Anyone can be excited for the beginning of a new journey. It’s easy to do the work when you feel like doing it. But I hear all the time, “Raul, I’m not motivated enough. Can you help me get motivated?” Motivation is a feeling. When you feel motivated, you feel like doing the work, but what do you the almost 99% of the time that you don’t feel motivated? If you have to rely on feelings, you are vulnerable to procrastination.

The key to staying excited about the journey is to know that some days you are not going to feel like doing the work. Some days you just don’t want to meditate, track your progress, connect with other people, etc. But… you still have to. Those are the days that your commitment will be put to the test. We’re all going to have those days. Do you allow self-sabotage to stop you before you even start or are you going to break the pattern and commit to your results?

Self-sabotage is the number one reason that most people don’t accomplish their goals. We are our own worst enemy. We can blame it on the customers or our team or the government or whoever, but we are the ones who stop ourselves from seeing the opportunities.

5 strategies to stop self sabotage.

1 – Think bigger
If you’re going to double down on your growth, you can’t play it safe. If you did X last year, you can’t just do a little bit more, you have to go all in.

It’s easier to set goals that you know you can achieve. Think bigger, and start playing bigger. Ask yourself what you have to do to accomplish a bigger vision. The reason we don’t like to think bigger is because we don’t want to be disappointed. I hear this over and over again, “I don’t want to get my hopes up because I don’t want to be disappointed.” But the truth is: if you don’t try, how will you know? The mind wants to say “what if you fail?” But instead, you should ask yourself, why not you? If you fail, so what? If you’re committed you will figure shit out. What if it takes you longer than you thought it would to figure it out anyway? The problem is that we are attached to having a certain outcome at a certain timeframe, and we don’t focus on the growth that happens as we pursue that big vision.

If you believe that you were made for something bigger, then you have to think bigger. If you have doubt and are uncertain, what do you have to do to think bigger? What do you need to believe in order to find the opportunities? What will it take to get you to the place of certainty that you are being guided

2- Cut off anything that is not in alignment with your vision
There will be distractions in your life vying for your attention, time, and energy, but your job as a leader is to cut off anything that is not in alignment with your vision. If you cut something off, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, it means it is not useful for you. Don’t look at people or things as good or bad, look at them as serving you or not serving you. Every day you are either moving towards the vision or away from it.

When you make a decision you must have the discipline to see it through. You make a decision to think bigger, that means you have to cut off the things that cause you to think small. It may only be temporary, but if you are not willing to cut things off you will be distracted. Whether it’s food, or habits, or whatever, don’t think that you will go without something the rest of your life, just ask if it serves your vision in the next 100 days.

3- Pay the price and stop negotiating with life.
There is always a price to pay and it gets more expensive as time goes by. If you allow time to go by, you get older, you get more set in your ways, and it’s harder to pay the price. Give yourself permission now to double down. Stop asking for life to be easy, ask for life to be worth it. Every time you’re asking God to make life easier, you’re cutting away at the opportunity to become better.

Don’t do the work once, don’t do the work when you feel like it, do the work consistently. When you raise your standard, the stakes get higher. What must you create in your life to raise your standard? Maybe it’s how you behave even when no one is around. Maybe it’s the way you talk to yourself. Maybe it’s how you treat other people. Own your standard. You are the one who dictates how people treat you, but you have to start with yourself. Create a standard where everyone sees you the way you see yourself.

4- Try something new in every area of your life.
You may want to try to master the old things before moving on to something new. But master the things that you’re good at, but creativity is an underestimated asset. The reason people get bored is because they don’t innovate. Innovation is the by-product of creativity. Try new strategies. Don’t wait until you have to act, do it when you can.

5- Work on your emotional fitness.
This will challenge you the most because it’s the core of getting to the next level. Everyone makes new year’s resolutions, emotional fitness is the foundation of either success or sabotage. The mind is always fighting with you; the battle is always between the man you think you are and the man you know you can be.

That little voice in your head is always making you afraid. You have to discover, face, own, and let go of your fears. That’s emotional fitness: not running away from what scares you, but feeling those feelings fully, and letting them go. Your leadership is a reflection of your emotional fitness.

Don’t let self-sabotage stop you from reaching your goals. Make 2022 the year you double down. What will set you apart from everyone else who tries and fails is your emotional fitness. Don’t let the sabotage stop you. Once you become aware of the sabotage, you can tap into the other voice, which is the King’s voice. The King knows that the best is yet to come. The King knows to make shit happen. The King knows to show up when you don’t feel like it.

Those days that you don’t feel like doing the work and your mind is all over the place…fuck your feelings. Focus on who you need to become to overcome your feelings. Embrace your feelings, but use them to propel yourself, not sabotage yourself. Fear, anxiety, and doubt will sabotage your growth. Who must you become to take those feelings and fuel them with intention? Fuel them with passion. Fuel them to take action, because you have to believe that everything God and the Universe is putting in front of you is exactly what you need to create the formula that will get you to the next level.

If you want to learn how to unlock your own unique King’s code and find the certainty within yourself to not be distracted by life, click here to buy my new book, The King’s Code.