Have you been sabotaging your own chances for success? You may not realize it, but most people tend to sink their own ships before they can even set sail on their voyage to success. The problem lies in their self-defeating mindsets. The only thing that separates them from the have and have-nots is simply the lack of a winner’s mentality. This article will show you 7 tips on how you can stop self-sabotaging your chances for success.

Firstly, if you’ve been doubting yourself all this time, ask yourself one question. What have you been getting out of it? Have you gained anything from doubting your own abilities and being fearful to take the necessary action? Do you allow others to feed your self-doubts? Maybe you’re subconsciously sabotaging yourself because you’re afraid of growing out of the accustomed feeling of misery (or rather, a “justified” normalcy) and having to adjust to changes in your life? You need to ask yourself how badly you crave success, how badly you want to stand out above the rest and rise above. The only person that can hold you back from reaching that endzone is yourself.

Secondly, if you’re prone to relapses, be it of alcohol or drugs, you need to be careful of the circumstances you’re exposed to. Sometimes compounding emotional stress may affect the psyche negatively, and may force you back into a bad place in your life that you shouldn’t be in. Don’t let others feed your self-doubts with the negative things they tell you. Believe in your own abilities for self-betterment. Remember, no one has more control in your life other than yourself.

Thirdly, learn from history; more specifically, your own. Take a look at your past and analyze which factors contribute to your self-defeating behavior. Was it your upbringing? Was it the people around you? Whatever the case, once you’ve identified these factors, you need to let go of them and steer clear from them until you’re mentally strong enough to not slip back into the self-defeatist mentality. While it isn’t necessarily bad to reminisce about the past, you need to stop thinking that history will repeat itself. The past is not an indication of the future. Remember, your future is still unwritten, and it is what you make of it, not your past.

The fourth thing you need to do is to ask yourself if you intend on playing victim for the long run. While it may be true that you might not have had a privileged past, there is nothing stopping you from outgrowing the role of the victim in your envisioned future. Use your arduous past as a source of inspiration, a source of motivation to pick yourself up and trudge onwards to your future. In order to succeed you need to become empowered, and self empowerment comes from within.

The fifth essential tip you need to consider is to stop blaming others. It’s easy to put the blame on others, especially how they might have contributed to your self-defeating attitude. But why do this in the first place? Blaming others for your own faults is far from productive. Don’t let others turn you into the victim, because once you believe you are a victim, the only person that really turns you into the victim is yourself, and you’ll never take the action needed to change.

The sixth tip you can consider is to change your own perception about yourself. How you view yourself will affect how you think, and if you think you’re never good enough then you will never be good enough for anything. Make this your everyday mantra: “I think, therefore I am.” Think positively and stay on the path to success. You need to think like a winner to be a winner.

Last of all, ask yourself this: Am I done feeling sorry for myself? The answer should be yes. Use the question as a motivator to pick yourself up and move onward. Your answer should give you that added boost to start running towards that goal over the horizon. Stop wasting time feeling self-pity. Stop sabotaging your chances for success today.

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