NLP/Hypnosis Coach Anna Aparicio reveals secrets to beating self sabotage

July 6, 2010 - PRLog -- A lot of us, for some strange reason, insist on sabotaging our efforts in life. Be it in the gym, in our personal life, or in work... we are great at messing things up for ourselves, and sometimes for others too.

“You can't do that!", "That's way too hard!", "If you try, you'll probably just fail anyway”...

Statements like these sound as if they're coming from a tyrannical and cruel person with a mission to destroy one’s self-confidence. If a stranger on the street, a friend, or even a family member spoke to you like that you probably wouldn’t take it. "The chances are you would tell them to “shut the f**k up” and get lost, or worse!".

"Why bully yourself like that?" - says Anna.

Negative self-talk is something we have all engaged in at some time. A lot of us have heard our own parents verbally abuse themselves, or each other, or us.

Anna says that since we were kids many of us were consciously or subconsciously taught that being too confident is not a good thing, as it may be mistaken for arrogance; that life is hard and even if you work really hard you’ll never amount to anything; that you are not beautiful enough or intelligent enough and you’ll never be...

"Then, you turn into an adult, maybe a well educated one, but one that is messed up. Then, you meet other messed up adults whose behaviour reinforces what you allowed yourself to believe about yourself and the world.

Maybe you have low self-esteem, confidence issues,  whether you procrastinate, or lack zest for life and direction... and wonder why you keep sabotaging your dreams and goals in life".

Anna says that we have to be very careful about what we allow yourselves to believe.

"What you were told or decided to make up in your head may or may not be true. So, be very careful what you choose to believe about yourself and the world around you, because whether it’s good, or bad, it most certainly will shape your future".

What's worse is that we usually don't recognize that we have been sabotaging our own efforts. We attribute our lack of success to inadequacy. This, in turn, strengthens the negative messages we feed ourselves, and we get caught in a self-sabotaging cycle that can be very difficult to break.

The tell-tale sign that you have been sabotaging your self is when you grind to a halt when you're getting close to achieving your goals, for no rational reason.  Or when you achieve them, but then regress. Like when people lose weight, and then put it all back on again, or when someone longs to be in a relationship, but then they are in one and do something stupid to cause a break up.

The skill, ability and desire may be there. But something seems to be getting in the way of our happiness.

Anna insists that our beliefs direct our inner dialogue and the way we talk to others, which in turn determines our actions, which in turn affect our results.

According to her it's vital that before we set off to achieve our goals, we make right with ourselves and the state of our internal affairs.

- If we crave the respect of others, we need to respect ourselves first.

- If we want to lose weight and maintain it for life, we need to believe we’re worth it, and believe we can do it.

- If we want a promotion, it’s a good thing to desire it, and also truly believe we are the best person for the job.

"See, your brain already knows how to help you succeed, you just need to get out of the way.

Feelings of unworthiness, negative thoughts, preconceptions about things, crappy past experiences, bleak future predictions... put them all together in the jug that is your brain, stir them a little, and you have the perfect cocktail for eternal misery."

Apparently, just because we “feel” something is true, it doesn’t mean it is true.

Here's Anna's explanation for this: "A few months ago I had my body fat percentage measured. I thought I was going to be 20%. My husband, a fitness trainer, told me not to be stupid, that he reckoned I would be maximum 16%. I said no way, and that I felt like I was about 20% for sure. As it turned out I was less than 14%!"

Her advice is that we feel less and do more! However, we are governed by emotions. And Emotions are the result of thoughts. So, Anna suggests we start to actually think more useful thoughts, think better thoughts, so that we can get to feel good more often, so that we can get on with things and get stuff done.

"Even the most successful and happy people have critical, inner voices - they just don’t hear them very well, or they choose to disbelieve them, or they ignore them, or they simply tell themselves to just shut the **** up, whenever they catch themselves thinking crappy thoughts".

Here's Anna's best piece of advice: "What if every time that annoying little voice creeps up at the back of your head, you think about a person who told you the biggest lie ever and hear the same lying voice. Or, maybe you know someone who every time they open their mouth you go “oh here we go again, what a load of BS! Blah, blah, blah...”

Now, can take control. Now, what would you do if you had all the confidence, tenacity, power and determination you could ever need?".

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Anna Aparicio is Ireland's top female IINLP/Hypnosis Coach. An expert in health and fitness matters, she has been featured on RTE1 and publications such as Image Magazine, and Holistic Health.