things that just aren’t true. Once you’re on the dark path of convincing yourself you’re not amazing (you are!), the next turn on that road leads you believe others think the same terrible things about you (which is a self-fulfilling prophecy). All this negativity is a big ball of yarn that gets hopelessly tangled and takes ages to undo. Save yourself all this trouble and heartache by committing to saying only good things about yourself to yourself.

I can’t wait to hear how you’re changing your thoughts to improve your overall confidence and self-worth! You’re amazing already and I know you’re going to continue to blow your own mind with how much success you will have!


Kelley

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