9 Ways You Are Your Own Worst Enemy and How to Stop

Why is it easier to name all the things you hate about yourself than all the things you love about you? It’s because you are your own worst enemy.

We make jokes about Kanye West’s overblown confidence but he has a point. You don’t see him saying “I’m the all-time worst rapper, I’m horrible, or no one likes me.” Instead, Kanye always talks about how great he is and what he likes about himself. That’s because at least in the public eye, Kanye is not his worst enemy, everyone else is for hating on him.

This is one time we can really learn something from Kanye. However, most of you are too busy still being your own worst enemy by doing these 9 things:

1. Sabotaging your success

We self-sabotage to prove that our limiting beliefs about our self are true. It’s an easy out to say to yourself, “I should not push for greatness because I am not good enough.”

2. Comparing yourself to others

What you see is not always an accurate story. Think about all the things you hide from others? You may think that your friend has the perfect life that comes with the perfect job, perfect husband and perfect kids. In reality, they too are dealing with their own demons, you just don’t see them. Thus, you are comparing yourself to something that isn’t even real.

3. Staying in your comfort zone

It’s easy to stay in a dead end job or abusive relationship because it’s what you know. The fear comes when you try to get out of your comfort zone. You may know that you need to make a change, but fear of the unknown often stops you from moving forward.

4. Overanalyzing and criticizing yourself

We will spend hours, if not days, analyzing our failures. When we fail, we have a tendency to play out every single thing we did wrong and continue playing that moment in our minds as if it is our favorite movie. Sadly, we don’t do the same with our success.

5. Needing to be perfect

This is a difficult one for me, as I want to be perfect. No, I need to be perfect and it will never happen. Perfection is a dream that is never unattainable that results in us beating ourselves up for failing. But is it really failing when you never can attain this goal?

6. Internalizing self-limiting beliefs

Instead of telling yourself positive mantras, you repeat over and over all the things you dislike about yourself or how you’ve failed. “I am too fat.” “I should be more advanced in my career.” “I am broke!”

You say it so often that you start to internalize these negative mantras and begin to believe them as truths.

7. Worrying about what others think or say about you

People are always going to have opinions. When you start letting them matter, you allow them to take control of your destiny and your self-esteem.

8. Not being vulnerable and asking for help

No one wants to be known as a weak person so we push through more than we often need to handle in life. However, the strongest people are those that allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to know when they need to ask for help.

9. Unrealistic expectations of yourself

Our expectation on how life should be affects all of our experiences. If we think everyone should like me or we shouldn’t need to work on our relationships, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We also do the same when we set low expectations for ourselves.

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The key to self-confidence and stop being your own worst enemy is releasing the need to self-criticize.

3 Ways to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy

Awareness
Stop negative behavior
Focus on your strengths

Self-doubt is a natural part of life. Being aware of when you are being your worst enemy and shifting your mindset to positive thoughts about yourself will continue to boost your self-worth.