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The other day, I attended a party at Nick’s family’s house where everyone came together to catch up and celebrate. Family is something I deeply value, especially because I didn’t grow up with siblings (so I love making up for lost time with Nick’s 5!) 😂 The only issue is that sometimes, baring your soul to the people closest to you in real life can be feel silly or intimidating. Sometimes it’s been easier to open up about my hardships to 200,000 people on Instagram rather than family face to face!

I think that because we feel like we’ve known each other for so long, there’s not much left to learn… but I believe that people hide an entire emotional OCEAN beneath the surface, and one of the best things we can do is help each other get it all out.

In an effort to break down some of our walls, I pulled out these ‘conversation cards’ I purchased in Germany at “The School of Life”. TSOL is designed to teach you everything you don’t learn in school (specifically focusing on emotional intelligence). Nick & I took a 3 hour workshop there with a wonderful psychologist. She made us draw a picture of the 7 moments in life when we felt most ALIVE, made us understand our personal values by probing towards what makes us angry, fulfilled, etc… and helped us solidify ONE practical step we could take towards our newly realized goals & values. I left with these cards as a tool to engage in these types of conversations/exercises with people in my everyday life.

As we sat in a circle, one of the first questions I pulled was this. HAVE YOU EVER SABOTAGED YOUR OWN SUCCESS? I know at first everyone was skeptical of my kumbaya cards, but this one sparked some beautiful conversation. We talked about how a chaotic childhood environment can stay with us forever and make us EXPECT chaos… CREATE chaos… and be skeptical when success WITHOUT chaos is afoot. Even though we consciously know we desire success, our subconscious mind doesn’t trust it and propels us towards habits that render the opposite – such as pushing people away or procrastinating. We may consciously value health, yet we give in to junk food because we subconsciously feel we don’t deserve/can’t achieve it and would rather be in control of our failure than feel embarrassed if our exact expectations aren’t met. There are many reasons we self-sabotage (which I have a YouTube video about!) and it’s something I will always have to continually combat in my own life.

The reason I shared this little story today, is because I want you to examine your own life and understand where you may be self-sabotaging.

  • Think about your typical day, and write down any rituals or habits that you engage in consistently. This list might include: morning hygiene (shower, teeth), 8AM latte, scrolling Instagram on your lunch break, ordering takeout when you get home, calling your best friend while you take a bath, having a glass of wine before bed, etc.
  • Without judgement, rate each of your daily habits on a scale of 1-5 as being healthy or not (with 5 being the healthiest). For the habits that are not healthy and may be sabotaging your success, instead of beating yourself up for doing them or trying to force yourself to stop, simply REPLACE them with a similar yet more nourishing and creative ritual.
    • EXAMPLES…
    • Instead of browsing the Instagram explore page on your lunch break, make it a ritual to download a new and exciting podcast each day and go for a 30 minute walk while you listen. This small change that takes 2% of your day will boost your mood, knowledge, AND fitness.
    • Instead of having a glass of wine before bed, treat yourself to several varieties of loose tea leaves stored in mason jars and intuitively blend a magical mix each night. Drink it out of tiny teacups that feel fancy & help you savor each sip. The act of touching the leaves and deciding on the ratio makes you feel like an alchemist, and the whole process makes a healing habit FUN & effortless.

The problem is that when we try to employ will power to force ourselves to change bad habits, we literally drain our brain’s energy, halt creativity and hamper our ability to focus. Fun, mindful rituals allow us to slow down and make certain elements of our behavior routine and automatic so that we don’t have to constantly rev ourselves up and push ourselves to action. We already engage in rituals every single day without realizing (as shown by your list!), so replacing them with POSITIVE & enjoyable ones prevents us from having to use up our finite supply of self-control. It also allows us to bypass the part of our brain that doesn’t feel we deserve consistency, success & abundance… because our habits no longer have to be consciously forged. They become ritual and routine, helping us get to where we want – almost by accident! 😉

XOXO,
Organic O

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