She was literally seconds away from an Olympic gold medal.
Lindsey Jacobellis was dominating her opponents as she sped down the snowy slopes on her snowboard in the 2006 Winter Olympics Snowboard Cross finals.
She had trained her whole life for this. And it showed.
Nothing could stop her from being the best in the world.
Except something did.
In a moment of lapsed judgment, on the second to last jump in the race, Jacobellis attempted to perform a “method grab”, flaunting her success to the millions of spectators watching.
As she came down from the jump, she landed on the edge of her board, lost control, and fell, allowing her competitor to pass her and win the gold.
This story is an example of one of the most vicious roadblocks to the success of any athlete or entrepreneur: self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage is a silent enemy that holds all entrepreneurs back from their greatest accomplishments.
But because it happens entirely in our subconscious, we’re rarely aware that it’s happening in the first place.
It’s not always as obvious as falling in a snowboard race.
Sometimes it shows up in the form of imposter syndrome, procrastination, perfectionism, and self-doubt, arrogance, frustration, or anger.
Just like high-achieving athletes in national or worldwide competitions, winning in entrepreneurship is largely a mental game.
In this letter, I’m going to give you some practical tips for mastering the mental game and destroying self-sabotage forever.
If you’ve experienced any of the following:
It’s likely that you’re dealing with some form of self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage shows up through thousands of little decisions (and sometimes one big decision) we make that completely throw us off of our path toward success.
We usually don’t even realize it’s happening, because we justify the decisions as soon as we make them.
We talk about changing priorities, going in a new direction, trying something else, or following what our mentors said.
But the reality is that sometimes these decisions actually stem from fear, self-doubt, resentment, neediness, or other thoughts that happen in our subconscious.
So the key the getting out of the self-sabotage trap is actually mastering our thoughts.
Self-sabotage is a result of negative thoughts in our subconscious that affect our decisions.
Epictetus is known for this famous quote:
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.”
In other words, any time you feel stress, anxiety, anger, or frustration about a situation or event, it’s not actually the situation that makes you feel that way.
It’s what you think about the situation.
Our brains have the ability to label any situation in a positive or negative way purely by how we think about it.
For example, one entrepreneur might be excited to make $100,000 in one year in their business, while another entrepreneur feels upset because they only made $100,000.
Same situation. Different thoughts.
The truth is, most people don’t experience reality most of the time. They experience what they think about reality.
Therefore, the key to a more pleasant reality, more happiness, and ultimately more success is changing the way we think.
Otherwise we run the risk of letting our negative thoughts turn into sabotage.
Joe Dispenza, in his book Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself, shows us how the longer we spend with negativity thoughts, the more it ultimately affects our identity.
Thought → Feeling → Mood → Temperament → Identity
A thought only lasts a few seconds, but if you spend enough time with it, it will become a feeling.
A feeling usually only lasts a few hours, but if we hang onto it, it will become a mood.
A mood can last a few days or weeks, and become a temperament.
A temperament can last a few months or years, becoming an identity.
An identity can last a lifetime.
Put simply, the thoughts we choose to entertain determine how we experience our life and ultimately who we become.
In a way, our thoughts become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Like this:
→ Something happens
→ You have a negative thought about it
→ You believe that thought
→ You act as though the thought is true
→ Your action (or inaction) makes the thought come true
→ You gain more evidence that the thought is true, creating a confirmation bias
And down you go in a never-ending spiral.
The longer you hang onto that thought, the more your life shifts towards a complementary worldview that affects the decisions you make and the actions you take.
Let’s look at this in a practical example:
→ You get a “no” on a sales call (something happens)
→ You think “my market doesn’t have any money” (negative thought)
→ You believe that it’s true
→ On your next call, you show up lacking confidence
→ The prospect doesn’t buy
→ You chalk it up to your market “not having money” (confirmation bias)
This is just one example, but you can imagine how much this happens every day of our lives, affecting every decision we make, and ultimately putting us on a path that doesn’t lead to our goals.
Luckily for all of us, there’s a solution to this problem.
It takes practice, but with consistent effort, you’ll find that negative thoughts stop affecting you and dominating your life.
This will allow you to think more clearly, make better decisions, and find more success.
Here are the steps that I’ve followed to help clear self-sabotage from my life:
The first step of this process is awareness.
Most of the time, we are not even aware of the negative thoughts that appear in our minds.
Dr. Daniel G. Amen, a psychiatrist and content creator (@doc_amen) with 3.6M followers on Instagram, calls these Automatic Negative Thoughts, or ANTs.
They’re so ingrained into our psyche that they appear instantaneously in our subconscious the moment something happens.
You’ve gotten so used to doing this that you don’t even realize it’s happening.
So first you have to become aware of the thoughts that are plaguing your mind.
Try this practice:
You can use an app like brain.fm to help you stay focused (I especially like their meditation music).
Remember, this is practice. It takes time, but by doing this consistently you will gain a better awareness of your thoughts, not just while practicing, but throughout your everyday life.
Perhaps something that makes humans completely unique from any other creature on this planet is that we have the ability to think about our thoughts.
But the only thing worse than having negative thoughts, is having negative thoughts about your negative thoughts.
When you notice a negative thought, don’t judge yourself for thinking that thought.
Think of your thoughts like clouds, they float into our consciousness, and as long as we don’t give any weight to them, they float right back out.
It’s when you hang on to them that they can turn into rain clouds and cause a storm.
Instead of feeling badly about a thought, simply notice it, approach it with gratitude and understanding, and let it dissolve into nothing.
With practice, you’ll be surprised at how fast negative thoughts that would normally cause you stress can just disappear without having any effect on your life.
The last step of the process is to replace your negative thoughts with more true thoughts.
In her book Loving What Is, Byron Katie says that suffering is a result of believing thoughts that aren’t aligned with reality, so any thought that causes suffering isn’t true.
So when you feel stress or anxiety or any other form of suffering, it’s the result of an untrue thought.
When this happens, try this:
Let’s go back to the example of the sales call from earlier.
When a prospect says “no” to your offer, you might start to think:
“Nobody in my market has money.”
But is that thought true? It might seem like it in the moment, but really, can you absolutely know that it’s true?
You probably don’t know every single person in your market, so there’s no way you could actually know that none of them have money.
So what’s another thought that’s as true or truer you could replace it with?
How about, “There are LOTS of people in my market that have money. I just need to find them.”
Doesn’t that feel better?
Now imagine what kind of action you would take in your business if you believed that thought, as opposed to the first one.
In 2022, sixteen years after Lindsey Jacobellis’ historic fall in the Olympic games, she found herself once again in the Snowboard Cross finals.
And this time she won the gold.
Jacobellis learned how to master her mind, which ultimately led her to victory.
But it set her career back by 16 years.
Until you master the mental game, you’ll always be limited in your potential.
Where you are in life is a result of all the decisions you’ve made up to this point.
Make better decisions, see more success.
When you learn how to train your mind to think true thoughts and focus on positivity, it will lead to better decisions, and ultimately a better outcome.
I hope you liked this letter.
If you made it to the end, hit reply and let me know your biggest takeaway. I love reading them.
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