Self-Sabotage: The Reset Button

The thermostat

Your identity has a set temperature. It is the level of success, happiness, and money that feels "normal" to you.

When your reality exceeds this temperature, when you make too much money, feel too much joy, or get too close to a breakthrough, the mind’s alarm system goes off.

You have entered the unknown. To the survival mind, the unknown is dangerous.

The correction

Self-sabotage is the cooling system kicking in. It is not an accident. It is a deliberate, mechanical act to bring you back to your baseline.

You pick a fight with your spouse to kill the intimacy.

You procrastinate on the launch to kill the revenue.

You get sick right before the big presentation.

You do these things to return to the familiar comfort of the struggle. You destroy the success to save the Identity.

The preservation of the known

The mind prefers a familiar hell to an unfamiliar heaven.

If your identity is built around "trying hard" or "being the underdog," winning is a threat. If you win, the underdog dies. Who are you then?

The mind sabotages the victory to preserve the character. It protects the story of "The one who almost made it."

The override

You cannot fight self-sabotage with willpower. You are fighting your own survival instinct.

The only way to stop the reset is to change the setting on the thermostat. You must become a person for whom success is normal, not an anomaly. You must acclimate to the heat of the new reality until it no longer feels dangerous.

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