Your mind can be either your friend or your enemy. In the first case, it helps you successfully deal with hardships and ensures you will not lose hope when things get hard. But in the second case, it does everything in its power to stop you from realizing your full potential and make you feel worthless. How does it do this? By poisoning your mind with harmful beliefs that eventually become your mindset. In this article, we will talk about some of these harmful mindsets that can sabotage your personal growth and how to deal with each.
5 Harmful Mindsets That Can Sabotage Your Personal Growth
1. Telling Yourself You Are Not Good Enough
Although this mindset is more common among perfectionists, even some non-perfectionists can have it. So what’s the problem with this type of thinking? Two things. First, it makes you too focused on your weaknesses and mistakes, so much so that it makes you unable to remember all your strengths and achievements.
Second, it makes you demotivated. Even if you don’t notice the effects of it immediately, you’ll gradually feel the motivation draining from you. After all, how can you get things done or go after your goals when you don’t have the motivation to do so? It’s the game you are bound to lose.
Therefore, you need to kill the “I’m not good enough” thought the moment it arises to prevent the above-mentioned negative consequences.
2. Blaming Things On A Bad Luck
“I knew this was going to happen. I’m very unlucky after all.” Have you ever said something like that to yourself after experiencing roadblocks in life? Although it can be natural to blame it on your luck (or the lack of it), you need to remember that this kind of thinking can set you up for failure.
Here’s why; you are subconsciously making yourself believe that you won’t be able to achieve anything unless the luck’s on your side. But that’s exactly the thing about life; it doesn’t give a monopoly on luck to anyone.
So sometimes it’s you who gets it, while other times it’s somebody else’s turn to have it. But what matters is not to get discouraged by unlucky periods of your life and continue pursuing your goals. You will get there someday, maybe even the day you least expect. But until then, keep working hard and be patient.
3. Trying to Justify Things Your Negative Voice Tells You
Many of us have this frustrating thing in common; there’s an uninvited guest living inside our head, telling us things that are not true. It tries to discourage us, demotivate us, and make us believe we are not worthy of love, happiness, or success.
What makes us different is how we choose to deal with this uninvited guest. Some try to ignore it, push it away so far that its voice is barely heard. But others end up believing in its toxic lies, thinking that it’s the objective truth.
If you are one of those people, you may soon find yourself not only listening but also justifying everything your negative voice tells you to. And the stronger the negative voice is, the more “reasons” it will try to give you why you failed or why you are not good enough.
After all, its primary purpose is to break you, so it will try to do so at any cost, including skewing your perception and making you go against your best interests.
So what can you do in this situation? What if the negative voice is so strong that you automatically believe everything it tells you? Here’s what you should do; first and foremost, try to analyze where the thought came from.
For example, is it based on a previous bad experience or a fear of some sort? Once you figure this out, you can come up with an encouraging thought in its place, helping you replace the negative with the positive.
4. Telling Yourself It’s Not The Right Time
Now, it’s worth mentioning that in certain cases, it may be better to wait when you don’t feel ready to do something. For example, you might have gone through a painful breakup and decided to give it some time until you date again. In this case, waiting for the right time can be a wise thing to do.
But other times, this same belief or decision can work against you without you realizing it. Let’s say you’ve always had a goal you wanted to pursue as long as you can remember. But you decided to put it off, to wait for the right time before you would go after it.
While this can seem harmless at first glance, you may end up putting off your goals for the rest of your life. And the worst part? You’ll realize it when it’s too late.
What you should do instead is to take it slow; break down your goal(s) into tiny tasks rather than going after the primary goal with its entirety from the start. This will give you the motivation you need to get everything done without feeling overwhelmed in the process.
The more time goes by, the more closer you’ll be to your goals. And eventually, you will reach a point when you are feeling very proud of yourself because you managed to make your goals come true.
5. Always Shifting the Blame On Something or Someone Else
Life is cruel, merciless, and unpredictable; there’s no doubt about it. One minute you feel like on cloud nine, and the next you suddenly find yourself amidst the raging storm. But what if you are one of those people in life who always get storms but never rainbows?
And what if you feel bitter and wronged (and rightfully so) by it? Then you may be tempted to blame it on anyone and anything except your own self.
Now, it’s true that sometimes unfair things happen to us and all we can do is just react. In such cases, there is no way we can do anything about it because it is out of our control.
But there are also times when we are the ones in control but bad things happen anyway. However, because we don’t want to take responsibility for it, we decide to direct the blame to external forces or another person.
After all, isn’t it easier to blame someone or something else for it rather than admitting it’s your fault? But easier doesn’t always mean better, and it’s the same in this situation.
What makes this belief/mindset so dangerous is that it stops you from reflecting on yourself, as well as your words and actions. This in turn makes you unable to grow as a person and to learn from life.
So although it can be challenging to admit your flaws, wrongs, and mistakes, doing so can be the only way to become a better version of yourself and improve your life.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, your mind can become a home to all kinds of harmful mindsets that can sabotage your personal growth. That’s why it’s crucial to stay in control of your mental state and pay attention to every thought it produces. This way, you’ll be able to take charge the moment negative thoughts start infesting your mind. So keep being alert and warding them off because they have no right to keep living inside your head.
