Hey, you’re alone in your bed. There is no-one else in the room. Look no further. You’re the one that makes your life miserable.
How can it be that you are your worst enemy? Right? It can’t be true.
It’s the others that always try to put you down, not you.
You are trying your best to keep yourself safe and avoid the people that don’t like you (well, your enemies). You know that colleague who tries to steal your ideas, your boss that adds more and more projects to your tasks and refuses any raise, your partner’s mother who hates your guts, to name a few.
Does that sound familiar?
Everyone, not only you, struggle with “difficult” people in their life. However, the sad truth is no matter how many people hate or dislike you, τhey can’t hurt you as much as you can hurt yourself.
Why?
No-one can go through life with having around them only people who like them. It just can’t happen, no matter how much you’ll try.
However, the truth is that you can block out those that make your life difficult, and you should stand up for yourself. The one you cannot avoid and most of the time you cannot face is yourself.
Here are some ways you let yourself become your worst enemy.
Negative self-talk
Whenever you face a challenge (small or big), only the worst-case scenarios play out in your mind? Why do we always focus our minds on the worst outcome?
Most of the time, we underestimate our capabilities and live in constant fear.
What if things go wrong?
By constantly telling yourself you are no good and thinking about what went wrong in the past, you cannot become happy. If you listen to your inner voice, you’ll be shocked by how much you’re bullying yourself.
“Oh, that will never work out.”
“I cannot get a promotion.”
“I will never lose weight.”
Why do you have to believe and be sure about a negative outcome and never leave room for a positive one?
When your mind thinks of all the negative outcomes, it feels like it is trying to prepare you to deal with it. The problem is that it makes you freeze, panic and almost certainly leads you to the outcome you least want. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Listen to your thoughts, and you’ll discover how cruel you are to yourself.
You wouldn’t let anyone talk to you like that. Probably you wouldn’t speak to that person again. The problem is that you cannot avoid yourself.
The best thing you can do is listen to the negative voice and understand how much it affects you. Write down your thoughts and question them.
What if everything worked out? How and what can you do to have a positive outcome? Sometimes we make a mountain out of a molehill.
We should train our minds to see the positive rather than the negative side of things.
Read more about How Living In The Present Moment Can Make Your Dreams Come True
You fear failure
You probably believe that everyone else has a magic wand and makes everything perfect. However, you fear even your own shadow.
If you think everybody else is confident and successful, you’re wrong. People who achieve things in their life have a single thing in common.
They never stop trying, no matter how much they fail. They fall in love with failing because each time, they become better at what they do. Looking only at the outcome and comparing yourself to them at the peak of their success is unfair.
Persistence is the only way that can lead you to success. Don’t feel ashamed if you fail. The only ones who don’t fail are the people who never try. But if you never try, you’ll get nowhere.
Why are we so much afraid of failure?
It is a shame we feel when we fail at something. It feels as if the whole world is looking at us and laughing at us. Most of the time, others don’t care about what we do, and if they make fun of us, they never have the guts to do something themselves.
Successful people will never criticize someone just because they tried and failed.
So how do you overcome the fear of failure?
You have to take action and start new things in life. Failure is inevitable, but if you stop there, you’ll never let yourself develop and succeed. The time will never be right to start a new project, go on a diet, change your career, learn a new skill.
There won’t be a magic moment where all the stars will align, and you will achieve your goal in a blink of an eye. It hurts to fail, but if you continue and learn from your mistakes, you will find your way, and you will succeed.
Life isn’t a one-way road. It is a crossroad that breaks into other crossroads, and every time we have to choose a path. When you question your choices, standing in the middle of each crossroad wondering which is the right path, you get nowhere.
If you believe that the right path feels right and looks good from the first step, it is an illusion. It doesn’t. It will usually feel like you made the worst decision because you are a beginner at what you are trying to achieve.
You have to take a deep breath, keep moving and never look back.
Expect too much from other people
Your expectations from other people may be making you miserable. Have you ever thought that you’re expecting too much from everybody else? Now you’re thinking, “What does that have to do with me? I’m always doing things for other people and look at what I get in return… Nothing.”
That is what I’m talking about… You think that if you are a people pleaser that others will do the same for you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way.
When you always take care of others, say yes to everything, and never ask for anything, it doesn’t make you likable.
It just makes you a person without personality. It’s no wonder that people will take advantage of those afraid to show their real character. By hiding your true self so that you can be accepted will hurt you in the long run.
“No-one will like my true self; they can’t appreciate all the things I do for them,” you think.
It’s not other people’s fault. It’s our own. It’s not that they don’t get it; we don’t.
Many people feel ashamed of asking others for help, for support, for their time because deep down inside, they believe that they don’t deserve it.
If you don’t accept and love yourself, no-one will.
Taking care of yourself should be a priority in your life. If this sounds egoistic, it shouldn’t be. You cannot take help others if you aren’t well, both physically and emotionally. Making time to take care of yourself, do the things you like, and rest should be everyday practice.
You believe you’re not worth a better future
Sometimes it is us, the one that is holding us back. It might seem strange, but the fear of success is real. As much as we fear failure, we fear success. What both have in common is change, and as humans, we are afraid of everything new. In the back of one’s mind, change might hide a potential threat.
It might sound counterintuitive, but the reality is when you achieve something, you have to face the challenges that come along.
Did you succeed, or did you get lucky?
When you don’t believe in yourself, you end up questioning even your success. It seems that no matter how well you do, you will come up with a negative answer.
It’s not only the future that scares us but also the past that makes us uncomfortable. All the things we didn’t do, our mistakes, and the list goes on.
It is a common mistake to overlook all the steps you’ve taken to develop your skills and yourself. Don’t take your past for granted. Even the mistakes you’ve made are valuable if you decide to look at them this way.
Read more about Self-Love, The Secret Power That Can Transform Your Life
Believe in yourself and stop being your worst enemy
Most of the time, we are blocking our way to happiness. What we don’t realize is that we have the power to change many things in our life. We are hard on ourselves, and that can only lead us nowhere.
Stop sleeping with your enemy and become your best friend. You are unique, and this is your super-power. When you realize it, nothing will stop you.