There are 6 reasons why you may be your own worst enemy.

Have you ever thought you could be your worst enemy? I know this is beyond most of us to even think that way.

This is because the majority of us have a pretty strong ego. We are very happy with ourselves and our accomplishments, so how could we even think that we could be our own worst enemy?

I believe this issue comes down to 6 particular situations that get in the road of our own progress. They are;

• Being overconfident in your own abilities.
• Allowing your current successes to blind you on what could occur.
• Thinking you see the problem, when it does not exist.
• Focusing too much on the short-term.
• Being action oriented all the time.
• Remembering things selectively.

Now let me tackle these points one at a time;

• As you know there is a difference between being confident and being over-confident. We have all experienced these at least one time in our life. Sadly, when we do that, we tend to miss out on great learning experiences. This is because we fall back to the status quo or existing state of affairs. In other words, we do not learn and show we don’t want to grow to the potential we were made to become.
• The second one is related to the first being that we allow our current successes to blind us on what could occur. Yes, when you are hyper-confident you think you can accomplish anything, and because of that attitude we are blinded to situations that can occur – thus we are not prepared for the unexpected. The COVID situation was one of those situations. And as you know it impacted over 80% of the world in very negative ways.
• Next, thinking you see the problem, where it does not exist. We, humans have this wonderful imagination and we can create almost anything, especially in the form of problems. We can be paranoid about others and their actions. We can become so negative about what we think others have done to us. And for the most part we are our own worst enemies.
• Number 4 is focusing too much on the short-term. Yes, we live in a world of immediate gratification. Typing this makes me think about a quote by Jeff Bezos. He said; “Seek instant gratification – or the elusive promise of it, and chances are you’ll find a crowd there ahead of you.” And of course, you know that this is true.
• Being action oriented all the time, is a situation I am very familiar with. I like to be active; for it is when I am active that I get results. The key thing to remember is that the results I am talking about are both good and bad. Of course, we get all excited and joy filled when we get good results, but not so happy when we have bad results. But for me, the bad results help me grow. I’ve learned that spending time in the silence has given me so much insight into what is going on in my life and what I need to do. And what that means to you is that your results could even better.
• Finally, remembering things selectively. This is also connected to being over-confident. I’ve learned that being over-confident makes me ignore the problems, which leads to making more issues and troubles in my life. We as humans have to re-consider what we need to remember from the things we want to remember.

Which one of these should you work on?

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