 Success involves taking responsibility and ownership of your life. It is realizing that you are in charge of your life and nobody can help you decide or even take the steps necessary to become successful. However, as much as we are responsible for growth and success, we could also be accountable for a sabotage consciously or not. Self-sabotage can be a significant hindrance or obstacle to a person's progress in life. For instance, if you procrastinate a lot, you will likely destroy your success in life if you do not change your habit. Dr. Judy Ho, a triple-board certified and licensed clinical and forensic neuropsychologist, much of your self-esteem doesn't come from what happens to you on a given day of what somebody says but what you know about yourself on the inside. Self-sabotage is more like denying yourself the self-love that you deserve. So instead of doing things to help you, you're doing something that can affect you negatively. Most times, we do it unconsciously. So in this video, I'll share with you 9 ways you're sabotaging yourself. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you don't miss out on exciting videos like this. 1. You try to please everyone. Trying to please others at the expense of our honest desire or want will only end up affecting us in many ways that can impact our lives negatively. While this doesn't mean that you should be selfish or greedy, you should learn to differentiate when you're doing something for people and yourself. Here's something you might want to consider. How many people in the entire world can you please, no matter what you do? One nature of humans is that our needs are highly insatiable. It means that we never get satisfied. If you do something good to make me happy today, you might be responsible for doing something else tomorrow that might make me sad or angry. So, if you were to keep up with this, how many people would you be able to satisfy that way? I'm guessing your answer right now is none. You see, even when you put out all you have and are for people, it still doesn't mean that you will get accepted in the world. Again, it is because human needs are insatiable. Dragos Bratasano, a writer and award-winning scientist said, you strive to please others to fit in and feel accepted. Despite that, you still don't feel accepted, and not because others don't accept you, but because you haven't accepted yourself as you are. So, first of all, try to put yourself first when it comes to your goals and desires. Do not focus on pleasing people because that's a goal you will never be able to achieve until the end of your life. You'll be surprised that the people you are trying to please aren't even aware of your actions, so they won't also appreciate it. Tell me, is it worth it? Edmund Bjerke advises, try not to be too focused on pleasing others and end up losing your true self. The truth is that the more you invest in others and not yourself, the more you self-sabotage your own life. You please everyone else so that you can feel wanted, forgetting to sort out your own life. Two, you're leaving everyone else's dream for you, not yours. By negating yourself and ignoring your needs, you make yourself unimportant and lack self-love. So, turning to others to feel good so that they can validate you since you can't do that for yourself is a form of self-sabotage. When you don't invest in yourself, you'll feel empty and unfulfilled. So again, you need to understand where your utmost need lies so that you can meet with it. Yes, you want to learn from people, get feedback from them, listen to their advice, etc. However, you should always consider and put your dreams for yourself ahead of what many other people think or say. You can learn from them to help you achieve your goals, but do not take up their goals for you at the expense of yours. Three, you are allowing toxic people into your life. Yes, it might be a little challenging to remove toxic people from your life without feeling guilty, but it is necessary. Toxic people have a way of making you feel bad about yourself that can belittle your ideas, make you feel small and insignificant. Sometimes you feel inadequate, incapable, low confidence level, etc. Whenever you are around them, it's like your self-esteem vanishes if there are people that make you feel this way or worse around you, they are toxic and it's time to let go. Letting toxic people go is not an act of cruelty, but rather self-care. Four, you believe everyone is out to get you. If you are paranoid most of the time thinking that everyone is out to get you then you are self-sabotaging yourself because no one, or at most, only a few people are that bothered about you. The rest of the world couldn't care less. They are all perturbed about their problems. How do you know if you believe or act like a paranoid person? It's simple. Your brain always finds a way of collecting data, evidence and linking it all to you. There is always an ulterior motive behind everyone's action. You take things personally and then assign negative intent to the unintentional actions of others. Five, your fear of rejection keeps you focused on others instead of caring about your life. Chris Jammie said, to be truly positive in the eyes of some you have to risk appearing negative in the eyes of others. When you choose to focus on your self-care, development and improvement so that you can achieve your life goals people who think they should have a say in your life may feel disappointed. It is entirely reasonable. The last thing you want to do in such a situation is to try to please them so that you won't feel rejected. Fear of rejection has pushed a lot of people to make the wrong choices and do things against their will and desire. The implication is that they end up living a life of sadness and regret because they spend the entire time sabotaging their lives. Six, you're always looking to others for approval and acceptance. Jim Carrey, a Canadian-American actor and author said, your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory. The first place to seek validation from is from others because it is temporal. The only place to seek approval and acceptance is from you. You're responsible for your life. You will always be with yourself no matter where you go or find yourself. So if you do not learn to accept yourself or approve of yourself no matter what you look like, how you think or even act then no one else will do it for you. People will only give their opinion from time to time but that is never a lasting feeling. Seven, you compare your behind-the-scenes life with other people's highlight reels. In life, you see, there will always be someone wealthier, smarter, more beautiful, toer, more successful than you whether you like it or not. So instead of focusing on what other people have that you don't focus on becoming a better version of yourself. Your primary goal should be to improve yourself and make sure you're always a step higher than the previous day month, year, decade, etc. Never stop improving yourself. Eight, you haven't taken ownership of your journey. The reason why successful people don't succeed is that they don't take ownership of their lives, they live it in the hands of others forgetting that no one can decide for them unless you want to sabotage yourself. You need to learn how to take ownership of your life and journey. You are in charge, you know what you want, how you want it and even when you want it. Nobody else can do this for you. Your success is in your hands. You can't wait around hoping that things will come soon. If you want to be successful, then hope is too thin a line to base all your hard work on. You have to take ownership and be intentional about your success. That's it guys. Thank you very much for watching our videos. If you like this video, watch more videos in our channel and subscribe. We love you.