Do you know a successful woman who has it all? She's professional, organized, clever, and has a great reputation. Secretly, she is struggling with a demon – maybe alcohol, food, relationships, or over-spending – to name some obvious ones. There are also more subtle behaviors. It is possible that the behavior you've been doing is hurting your chances of reaching your biggest goal. What if you got rid of your harmful behavior? Knockdown the roadblocks and give your path to success a giant turbo boost!

Takeaways:

• In this podcast episode, we explore the concept of self-destructive behaviors that high-achieving women may unconsciously engage in, despite their outward success.
• We discuss the importance of recognizing these behaviors and their potential to undermine long-term success and happiness, emphasizing awareness and mindfulness.
• The episode outlines seven actionable steps designed to help listeners identify and mitigate self-destructive behaviors in their lives, promoting healthier habits.
• We emphasize that achieving a well-rounded vision of success involves not only career achievements but also personal well-being and fulfilling relationships.

Suicide hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

or go to their website to chat:

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

---

Elevate Your Leadership Visibility

**[FREE COURSE] The Visibility Blueprint:** Step into the spotlight on your own terms. Get my free 3-day email course featuring daily bite-sized lessons and worksheets to increase your authority without changing who you are: https://email.introvertedexecutive.com/visibility

**Join the Weekly Newsletter:** Receive actionable strategies, short weekly activities, and direct insights to continually improve your career and life. Subscribe Here: https://newsletter.introvertedexecutive.com/riseandshine

**Inside the Lab Membership (Coming January):** I'm building a brand new group coaching community designed for introverted leaders. Join the waitlist to secure early access and founding-member pricing when doors open. Join Here: https://coach.introvertedexecutive.com/

**Private 1:1 Coaching:** Are you ready for deep, personalized executive career coaching? Let’s ensure we are a perfect fit. Book a private 45-minute Discovery Call to discuss your goals and map out your path forward. Schedule a Strategic Visibility and Leadership Elevation call with me here: https://calendly.com/introvertedexecutive/strategic-visibility-call-1v1

**Leave a Review Here:**If something in this episode truly resonated with you... I have a little favor to ask: Please a review. Not for me, but for the next overlooked person who's about to scroll past this show, seven years into her career, wondering if there's a different way lead. If you take 30 seconds to leave a review (short, sweet and positive) it will make a huge difference in helping other people find the show. Thank you!! **CLICK HERE to Leave a review**

You can also follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IntrovertedExecutive.

Transcript

Yes, you can. A Podcast for High Achievers Hi, I'm Tami North.

The goal of this podcast is to help you become the best that you can be. Don't ever doubt the power you have to make the world a better place. Yes, you can make a difference.

Today we're going to discuss why high performing women make self destructive decisions. How to realize and notice if you are doing some of these self destructive behaviors in your own life.

And then we are going to go through seven different steps and techniques that you can use to reduce the amount of self destructive behaviors you are doing in your own life. Or get to the root cause and really begin to deal with them. Okay, let's jump right in.

So have you ever met a very successful woman who seems to have it all? She's professional, organized, well, witty, clever, and she has a great reputation.

But then somewhere along the way you find out that she's struggling with some kind of demon. It could be alcohol, food, relationships, overspending on shopping.

You know, these are some obvious ones, but there's also other more subtle behaviors that are also self destructive.

And it's possible that you haven't even considered that some behavior that you're actively doing is hurting your chances of reaching your biggest goal. If you could reduce or completely get rid of even one of your destructive behaviors, then it's possible that you could get rid of another one.

And you know, however many you think that you may have that are blocking your success, you can deal with each of them one by one until they're all out of your way and you've done nothing but turbocharge your path to success. That's what I want for you. You hear about people like this in the news all the time. You know, a CEO who's fired for embezzling.

A commanding officer of a warship who's fired for a sexual relationship with one of his crew members. There's a highly successful female commanding officer who was fired because she couldn't get her anger in control.

And the way she treated her crew and those of us on the outside, we look into this fishbowl that's created by media and other reporting that we hear or rumors, etc. And then we say to ourselves, wow, they had everything. Why would they ever screw that up?

But even the most intelligent, success oriented people sometimes do really unthinkable actions not. And it's usually just for a moment of short term pleasure. And in that moment they topple their stellar career.

Even when you are a highly successful woman. It's possible that you may be engaged in self destructive behaviors.

And in many cases these behaviors may provide just enough short term gain that you've developed them into full blown habits. Just kind of a hit of endorphins just to make yourself feel better.

And even though you know the long term impact will be negative, even painful, you you allow these behaviors to undercut your success and chip away at your prospects for long term happiness. You hear me saying this to you right now directly into your earbuds and has you listen to me talk.

You have flashes of something you know you need to get in control. Something you've already been telling yourself that you need to change. Maybe you had way too much wine every night this week.

Maybe you binge eat when nobody's looking.

Maybe you've become very antisocial in this time of COVID and that you are basically not talking to anybody at all and you're becoming becoming very isolated.

Also in many cases, your self destructive behavior could be mostly subconscious to you or unintentional and you might not even be aware you're doing it. And I'll give you some examples of that later in this episode.

Self sabotage is when you take actions that get in the way of your own plan or your own intent. It is you creating your own roadblocks against your own success. These are pitfalls that will get in the way of your life vision and your big goals.

You've had this vision of your future success for so long, as long as you can remember, and you want to make it happen more than anything. Still, these self sabotaging behaviors are getting in your way and could keep you from accomplishing the thing you want most of all.

It's as if you're fighting directly against yourself. Many times this behavior occurs due to some sort of self defense mechanism.

You're essentially protecting yourself from something that you're afraid of. You could be feeling that you're not worthy. Maybe there's some past hurts that you haven't dealt with. Maybe it's just a simple fear of change.

A few episodes back, you know, I talked about change and that even good change can be scary. And often when you're a successful woman and you are achieving and climbing and growing in responsibility, that it brings on a lot of stress.

And sometimes that stress is what you're trying to medicate with some of these behaviors.

The thing is that I want you to learn to recognize when you are hiding from your feelings and medicating your feelings with any of these self destructive behaviors and we'll talk about some ways that you can deal with them instead. So let's talk about some examples of overt self destructive behaviors.

These are behaviors, behaviors that are obviously self destructive and that quickly come to mind whenever somebody mentions that somebody is being self destructive. These are things such as attempting suicide and suicidal ideation.

People like Robin Williams and others have really brought it to light that you can be extremely successful and yet not be immune to suicidal thoughts. I'll add some resources down in the show notes. If you are feeling suicidal today and please reach out to somebody.

I know that for many, no matter what walk of life you're in right now, that when you are feeling suicidal and that you've lost your hope, that often you feel there's nobody to reach out to.

And this is only amplified if you are a high achiever because it's very embarrassing to admit that whatever it is, it's underlying your desire to think that this might be the end. It's so complicated and it's far too complicated to fully address in this episode. But you are not alone and there are people who will help you.

If today was going to be your last day, then what would it hurt? Just to talk to one more person. So please call somebody and talk and I'll put the information down in the show notes.

Short of actually committing suicide, all of the other behaviors are something you can recover from.

Some other of the overt self destructive behaviors are things such as binge eating, eating massive amounts of food to medicate whatever thoughts or feelings you're having. Compulsive activities like gambling, gaming or shopping where you just feel like you have to keep going. It's kind of an addictive feeling.

You get constant endorphins from them and then there's impulsive and risky sexual behavior.

One of the things I want to talk about on this topic is that these days that for me, I am a Christian, but also I understand that there are many healthy relationships that are among people who are not married.

Just as you can be married and in a legal relationship of some type that is unhealthy, either of those married or unmarried, legal or not legal, could be self destructive.

You know, if the situation you're in is a good one or a bad one, you know, if it's actually in line with your future vision. Or if it's not, that's something you have to resolve for yourself.

I just want to clear up my stance on things regarding relationships and sexual behavior. Risky sexual behavior can be any number of things. I'm sure your imagination can run wild with that.

But I'm talking about things that you do, either relationship or for some type of gratification in order to make yourself feel better in a way that is unhealthy and not aligned with who you want to be. That's the part that makes it self destructive. Another behavior is overusing alcohol and drugs. I mean, that's an obvious one.

Also where we all know plenty of people that are full blown alcoholics or people who definitely have a challenge with alcohol, in which they should probably call themselves an alcoholic, or people who just lean on the alcohol to dull some senses that all of these situations are self destructive.

There's a definite difference between having the glass of wine with dinner or drinking entire bottles of wine multiple days in a row just in order to get through the night, or to feel, to not feel anything at all. Be honest with yourself and include prescription drugs in this as well. Do you really need or want that alcohol has you?

Consider your interaction with whichever substance has been dulling your senses, even if it's pain related. Are you being honest with yourself about the reasons that you are taking it?

And is there work that you need to do to decide that you are a person who doesn't necessarily need the substance? I can't answer that for you, but that's something that you should consider when you get to the end of your life.

You don't want to think to yourself that you have wasted 10 years or 20 years of your life just in a dull stupor. You should be trying to live life, you should be experiencing it to its fullest. And granted, that's exactly what we're talking about.

Life is stressful and life brings tragedy. And there's so many different reasons that you might be trying to dull some of your feelings and your senses.

But wouldn't it be amazing if you could get to the root of the issue rather than just dulling the symptoms of the issue and actually come on the out on the other side of that pain or heartache or whatever it is and feel stronger and more empowered than ever, because that is what I want for you.

And then along the lines, but not exactly, suicide is other self injury that you could be doing, such as cutting yourself, hair pulling, burning, etc. I do encourage you to either find a coach or, or especially a mental health professional or other counselor. If you are having really serious issues.

Don't suffer by yourself. You are meant to do great things on this earth. You were put here for a reason. You have survived everything. You survived to this point for a reason.

And even the things that you have experienced, the things that you have lived through to this point, you can now use to help others.

But you have to figure out how you can deal with it and how you can take care of yourself so that you can blossom into the beautiful human that you were put on this earth to be. One of the things I really want to talk about today is other more subtle forms of self sabotage that you might be doing in your life.

In fact, you might not even know you're doing them.

You could underestimate the effect of these behaviors and it would be very easy to underestimate the effect that these behaviors are having on the achievement of your goals and the life that you most want to be living.

And, and even though I retired from the Navy as a naval officer, and then I went on to have a very successful career in, in the technical field in the United States Navy has a civilian.

And I'm surrounded by brilliant engineers and other naval officers who are highly educated and very successful for the past 10 years, I've spent most of my time around people that have bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, PhDs, and what others would do consider to be extreme success. And yet many of them I have witnessed these same behaviors. And honestly, I've done some of them myself as well.

And it's a constant everyday effort in order to reduce the amount of these types of self sabotage. But first you have to be aware that you're doing them. One is constantly saying, I'm not intelligent.

Do you ever hear yourself say that, that you aren't intelligent? Do you ever hear yourself say, oh gosh, I'm so stupid. Oh, I'm, I'm always, I'm always such an idiot. You know, I always, I always mess this up.

I don't know anything about that. You know these kind of things. That is self sabotage.

It's self sabotage for you achieving your greatest goals primarily because every time you say it, you believe it a little stronger. And so when the reality is you're brilliant, you were put on this earth for a reason. You have a special gift that nobody else has.

Your combination of your special gifts make you the unique and powerful person that you were born to be. So constantly putting yourself down in the negative talk to yourself. Just anytime you diminish yourself or put yourself down, that is self sabotage.

And it will definitely get in the way of you achieving your greatest goals.

And honestly, you might think you're being humble, you might think you're being gracious, you might think that you are being polite to others when you do that. Oh, I'm, I'm such an idiot. But Bob over here, he's so smart, you know.

But what you're really doing is downplaying yourself and not believing in who you were meant to be when you were born to shine. Another subtle behavior is when you change who you are to please other people.

So this could be family members, parents, your boss, best friends, a boyfriend or other strong romantic relationship in your life, a husband. If you notice that you're one person with your.

When you're with one group of people or you get a new strong relationship and you start to be completely change who you are to make that person like you. And this does frequently happen with romantic relationships that you might not be taking care of who you are.

It's very easy to fall into this, especially if you're a pleaser and a lot of women are, that you want to make people happy, you want to bring harmony and peace to the world. But when you don't take care of yourself and what you also want, then.

And if you allow a relationship or something else to change you so much that you are not achieving your greatest goals, then you are self sabotaging your own success.

If you wrote down in your annual planner that you have a goal, whatever that goal is, and because of your strongest relationships in your life, your romantic relationships, your children, your parents, whatever it is, if you are not taking steps to achieve your greatest goal and it's mainly because you don't want to make somebody else unhappy, then you might be in the wrong relationship or you have relationship issues that you need to deal with. Because one of the most powerful and beautiful things that can happen to you in the world is to be in a mutually beneficial relationship.

A relationship where you both care about the success of the other, where you are a team, where you are united, where you have a shared vision for your overall life and that your main goals and visions for yourself generally fit into that overall vision so that you don't have to fight against each other to achieve your overall vision. Your combined vision that everything you, you are each doing individually or combined should support a general overall vision that you both agree on.

And when you do that, then you feel empowered, your partner will feel empowered, and you will both achieve exponentially more than you ever expected. Another subtle self destructive behavior is pointing out any perceived flaw that you think you have. Like, oh, I know I'm.

I know I'm fat, I know my butt looks big in this dress. I know I. I'm not a very good writer. I know I'm really shy. I could never speak in front of people. I know I don't give good presentations.

I know you know it goes on and on, but you see those people every day that in spite of how successful and how well you actually think they are doing that they are constantly telling you how they aren't. Go back. If this is one of your issues, go back and listen to the episode called Too Much time at the Bathroom Sink.

It was probably four or five episodes ago, but you are beautiful. The exact thing that you think is your worst flaw might actually be the thing that makes you the most special.

I know that right now, as I say that, you're probably floored to even think of that, to even have that perspective. However, if you go back and listen to that Bathroom Sink episode, you'll see what I mean.

And I'd really like you to try to find flip the script on some of your thoughts about your flaws. Have you ever been in love?

In love with somebody that you thought that you wished on every star that you would give anything for that person to want to be with you is just as bad. Where you wished, you prayed, you tried, you changed your life, all of that.

This one is subtle because sometimes you are in love with somebody who's not in love with you. And this is different than the overt risky sexual behavior issue.

This is more where you kind of have somebody in your life who seems like they care about you and you love them and you really want to have that person be in your life. And you can spend years and years chasing somebody who is not interested in you and who will never be interested in you.

And it can take you a really long time to be honest with yourself about that and to come to terms with the fact that no, this person is never going to want you to be their forever, their soulmate, their. Their husband, their wife. So I want you to be honest with yourself about this.

I've actually done this in the past where I've been in love with somebody who I was certain was for me and I was wrong.

And you can waste years and years on this type of relationship, but the second you become clear with yourself that this is unhealthy and that the only person actually benefiting from the relationship, that whatever relationship there is, there is really the other person. Because you do everything for them. And what you get in return might be some attention, but it's not love.

If you can be honest with yourself about those types of relationships and deal with them and clean them up, you will open yourself up to what you have been dreaming of, to what you have always wanted.

But you have to be able to understand that this type of relationship where you are giving 95% and the other person might be giving 5%, that is self sabotaging you. Your vision of your life. You have a vision of your life.

That's partly why what you imagine when you think about this person and you think, no, no, he's the one, she's the one, we must be together, there's nobody else. Nobody gets me like this person. Nobody can talk to me like this person does. You're self sabotaging your vision because you do have a vision.

You see some magical relationship or future that you imagine this person is fulfilling in your life.

But if you let this person go, and then you go forward and become your most powerful version of yourself, you will actually find what you want and it will be better than you ever dreamed.

But you have to be strong enough to walk away from these weak situations that you're in that you are building up in your brain to be much bigger than they are to the other person. You have to be big enough to move on. The difference that it makes in your life will be stunning.

So if you're in this type of situation, then having a coach or somebody help you through what your thought process is and what you're feeling can be very helpful. But find a way to deal with this because this one is very powerful. It will hold you back stronger than most of these other subtle behaviors.

One of the subtle self sabotage behaviors is when you engage in isolating behavior or belligerent behavior that pushes people away.

You might think it's not that bad, but let's say you have a group of friends who seems to really care about you, but every time they call you and want you to come do something with them, you tell them, no, no, I'm allergic to the dog. No, I don't feel like being around people. No, I don't feel good today. Even this is the 10th day this month you haven't felt good.

If you feel bad that many days, maybe you should go see a medical professional.

Or maybe you're just lying to the people who care about you and isolating yourself and there's a Number of reasons you might be doing that, you might be low energy, you might be doing other especially overt destructive behaviors where you're trying to hide some sort of, you know, negative relationship that you're in, you are overeating, so you feel very lethargic, you are over drinking, so you have hangovers and other things that you've, you just can't quite get yourself moving to want to go see people. But maybe you're just depressed and you haven't dealt with that well enough.

And so it's all of these issues that cause you to pull away from people and isolate from people will further self sabotage your version of success in the future. I don't think that most people have this perfect vision of their life that results in them sitting in a cave with no people around them.

So how do you get to a place where you imagine that you imagine you have healthy relationships, you have a fantastic friend group, you have an amazing romantic relationship, you have kids who love you, whatever. And you, you have, you know, healthy kids that are growing out to be great adults in the world, all of that.

How do you get to that place if you spend most of your time pushing people away and isolating and feeling sorry for yourself?

That's an example of something you need to notice you're doing so that we can deal with it and change the behaviors to get you on a more healthy path. And along with that, very similarly is just continually avoiding your friends, your family, your co workers. Go along with that.

Just if you has a matter of practice, if you are constantly breaking commitments saying oh yeah, sure, I'd love to go to happy hour and canceling it, or you are constantly, you know, you're invited over to people's houses, you never go, you never want to go. When you go, you show up an hour late and you leave early. You know, those are examples, those are symptoms that there's something else wrong.

And pushing people away and not developing good healthy relationships is only going to make your future path more difficult. Severe procrastination is another. So you have a really great opportunity.

It could be a job opportunity or perhaps you've gotten yourself involved in some project at work that you're very interested in. Could be that you're just supposed to go to one of a party, maybe a wedding or something.

But you procrastinate, you procrastinate in getting ready to go to the wedding, you procrastinate in doing the work you need to do for your major project. And so as a result you have subpar work all your friends and family start to think you are unreliable.

They always, they basically realize, oh, she's not coming or she's always late. Let's say you're in a college program, maybe for a master's degree or a PhD.

Severe procrastination could get in the way of that to where you start deciding you're going to pull out of your classes and not complete them or remove yourself from the degree program where there was no reason you couldn't have done the work. You just put it off, put it off, put it off until you couldn't catch up. So think about the times that you're procrastinating.

There's a root cause to why that's happening and what's going on that's really bringing that to the forefront.

That's a behavior that you can deal with and, but you have to realize you're doing it and then realize that there's, that there's probably something going on that's causing you to do have that behavior. So some thoughts and feelings that are underlying that behavior.

And anytime that you're having a pity party, you're feeling sorry for yourself, you're having self defeating mindsets, you know, those kind of things where you just are really down on yourself, that's only going to get in the way of achieving your goals. So there's a lot of ways that you can flip the script on whatever limiting beliefs you're having and you can decide.

I think I'm trying to remember who it was. One of my good friends about, I don't know, 20 years ago said something to me. I did grow up in a world that had a lot of emotion.

And I mean, it's just a fact, you know, there's a lot of emotion, happy emotion, love emotion, but there's also anger and some amount of drama. And I think that's common. I think that, you know, there's many, many, many families that have those situations.

One of the things I realized and came through some conversation with friends that grew up in other situations that weren't exactly like that that would talk to me and say, you know, you don't have to be mad about that or you don't have to be sad about that. You can choose not to react to that. And even my current husband right now, he's very successful as well.

And sometimes I find myself going into a emotional spin of some kind and he'll say to me if maybe I'll read a text message from somebody or, or something. And I read it with feeling in It. And he said, what does that text message actually say?

And I'll say to him again and he'll say to me, no, no, just read it. Don'. With emotion. Just read it.

And when I do that, I realize, oh, I am taking something out of my brain and trying to superimpose it onto somebody else's brain. And that may not be accurate for what the other person is actually feeling or thinking.

So in my own world, I've actually spent a lot of energy over the past 20 years of trying very hard to remove drama and over emotion from situations. I don't have to be mad at somebody and I don't have to be sad either. And it's hard and it's been. It's. It's easier said than done.

But you can choose to feel and think what you want to feel and think you are not required to be sad or mad or even happy just because somebody else is. That is your choice. It's your choice to feel the way you're feeling and it's your choice to think the way you're thinking.

The part of it that isn't easy is that there's some work that has to go on behind that.

And you have to decide that you are going to change your mindset and you're going to actively have to participate in realizing that your mind is slipping into a feeling or a thought that you're not interested in having anymore and then correcting it to be something either neutral or a feeling that you more desire to have. So you can decide, I'm so sad, the whole world is ending right now.

But then you can write down what you would rather feel, that you would rather feel happy or strong or confident. And then you can figure out the things that would have to be true for that feeling to actually come to you.

And then you can make a plan to make that situation real so that you will feel strong and confident. And if you put yourself on an action plan to make that happen, that's one way to shift your mindset. That is one way to change how things are.

So I do encourage you to to at least start thinking about that you are not required to be sad or mad or whatever feeling that you're feeling, that you start to take more active control over the way you feel and think and. And try to focus your mind on the feelings and the thoughts that you definitely want to be having.

So just start working on that over the next week, just at least noticing when you're in a feeling and if it's not a feeling you want to have, then start trying to take a detour onto a better path and see how that works for you. And I'd really like to talk to you more about that as we go forward.

I'm going to, I'm going to write a blog article about this and I'll put it out on the blog. But some other things, perfectionism.

You can spend so much time being perfect and trying to be perfect that you get in the way of your success that you never actually achieve anything. Obviously finances, you know, finances can be.

People don't really know what's happening sometimes, but your finances can be a complete disaster and you're just kind of hanging on any kind of jealousy, possessiveness or emotional manipulation in a relationship, becoming a martyr.

There's sometimes that person at work that they have decided that they are right and they are going to give everything in order to prove their rightness. I mean, I've seen that at my last organization, actually there was several people there that decided they were going to be right at all costs.

And some of them were on my own team.

And there's pros and cons to that, but it does you one in particular was so busy being right about what they perceived to be the situation that they went into a completely self destructive spin.

So make sure that you're doing your behaviors for the right reasons and that just going all in on a concept or if you have some sort of belief that something is wrong or right, that there might be multiple ways to get to the right outcome or to influence others to join you on the quote unquote right path, other than just slamming your fist on the table and you know, declaring that you're right and that declaring that everybody else is basically evil if they don't agree with you, that there's got to be another way you can win people over to your opinion a lot better by opening up the conversation and talking and trying to see their side of the story as well and not just determining that you are going to go down in flames with your cause if that's what it takes. And then one I really want to highlight here is actually being addicted to achievement.

It can become so important to you, especially a high achieving woman like yourself, that you want to achieve, you want to get to the next thing you want to raise, you want a promotion, you want another degree, another certification that you just keep going, going, going. And meanwhile you arrive at the end of your life and all you have are these plaques on the wall and you don't have anybody to share it. With.

So being addicted to achievement is a thing because it's something very tangible where you can say, what, I have a goal, I'm going to reach my goal.

But if your goal is just achieving some sort of success, especially career related success, is where this really happens is that you can be so worried about that or maybe accumulating some amount of money or maybe paying off a house or maybe, you know what I'm saying, there's some sort of tangible achievement that you are heavily reaching for. Meanwhile, you don't have any goals that are about relationships or family or health or spirituality.

And so if you are a genuine driven woman, then you are a woman that has an entire well rounded, robust vision of your future. And success will come in multiple ways, not just by a promotion and not just by getting that next certificate. Success will also be peace of mind.

Success will be happiness. Success will be well being. It will be strength, strength of your soul, strength of your body.

So be sure to include goals from the entire wheel of life. I have a genuine driven women wheel of life that I will put in these show notes as well. But I want you to be well rounded.

I want your achievements to sometimes be that your baby girl came and gave you a big hug. That is an achievement that is a blessing. I have seven steps that will help you either reduce these behaviors or maybe even stop them completely.

The first one is to journal. And whenever I say journal, I always feel like I'm being so formal.

Yes, you might have an actual journal that you write in a diary or something like that, but you can just have a notebook. You can have. Just go get a piece of paper out of your printer and write on that. It doesn't matter. You don't have to be formal with this.

I do want you to become aware of your behaviors.

And especially if they're getting in the way and they're roadblocks to your version of success, I want you to become aware of the behaviors you're doing that are getting in the way of that. And then additionally, to get to the root of that is what is triggering you to do this behavior.

Because even though you are so intelligent and you have already had so much success, your brain knows you should stop doing these things. So there's something else going on and there's a trigger.

And I want you to notice the trigger so that you can get ahead of the behavior and possibly block it before it happens. So I made a worksheet for you and you can download it for free.

It's in the show notes that will take you through some prompts that will help you identify the triggers that are at the beginning of your behavior.

So possibly you can block it, but then also space with prompts to take you through the process of identifying your behaviors and then action steps that you can incorporate into your weekly plan to actually reduce and eventually stop these behaviors. So go ahead and go to the Show Notes right now you should just be able to scroll down and you'll see the link to the worksheet there.

Other things that you can do is get in enough sleep. Sleep is so important and it's very underestimated in most cases.

Please get at least seven hours of sleep and the way to do that is to have a routine, a nightly routine and a morning routine where your alarm goes off early. I would say 5am is my recommendation, but you do what works with your life.

But in order to get 7 hours of sleep then you need to make sure that you're in bed before 10 so that that works out for you. I get up at 4am and I usually go to sleep by 9pm and that's how it is and it works.

And I get so much done those first two hours of the day that the rest of the day I could almost sit around and do nothing if I wanted to and people would still think I that I was one of the most in control people. They know sleep is critical.

It heals you, it refreshes you, it rejuvenates you and you will become a much more creative and just engaged person when you are properly rested, eating properly, it's very important. Whatever your version of healthy is.

I know some people are vegetarians, some people do keto, some people just have low calorie with exercise, you know, low carb, whatever, whatever your version of a healthy diet is, make sure that you're getting the proper nutrition.

One thing I know is no matter what version of, no matter what version of healthy people have, most of it includes no processed foods or low processed foods and no sugar or low sugar. At least do that and get enough water to drink. And if you do that along with sleep, you will completely supercharge the way you feel every day.

Another, the fourth thing you can do is really work on mindfulness and meditation. This is going to help you clear your mind.

When you start to feel the stress, when you start to feel whatever trigger that you have that's going to lead you to that self destructive behavior.

If you can take a few minutes and meditate on it and be aware, be mindful that it's happening that will get you a long way in starting to get control of it. A good book that I read last week was called the Universe has yous Back by Gabby Bernstein.

I'll put a link down to that in the show notes as well in her book. It's a really good book that will get you focused on what you really want. A purpose driven future.

Then she also has simple meditations throughout the book that make it really easy to get started meditating. She actually walks you into some meditations on the audiobook and if you have never meditated, then this is a really good way to get started.

Gabby's had substance abuse issues in the past and this is one way that she copes with her ongoing addictive struggles. And now she's a very successful woman and one of the ways she's done that is through a process of meditating.

And that happens to be her superpower is helping others become mindful and learn to meditate as well. The fifth step you can take is to exercise. Just exercise.

Go on a 20 minute walk, a 30 minute walk, take your dogs for a walk, ride an exercise bike, do yoga, do some push ups, go for a run, whatever. Ride a bike. There's so many things. Go on a hike outside. Just go get some exercise, get your blood pumping, get your cardio up.

Just do something that makes you feel great. And if you can do it outside in the sunshine, even better because sunshine is going to help as well.

When you exercise, you'll start to feel like you're doing something for yourself. You'll start to feel more powerful. You start to feel like you can do anything.

And when you feel like that, it is less likely you are going to take on some of the self destructive behaviors because you'll realize, wow, I am a powerful human being. Why would I do that to myself? The sixth thing is to learn to let yourself feel emotion. Find a safe place and just have a good cry.

A lot of times the self destructive behaviors that we're doing is because we don't want to feel it anymore. We don't want to feel sad, we don't want to feel mad, we don't want to feel abandoned or inadequate. Whatever it is.

If you can learn to let yourself feel that emotion and be with it and acknowledge it again, take time to write about it. Whatever you will get to the root of why you feel like that.

But if you dampen the feeling, if you medicate it, if you cover it up, you'll never deal with it.

You'll never get to the root of it, it'll just, just be hidden until it grows and grows into something so big that it is taking over everything else that used to be beautiful in your life. This is where alcohol, food, bad relationships come in. For a very short time, they're going to make you feel, quote unquote better.

At least you won't feel bad.

And even though exactly while you are taking on whichever self destructive behavior you are doing at that moment, you're actually planting seeds that will bring new consequences and you'll feel exponentially worse in the future if you continue on. I urge you to just let yourself feel it instead of trying to hide it or mask it or cover it up.

Feel it, feel it, write about it and be with it until you know where it came from so you can deal with it.

And the seventh step to keep from doing self destructive behaviors is one that I feel very strongly about, which is finding a life coach, a life coach, or an executive coach. If it's career related.

They will help you find clarity and purpose and they'll help you reveal your superpowers and to realize that you have superpowers and you can get down to the root causes that are driving this behavior in the first place. Even if, or maybe even, especially if you are very intelligent and successful, it can be very difficult to see your own behaviors.

A coach, one who resonates with you and one who you want to talk to, can help you discover your self destructive behaviors and they can give you tools and insight to help you work through them in a way that will move you on to the life that you really want to be living. Why shouldn't you be the woman you've always dreamed of being?

Why shouldn't that vision that you see so far out there in the future, why shouldn't that be yours? It can be. And I know often we spend time blaming others being a victim, saying why we can't have that vision.

Well, we would, but you know, somebody's in the hospital, I lost my job, Covid. I'm too old, I'm too young. Everybody has a million reasons why they can't actually get to their vision, even though they've always wanted it.

But the reality is in most cases, I mean, yes, there are some things out of our control, but the percentage of things that are out of our control is actually so small. Most of the things between you and that big dream you have most, the highest percentage of things that is in your way is all inside of you.

I want you to be everything that you have dreamed that you could be. I want you to become stronger and more empowered and more aligned with your future beautiful self than you've ever been before.

And so in order for that to occur, you've got to become your biggest cheerleader. You have to get out of your own way. You have to become aligned with who you really want to be.

And in order for that to happen, it is going to be scary, that fear. You're going to have to feel it, and you're going to have to learn to be courageous, and you're going to have to go forward anyway.

I'll be here with you every week to give you new inspiration and new ideas of how to do that. But I want you to get out of your own way. I want you to stop blocking the most powerful version of yourself.

Set yourself free to become who you were meant to be.