So much of our lives consist of conducting a life we don’t inherently desire because we have accepted our inner narrative of what is “normal” and “ideal” without even ever realizing it.
In many ways, we drive these actions and thoughts that prevent us from moving forward in life.
Here are five subconscious behaviors that may be keeping you from achieving the life you desire:
You believe that creating the life you want revolves around deciding what you want and going after it, but in reality, you will never be able to predict what will make you happy.
Our brains can only recognize what they’ve known. So when you are deciding for the future, you are actually recreating an event or ideal from your past. When things don’t end up working out in the way you hoped, you convince yourself you’ve failed because you didn’t recreate something you deemed as desirable. However, in reality, you probably created something better, but because it’s unknown to you, your brain identifies it as “bad.” This is why the phrase “live in the moment” is so common, because living in the moment is the only thing your brain can truly comprehend.
You think you have to “arrive somewhere.”
You convince yourself that success and happiness are based on where you end up. You believe that you will be happy as soon as you get to a certain point in your life, your job, etc. We’re wired to believe that success is somewhere we must get to; however, our lives are meant to be transitional. We often forget this, and once we reach these goals, we wonder, “Is this all there is?” We need to realize and accept that accomplishing goals and arriving at a certain chapter of our lives doesn’t equal happiness or success; true success is measured by how much we grow through each chapter of life.
You assume that gut instincts must be happy, and if you feel fear or pain, they are bad.
When you begin something new, you often feel an influx of fear and pain, mainly because it involves you being vulnerable. However, as humans, we’re wired to believe that bad feelings should be deterrents; but, they can also be indicators that you are doing something frightening that will allow you to grow. In this case, fear equals interest.
You create problems in your life because you are afraid of actually living it.
The pattern of creating unnecessary problems in your life or self-sabotaging is an avoidance technique. We, as humans, do this to distract ourselves from having to be vulnerable or held accountable for our fears. We create these problems in our life from the fear of being who we truly are.
You think your past defines you, and you think it’s an unchangeable reality.
Our past is a big part of who we are, but it’s important to realize that our perception of our past changes as we do. There are so many moments in your past you can choose to recall, and whatever moment you choose to remember is indicative of your present state of mind. We often get so consumed by the idea that our past has ruined us or haunts us that we forget that the past didn’t stop us from achieving the life we want; it facilitated it, it stopped us from achieving the life we thought we wanted. This doesn’t mean disregarding past traumatic events, but recalling and accepting them as a part of your evolution.
