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How to stop self sabotaging and being a panicky little meercat

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This morning I woke up like a panicky little meercat.

So highly strung, those little dudes.

I saw a few clients, then got all jittery and stressed. I wasn’t even sure what to stress about first. So I ate some smoked salmon and did nothing useful at all.

I just got back from 5 days in Queenstown where I had an amazing time with some epic friends, and in four days I’m going to Indonesia for a holiday with a total legend (Bloody Good Chap of course), and then I’ll be working in Ubud for the following two months.

The reason I’m “stressed” is because my business is thriving and I have more discovery session bookings than I can handle, and I’m fully booked for the next few months.

What the hell have I got to worry about?

It’s ridiculous.

But this is how the mind works.

It just goes to show, external experiences have very little relevance to the happiness of your mind. You can have a bloody brilliant life and your mind can still create trouble.

Or you can have an average life and still be happy, if you get the right training.

In fact, it is precisely at times when things seem to be going really well that the mind pipes up with some great ideas about what could go wrong.

The mind doesn’t like when it doesn’t have a problem to gnaw on. It thrives on problems. It doesn’t feel comfortable with stability, it likes to have something to try and solve.

It’s kind of like the silent bit in a scary movie.

That bit it way scarier than the scary bit – because your mind likes predictability, it likes to know what’s going on. So when there’s nothing going on it freaks out. When your life is going “too” well, your mind perceives it as the silence leading up to something bad. Even when nothing bad is coming, the slight anxiety is there, to prepare you, just in case.

So when things seem to be going great in life, your mind wigs out. You’ll often find yourself creating problems just so that your mind has something to churn over.

This is called self-sabotage.

I’m very familiar with it by now, and so are you.

It also links in with my new favourite word – akrasia – the tendency for us to act against our better judgement.

I posit that there are two things at play when this happens. One is you, the observer, who is inspired and creative and knows exactly what you need to do for a bloody good life. The other is your mind, it likes to make things challenging; it tries to lead you off track or keep you stuck in a cycle of repetitive self-destructive thinking and behaviour.

It’s that voice that tells you after a week of successfully looking after yourself/ eating well/ exercising “go on, just have one biscuit or five. Sit on the couch for a bit. Treat yourself. Exercise, schmexercise, who needs that?”

It tricks you into doing things that don’t make you that happy,

just so that it has a new problem to over-analyse.

Luckily I’ve got the tools to catch my mind in the act – these days I usually catch it before it winds itself up to a full overwhelm/snappy-attack.

And when I catch it, I can take the wind out of its sails by using the techniques I teach in Bloody Good Life 101.

I also had to remind myself to get back to doing the things that keep me sane amongst the busyness of life. I made a list of these things a while back – The day that Tinder burnt my toast
So give it a go, if all seems well, try to be on the alert – watch for your mind sneakily trying to create drama, try to catch it in the act.

And then do Bloody Good Life 101 with me so we can sort that shit out! Bloody Good Life 101 is currently booked up to the eyeballs, I’m putting chat bookings on pause (except those who have already booked in for a free chat – you’ll be the first to hear about exciting new project I’m working on, and I’ll have spaces for you opening up in Oct.)

In other news – follow @projectself on Instagram,

I want more friends!

I’m pretty rubbish at insta, but luckily I’ve got my awesome VA helping me out!

I’ll be posting photos of our trip to Bali (so that I can have a wee break from posting). Be sure to keep engaging with them (likes, comments, clicks) if you want to continue to see Project Self posts in your feed – it’s the only way FB calculates what content to keep showing you.

Ps — To learn more about regulating your emotions like the kind of legend that doesn’t throw coke at me, head over here to check out Bloody Good Life, an unconventional mind-taming program for overthinkers.

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