30: How To Self-Sabotage In 8 Easy Steps
I’ve completed a lot of projects in my life.
I wrote a book, I’ve launched several courses, I’ve traveled around. Started a family.
So I’ve learned a lot about how to finish what I start, but for this podcast, I’m gonna throw all of that out the window.
Here are the top eight most effective ways to self-sabotage your efforts.
If you follow these steps closely, I can guarantee you will stall out your projects.
You’ll spin your wheels and wonder what the heck you have to show after days or weeks or even months of hard work.
Are you ready?
ALWAYS START FROM SCRATCH
First, always start new things completely from scratch.
Don’t think about the past.
Don’t look at any existing material that you might have access to or anything you’ve learned or discovered in life.
Nope. Insist that everything you do be 100% original.
Start every piece of writing with a clean white page.
And use only the ideas that you can come up with right in that moment.
Especially avoid studying existing experts or old masters who you might be able to learn from.
TRY TO FEEL GUILTY
Second, try to feel guilty.
It’s important as you begin creating plans and routines in your life that your background emotional state is one of guilt.
Think about ruminate on all the times you’ve failed in the past.
Convince yourself that you will inevitably fail in the very same ways as you have in the past.
If possible, this is an advanced tip. Turn that guilt into shame, which is even more effective at keeping you stuck.
INSIST ON PERFECTION
Next, you must insist on perfection in everything you do.
Assume that there will be immediate catastrophic consequences on your life if you make even the smallest mistake.
Don’t allow one typo, broken link, unfinished sentence or half-formed thought to form in your mind, much less appear in your work.
Tell yourself that avoiding all mistakes is the only path to success.
Wait to take any action until a successful outcome is a hundred percent assured.
DO ALL THE RESEARCH POSSIBLE
Fourth, do all the research first.
The internet is full of interesting content, so you had better consume all the available advice from every random person on the Internet before you take the first step, right?
By doing all this research up front, you can tell yourself that you’re making progress when secretly, you’re procrastinating on the real world learning that would actually make a difference.
Doing research is the perfect excuse to avoid anything that takes you past your comfort zone.
And you know what? If all else fails, try to get yourself mired in evermore complex debates about the correct tagging system or organizing system, which we know never lead anywhere.
GO BIG ALL THE TIME
Go big. Whatever you take on, make sure it is the grandest, most ambitious endeavor anyone has ever conceived of.
It’s best to think of your goals as these awe-inspiring feats, the likes of which humanity has never.
By going big from the very start and also committing to it forever, you create this rush of excitement that sends you into a flurry of activity without too much reflection or any kind of strategy, you can tell everyone you know about your grand plans, thereby getting most of the emotional payoff of accomplishment without having to actually achieve anything.
DO EVERYTHING BY YOURSELF
To maximize your chance of failure. Do things completely by yourself.
Don’t talk to anyone.
Don’t ask for advice.
Don’t seek out teachers or mentors, and definitely above all, do not get feedback on your ideas at an early stage.
Doing it all by yourself ensures that you continue doing things just the way you’ve always done them.
Even if a new project demands a completely new.
Best of all, working in secret means that you only ever have access to your own ideas, your own imagination, your own life experience, and thus can never really create anything different from what you’ve created before.
COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS
Now, try to compare yourself with others as much as you possibly can.
Ideally, choose people who are the most successful, impressive performers in their field.
Highlight their best qualities while excusing their.
And then do the opposite for yourself.
Definitely never consider, let’s say, learning from them or using them as inspiration.
It’s much more effective if you think of them as a competitor or a rival that you have to beat.
POSTPONE GRATIFICATION
And finally, step eight, possibly the most important postpone gratification.
I want you to strenuous, avoid any kind of pleasure or joy, and assume that any positive feeling will just make you lazy and extinguish your motivation.
Listen closely and really believe that inner critic in your head that is constantly telling you that you don’t deserve fulfillment.
You don’t deserve to celebrate small wins.
And you know what? No one notices or cares anyway.
Pleasure and fun are what make any effort sustainable for the long term.
And we know that all results come from consistency over the long term.
So make sure you don’t enjoy any part of the journey.
Wrap Up
By following these steps, I can virtually guarantee that you will never accomplish your creative dreams.
For more insight on how to avoid accomplishing your most important goals, make sure to avoid joining Team Orange, my private coaching community for underdog entrepreneurs
And definitely don’t subscribe to my podcast or YouTube channel as the rest of my episodes are particularly hazardous to anyone trying to avoid effectiveness, increase their stress level, and generally not get things done.
Good luck. I’m off to go watch an hour or two of TikTok videos instead of actually doing stuff that matters.
