“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung
One of the conversations I’ve heard leaders having repeatedly over the years has to do with bad luck. Not long ago, I heard a leader describe a situation where there was an opportunity for the business to have a huge win, but something happened and the opportunity was missed. The leader mentioned how similar things seem to happen to that business on a regular basis. They ended the conversation with “I guess it’s just not meant to be.”
Some things certainly are not meant to be. However, more things are not able to be because somehow we keep them from happening. The amount of self-sabotage that goes on in the world is truly frightening when you start to become aware of it. We have the opportunity and ability to achieve incredible things and then stop ourselves from achieving them, and that pattern repeats itself over and over and over again.
How do you hold yourself back? When things don’t go the way you want, or things happen that seem negative, or your life/career isn’t going the direction you’d like, what do you do? Do you just assume it’s not meant to be?
Or, do you stop and think about what part you might be playing in those outcomes? Self-awareness is not an easy thing. It’s extremely difficult for us to recognize some of our self-defeating behavior, partly because we probably don’t want to see it, and partly because it’s so much a part of who we are that we just don’t recognize it.
There are a number of things you could do (assessments, books, etc.) which might help you identify some of those behaviors. Also, think about your circle of relationships. Who in that group is someone who would be able to recognize those kinds of behaviors in you and be willing to tell you when it’s happening?
As leaders, we have to become aware of our self-sabotaging behaviors, and then we need people to call us on it when we allow those behaviors to take over. Of all the self-development you might focus on over the next 6 months, very few things would have a bigger impact than recognizing and working to remove the handcuffs you put on yourself. Good luck.
