How to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Business Success

Do you ever feel like you are on the verge of something big? That if you just focus and stick to your plan that success can be yours?

What do you do when that happens?

Do you buckle down and power forward to get it done? Or do you slow down, start to procrastinate and let success slip away?

I’m embarrassed to admit that when it comes to my own success, my instinct is to procrastinate, find excuses and sabotage myself.

Yet, when I am doing work for my clients’ it is completely different. I focus and I’m 110% committed to get that big thing done.

After talking with some other women who work from home I realized I’m not the only one who can be her own worst enemy! I’m guessing you can relate too.

At the beginning of this year I decided to make some changes.

I’m finally making progress overcoming my tendency to self-sabotage my business success!

Steps to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Business Success

1. Choose a Motivating Word

For the first time ever, I picked a word of the year. And y’all it’s the second quarter of the year and I’m still sticking with it!

It’s been mind blowing really, the power of a single word.  When I feel the cues of my old procrastination habits creeping in, I repeat my word Accountability a couple times.

It has really helped me to focus and calm the mental gymnastics in my mind.

I picked accountability as my word, but the key here is to pick a word that is meaningful to you.

If like me, procrastination and avoidance are your stumbling blocks the words follow-through or action might resonate with you.

Need a little more help coming up with a word that works for you? My favorite (free) online thesaurus is Power Thesaurus.

2. Choose to be Optimistic

Early this year I attend an event with a former political candidate who had recently lost a very long and ugly re-election campaign. A woman in the audience asked the former candidate how she faced the ugliness of the campaign everyday.

Without taking a single second to think about the answer she replied “I choose to always be optimistic.”

She went on to explain that in the face of any challenging situation she makes a conscious choice to choose to focus on an optimistic outcome.

It is so easy to let yourself get bogged down in the negative what ifs, right? But each one of us always has the option to make a choice to be optimistic.

So how does this relate to you overcoming your tendency to self-sabotage your business success?

Leading up to my daughter’s spring break my head was full of excuses about why I wasn’t going to be able to keep my business momentum going. The cues of my imminent self-sabotage were completely obvious.

I reminded myself to be accountable to my goals. Then I made a conscious decision to be optimistic about what I was going to be able to accomplish with my limited work time.

I looked for the positives where I would usually see a negative and problematic situation.

3. Seek out Accountability Partners

Another very helpful solution to overcoming self-sabotage is live face-to-face interaction with people willing to listen to the mental gymnastics.

And by live I mean Virtual.

If you work from home like me, it can often leave you feeling like you are out on your own. But with today’s video technology there is no reason for that.

You don’t have to be alone with your thoughts, your goals and even your successes!

I participate in a Virtual Mastermind Group and the awesome new phenomenon Virtual Co-Working.

My Mastermind group is made up of a very diverse group of women who are all working toward a common goal of providing income for our families.

The best part about this group is that we are learning from each other’s experiences, we support each other and we cheer each other on.

This group lets me verbalize my self-sabotage thoughts without judgement. And then they help me kick those thoughts to the curb so I can get back to getting my work done.

4. Virtual Co-Working

You don’t have to participate in a formal Mastermind Group or Accountability Group to have a virtual support team. There are so many new ways to use virtual technology for professional development.

Participating in Virtual Co-Working is a great way to find a work from home buddy or small group to share your goals and fears with.

And in return you can lend your support and lessons learned to them.

Virtual Co-Working is one of my favorite way to connect with other women who understand the ups and downs of working from home.

I even popped in to my Virtual Co-Work group say hello from Spring Break because I missed the camaraderie that I’ve developed with these women.

It is so easy to Virtual Co-Work! All it takes is access to your Facebook account.

Conclusion

As women we are fantastic at making sure everyone else is successful. But if you are anything like me it’s easy to procrastinate and sabotage your own success.

The good news is that it that you can overcome the instinct to self-sabotage your business successes.

Pick a word of the year that is meaningful and will help you to reset your mindset and focus when the cues of self-sabotage start to appear.

Choose to be optimistic.  The one thing we can all control are our choices.  Make the choice to be optimistic about what you CAN accomplish.

Find an accountability group or participate in virtual co-working. Talking about your business growth pain points is a great way to get them out of your head so you can get back to work.

With all of the free and low cost video call options, working from home is no longer an excuse to not have your own team or support network.

Additional Posts You Might Like

Virtual Co-Working the New Way to Co-Work

3 Ways to Deal with Business Growing Pain

What I Learned My First Year Working from Home