Reflection – The Grounded Tree

4 SIGNS YOU’RE SELF SABOTAGING

4 signs you’re self sabotaging and their solutions.

We all dream about being successful and for many of us this is something we are working on but, there is this one thing that keeps stopping us and that is ourselves. Self-sabotage is the act of stopping one’s self from achieving our goals and dreams. Here are some ways that self-sabotage is contributing to your life.

1.Comparison- You compare yourself to others and their achievements and question your ability to being ‘not good enough’.

2. Procrastination- When a deadline is near you tend to procrastinate; you distract yourself from what you need to do by doing unnecessary activities that don’t contribute to what you need to focus on. And when you try to go back into the routine you find it hard to keep up motivation.

3. Negative self-talk- This coincides with procrastination, when you’re putting something off, it can start to be governed by your fear and your ego ( that annoying voice that tells you we can’t do anything), when you hear your ego talking, you can feel disheartened and feed into the negative self-thought that ‘you’re not good enough’ or you’re not like that person who’s thriving.

4. You’re focusing on the problem and not the solution- When a problem occurs, all 3 previous signs play a massive role in your self-sabotage. You start to immerse yourself in what is wrong and let the emotions take over. It can lead to not thinking logically about the solution that can help you get out of this problem and this feeling.

Can you identify with one of these signs?……

Now that you’ve identified with one or more signs what ways can you combat this? Let’s see how we can create a solution.

Solutions to these signs can look like:

1. Focus- Focusing on your journey and the achievements you have made during your lifetime. Celebrating how far you have come can help boost your self-confidence to achieve more.

2. Weed out what is not necessary- Nowadays it’s quite easy to get yourself distract through your phone, tv, conversations, and many other things. To counteract procrastination. Why not remove any unnecessary devices out of your space or if you’re getting distracted by someone you can politely request that you would like 30 minutes to yourself without being distracted.

3. Change your tune-It’s easy to listen and get consumed by your negative thoughts when it’s running at 100 mph and your ego starts to project their fears on to you and, it’s also scary the thought of failure as no one likes to feel that way, but, by changing the way you speak to yourself and/or of situations can present a different outcome. Wouldn’t you rather say ‘I’m glad I took the risk and did that’, instead of ‘I wish I did that’.

4. Solution >Problem-A great way to overcome a problem is to remove yourself and look at it from a Birdseye view. Remove the ‘I’ statement and see what can be done to change this problem into a solution.

”Self-sabotage kills more dreams than failure ever will”– The Grounded Tree

7 Things I’ve Learned This Year

We are counting down until the new decade, can you believe 2020 is less than 11 days away; Time has really flown by and this got me reflecting back on the year so far and what I have learned. I have listed 7 top lessons that I want to share with you that has supported me in having a great year and to continue through 2020.

1. No two days are the same- This is something I’ve had to remind myself constantly when a particular day doesn’t go to plan. Just because you might have had a bad day doesn’t mean that tomorrow will be the same. When life presents you with something, you get to choose how you react, you are in control of your emotions and feeling. By simply switching the thought, language and emotion you can transform your reality.

2. Don’t beat yourself up- This kind of goes hand in hand with the first one, when reflecting on a past experience that could have been handled a different way, don’t overthink and beat yourself up about it. There was a reason why that particular situation went the way it did, because at that moment you were living your truth and what felt authentic to you. It is also a great learning experience in what you would do differently if the same situation presented itself again.

3. Celebrate your wins – 2019 was the year for achievements for everyone whether small or big, I saw so many people online and in real life celebrating their wins. Even I was celebrating and usually, I find it difficult because I constantly think about what I could have done better ( the perfectionist in me). Celebrating your highlights is such a great way to boost self-esteem and confidence within yourself (how ironic that little mix-power is playing in the background while I write).

4. Smile and Laugh- Smile and laugh as many times as you can. Laugh until your belly is aching, that is the best laugh!

5. Take time out for you- Take time to do things for you. I can’t stress enough that when you take time out for yourself you are reengerising your physical and mental self. Doing something you enjoy also spark creativity and inspiration for any projects you might have started or wanted to start.

6. Step out your comfort zone- What the saying… ”Everything you want is on the other side of fear” and it’s so true. Stepping into the unknown can be uncomfortable for many reasons, but when you take that big leap of faith the reward you reap is amazing.

7. Be your authentic self- We are often told we have to present a certain way of ourselves to different people for them to engage or like us but, when you lose who you are, it can be very detrimental to your identity. You start to have conflicting messages about who you really are and what you like. Being authentically yourself is to stand in your truth and not be swayed if someone does not like it.

What did you learn in 2019?

Live a powerful life X

CAN YOU IDENTIFY YOUR TOXIC BEHAVIOUR?

What is toxic behaviour and how to spot it, when it’s you?

When we hear the word toxic it is usually to describe a person who has present different behaviour. Toxicity can be recognised through an individual manipulating, making you feel bad or a toxic habit of some kind. When someone is displaying toxic behaviour, it is noticeable and we try to steer away from them. But, what happens when we are the toxic individual? It is harder to recognise our toxic habits because we have engrained into ourself this is who we are, this makeup of ourselves comes from past trauma or experiences we later project on to others. These patterns become so unrecognisable we are too blind to see it. We might see people slowly walk out of our lives or you hear the same comment about yourself from various people. This is a major sign that you might be displaying toxic behaviour. Toxic behaviour can be in many forms, below I have suggested types of toxic habits people might use.

If you can relate to any of the above habits or recognise other habits within you, then congratulations you are a step further than most people. Becoming aware of something that you have not noticed before brings you in the reflection mode and being honest with yourself is one of the hardest things a person can do. It reveals a hidden truth that you don’t want to admit or did not see. Recognising and being aware of these habits that can often be toxic will allow you to enter the phase of self reflection, self reflection is an on going process, a true and honest way of growing mentally and emotionally. Reflection and adaptation also allows you to create healthier relationships between yourself and others.

Sit down with yourself and identify what toxic behaviours/habits you possess. Once you’ve written that down, think about how this has affected your relationships over the year. Have you heard the same comment about yourself from different people? Be super transparent with yourself, no matter how much it hurts. From the identification stage, it is time to work on changing that pattern that you have become accustomed to.

Stay Grounded X

New Beginnings

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

September is a time of change from a new month, new season and for many people new school, a different year/grade or a new position. September is part 2 of a new year, it’s a time of change. Even the seasons change, now we are in the midst of autumn/fall(dependant on where you are located in the world). Autumn/fall is the transitional period where the leaves change colour and the temperature starts getting cooler but the sun is still peeking through. It’s a sign of renewal and that’s what I feel September brings, a new phase in your life where things are new. Every day, week and month is a new experience of change and renewal as we are constantly doing at least one thing differently to the previous day. Once you realise that change/renewal is constant, you’ll be less fearful of the big changes like a career change, moving to another city/state or a new school.

For me, change represents movement and not being stagnant. I was feeling stagnant in my old job and I wanted to experience something new and luckily, I was able to change jobs doing something completely different to what I was previously doing. The idea of change used to scare me but, once I realise when new opportunities arrive, it is there to challenge me, maximise my knowledge, skills, and growth I knew I could not let that miss me by. Although there might be periods where I will be scared of the uncertainty, I will welcome it with open arms because I know in the future I can look back and say I done that instead of I wish I done that.

So if you’re in a transition in your life where there are changes around you, remember that new energy, opportunities are entering your life. Think of it as a rebirth, a rebirth of the highest version of yourself

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”– Martin Luther King Jr.

Stay Grounded X

WHY DO WE RUSH THROUGH LIFE?

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” -Lao Tzu

Why are we in such a rush to have the ideal career, relationship, marriage, car, life experience? We are under the impression that we have to successfully achieve our life achievements in a period frame of 5 years, when your’e in your early to mid twenties. Even on a smaller scale, the tendency to speed walk, rush to eat lunch, rush our work. Time is not running out, there is no measure of time it just keeps going. It doesn’t help when we see people we’ve either grown up with or view people via social media, achieving the things we want to achieve. But, it’s ok, you are not competing with that person, you’re comparing their chapter 50 to your chapter 2. To achieve any results in life we need to have passion, perseverance and strength, not everything you achieve is going to be plain sailing but, when viewing other highlights this is not what is seen.

I have been a culprit of being in this limiting mindset myself, sometimes I catch myself thinking a thought and quickly have to take myself out of that mind frame because it boils down to this ‘what is the rush?’. I always wonder if I had everything I ever wanted handed to me right now, would I appreciate it? It’s like the old saying ‘trust the process’ to fully appreciate what you want, you have to go through a journey and like I said before it might not be plain sailing but after going through it and achieve your desire, you appreciate the hard work that was put into it ( I might be going on a tangent here but, I believe it does have some relevance).

It’s easy to adopt this habit as our ego feeds into the negative self talk of ourselves and it seeks to find things related so it confirms our understanding. We are in a constant battle between ourselves and our environment to rush and experience things.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you find your self overthinking an rushing:

Goals/ life experiences whatever you want will take time, enjoy the process. When you get the results you will appreciate it even more.

Like I previously mentioned, stop comparing your experiences to someone else highlight. They put the same amount of effort into their dreams that you have. Don’t be discouraged. Be inspired. Know that is possible

Have faith- Know that everything you are working towards will become a reality

Remember no matter what age you are currently, you have more than 20 years on this earth to experience everything you want. So what’s the rush?

Enjoy every moment of your life because you won’t have this experience again. Change that attitude to gratitude

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” -Lao Tzu

Stay Grounded X

Attachment Vs Detachment- Relationship Edition

Attachment vs Detachment. Negligence of self in a relationship

*Disclaimer when I mention the word relationship, this includes friendships, platonic and romantically, parents and children, anyone who you share a bond with.

In my original post I spoke about attachment vs detachment as an overall theme and now I am going to be specific about this topic but in relationships

Attachment is a form of dependence and naturally, in a relationship this is shared between two people. Because we are so inquisitive about an individual other than ourselves, we try to gain as much knowledge as we can. But, when we attach a strong attachment to someone it can lead us away from our own truth because we are encapsulated in their world.

When we love someone wholeheartedly whether platonic or romantic we get blindsided to the reality that is in front of us because we are emotionally attached to the individual and the situation. We are so committed to a person that we are unwilling to accept the things going wrong and the values/morals we don’t stand for.

Simone Weil sums attachment perfectly she says “Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ”

I believe we’ve been misinterpreting the meaning behind detachment for a long time now. When we think of the word detach or detachment, our first response is distance, ghosting someone and being closed off. But, that’s not it. You can be detached in a relationship and still do the things you naturally do with each other. When you put all your happiness, expectation and love in another person, when they leave, you will suffer the consequence and feel empty and lost. This is because you were dependant on them for everything. It then begins a conversation on why were you so attached. Is there a void you’re missing and that person ‘complete’ it..

I’m not saying to be cynical of all your relationships, I in fact, encourage you to love and be passionate wholeheartedly.It is not until you are neglecting the self, is where detachment is required.

Ultimately the messages I want to share is:

Be independent in your relationship
Don’t take things too personally
Detachment is healthy
Do not neglect yourself

I would love to hear your opinions on attachment and detachment. Let me know in the comment section.

Stay Grounded X