Self-sabotaging behaviors prevent you from conditioning yourself for success. And changing those long, established behavior patterns like self-sabotage is as difficult as recognizing and understanding them.

How, then, can you eliminate sabotaging beliefs and emotions? First, understand and accept yourself before attempting to understand and accept others. You have to take a journey within for personal evaluation. This means looking inside yourself and listening to your inner dialogue or self-talk. Remain open minded to what you see and hear when understanding your beliefs. This is essential when making constructive changes in your behaviors. Deciding how far and deep you want to go before introspection is your decision. However, you can take your life to a new level when you discover empowering insights to eliminate damaging self-talk and undermining behaviors.

Deciding to let go of self-sabotaging behaviors that prevent you from changing takes courage and a personal commitment to develop more effective actions. Before you go around believing you can change the beliefs and behavior of others, you have to first change yourself. This means overcoming resistances and sabotaging behaviors that have prevented you from experiencing an optimistic attitude. No matter what obstacles you face, developing an optimistic attitude, and changing unrewarding behaviors and beliefs, will awaken you to eliminate self-sabotaging behaviors.

What specific actions can you now take to become aware of and overcome your sabotaging beliefs and self-defeating emotions?

1. Recognize that you are at the crossroads where your decisions and choices are yours and yours alone.

2. realize that you’re the one making the conscious decision to change your damaging self talk and undermining beliefs and behaviors. No one else can do it for you.

3. Change “I can’t” or “I won’t” to “I Can, I Will” on a consistent basis. Pay attention to the emotional changes going on within you. Be prepared to physically describe your changes and write them down. Repeat the process of writing down your changing feelings and behaviors and compare your notes every day. Measure your progress by the visible reoccurrences of positive self-talk and healthy behaviors. Continual negative self-talk will create resentments and disempowering beliefs. Self-resentment is the seed that grows into self-sabotaging behaviors.

4. Plant the seeds that produce positive, empowering beliefs and actions. Ask yourself, “Are my actions linked to pleasure-producing situations or to pain-producing situations?” Take the road that gives you pleasure, not grief. The personal growth experienced from facing a fearful or painful event, or adversity, is important for self-improvement. However, don’t make a steady diet of it. You can grow and change by cultivating positive emotions such as joy, excitement, and happiness.

I believe there are 4 essential steps you must take if you want to succeed with any project. A project is anything that requires a plan. It can be simple like making a plan to go to a movie, or could be complicated like setting up an Internet business. But simple or not, if you want your project to succeed you need to take the these four steps:

Step 1 Picture the Purpose.

Before you start any project you need to ask yourself what you really want. This might sound obvious, but it is amazing the number of people who don’t know what they really want when they start a project.

When you have answered that question you then need to ask yourself why you want what you want. This is very important as many people want something but don’t really know why they want it. In the case of the movie your answer might be that your favourite star is in it. To the Internet business you might answer that you want to work from home so you can spend more time with your family.

Step 2 Plan the Procedure.

Once you have found the answers to the questions above you then need to ask yourself how you can get what you want. The best way to answer this question is to imagine you already have what you want!

Now that might sound strange, but if you think about it, when you answered your first question you had some sort of picture in your mind. And when you answered your second question that picture must have become clearer. Now all you have to do is make the picture clearer still by imagining that you already have what you want. Then you ask yourself how you got it!

In the case of the movie that should be easy. The steps to an Internet business maybe harder to see, but if you keep thinking, keep imagining you have what you want, something amazing will happen. You will start to see the steps you need to take. You will begin to see opportunities you haven’t seen before. This may sound like magic but it is actually the Law of Attraction working for you. This is the law that works for everyone who truly wants success.

Step 3 Prepare with Patience.

So many people fail to prepare a project. They have an idea and they plunge right in. Sometimes it works but mainly it doesn’t! You need to prepare both mentally and physically. If you are not prepared mentally the chances are you will fail physically.

Preparation also requires patience. You would like to get going immediately but sometimes you have to wait. Maybe your project requires a lot of practice before you are ready to go. Or maybe you might have to rely on others who are not ready when you are.

Step 4 Perform with Pleasure.

So you now you know what you want, why you want it and how to get it. You have prepared and practiced and you are ready to go. However if your project involves other people, it may take time to get what you want. They may not have the same agenda or the same priorities as you. This is where you have got to keep focused on what you want to make happen.

The way to do this is to continually imagine how great you will feel when you have got what you wanted. You must enjoy the whole “journey” to your success. Ask any successful person if they really enjoy what they do and I guarantee the answer will be yes!

One last thing, keep records of your activity, they can help you when things are not going as well or as fast as you want. They can also remind you of the steps you took to get what you wanted.

Imagine telling a significant role model in your life something new and exciting. An idea or event that has stimulated you both mentally and physically. It can be anything from trying out for a dramatic play, joining a sports team, beginning a new career, starting a new marriage, losing weight, developing a new outlook, changing your image, or continuing your education. Instead of receiving an encouraging comment, what you hear instead is: “That’s ridiculous,” “You’re always daydreaming,” or “You’ll never make anything out of yourself.”

Negative statements such as the ones mentioned above can create fear of failure and fear of rejection within a person. This situation can leave an individual on the receiving end feeling helpless. Negative attitudes create barriers toward individual accomplishment. The implicit, or unspoken message, is: “Whatever gave you the idea that you are motivated enough?.”

Do you remember a time when you or a friend finally made the team but the coach left you sitting on the bench? What kinds of feelings did you experience? Humiliation? Insecurity? What will it take for you to get off of the bench and become the athlete, the person, you truly want to become. What’s preventing you from speaking up and letting the coach know that you’re one terrific person, and given the chance you’ll prove just how unstoppable you really can become.

Sitting on the bench, and not asserting yourself, is like being in a play without acting out the part. Do you go through life without getting involved one-hundred percent? Maybe it’s because you believe you might fail, or even succeed, at what you set out to accomplish. Do you set yourself up for failure and sabotage your success by telling yourself that you can’t perform well? Is it possible that you allow unproductive and negative vocabulary to dominate your thoughts? Negative self-talk takes away your motivation and is an inner barrier that must be eliminated.

Here are three ways to overcome fear of success:

1. Continually tell yourself that you welcome challenges. Stand ready and willing to challenge yourself to your maximum capacity. Move forward in your communication by deleting all negative self-talk.

2. Believe that whatever you set out to accomplish, you will give it one-hundred percent. Stop providing excuses to blame yourself, becoming disempowered from achieving your goals and increasing your self-esteem. Believe that your “pride of accomplishment” motivates you to eliminate all the “shoulds,” “oughts,” and “musts,” from your vocabulary.

3. Be the best you can. Continually “see” yourself in an evolving way. Stretch every mental, emotional, and physical fiber within you. Believe and feel that you are one dynamite, ecstatic, and powerful person. Remember, your beliefs impact the way you feel and act.