On self-sabotage

let's chat about fear of success and going back to basics once again

For most of my life, I’ve been disciplined enough to actually get the things I wanted.

Finishing high school with good grades, getting a first degree in my Masters, raises at work, reaching my target weight, quitting my 9-to-5 and becoming a full-time solopreneur.

From the outside, I’ve always been diligent and disciplined.

But today I want to confess: I self-sabotage too. More than you’d assume from the outside.

Maria, a 27-year old who is doing great on paper:)

So let me bring some honesty and real-life behind-the-scenes into your inbox again :)

A few examples to make my point:

• Spending a day scrolling Instagram instead of working on a challenging project I committed to, then feeling stressed and rushed to finish it before the deadline.

• Tracking calories and protein in the morning, then eating a bar of chocolate in one sitting a few moments later and telling myself tomorrow will be different.

• Telling friends I need some me-time and planning a nice recharging evening with a book — then spending that evening watching a random Netflix show I won’t remember the plot or title of the next day.

• Planning to spend 2 hours pre-scheduling content for the week, getting distracted by something much less urgent, and ending up writing and posting the day of once again.

• Deciding to start sleeping 8 hours every night, then finding myself at my laptop at ungodly hours again — with a workout booked for 7am the next morning.

WHY?

Whyyyy do I do this even when I know for a FACT that:

• uninterrupted focus

• crossing things off my to-do list

• not multitasking

• eating (the right amount of) nourishing food that doesn’t make me feel like taking a nap for the rest of the day

• sleeping 8 hours

are the things that make me feel my best and that will help me both live a life I enjoy and reach my goals?

Recently I read a quote saying:

And yes, it sounds like one of those Pinterest quotes you put on your vision board and never look at again. But it resonated with me.

If self discipline is the highest form of self love and I keep "messing up” and not acting like my best self would, is there a deeper reason behind it?

Don’t I love myself enough to reach my potential?
Am I afraid of reaching my goals?
Do I believe I’m not deserving of the life that I aspire to live?

Hmm. Turns out I don't have a good answer. But I have a feeling I should sit longer with these questions.

My best guess is that it’s a mix of fear of failure and fear of success. Because if I don’t really try, I can’t really fail – and I get to keep telling myself I just haven’t tried hard enough yet.

As long as I don’t fully try, I never have to find out what I’m actually capable of. And that’s a weirdly comfortable place to be in.

And I know it may sound like I’m being strict with myself, trying to “self-optimise” all the time haha. My friends always tell me I should chill out and I really appreciate it, sometimes I do need a reminder.

But trust me when I say that the past months I’ve really let myself do whatever I wanted without judgement. I’m grateful for this time, too. I’ve let myself follow my gut and it led me to spending my days working out and being on my phone a lot :D It also led to a lot of learnings about myself and my patterns. So maybe that’s what I needed!

But now I’m starting to get my motivation back. To want more. Aim higher. Think bigger. And wanting more means figuring out what beliefs have been stopping me from reaching my potential.

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Because if I continue as I have, nothing will magically change.

“Nothing changes if nothing changes” is another favourite saying of mine, because it’s annoyinglyyyy true.

So I’m going back to basics, again.

I’ve been tracking the things that make the biggest difference in my life: hours of sleep, workouts, protein intake, screen time, my one key task for the day, and how much I’ve spent.

I know from experience that if I don’t track these things, they won’t improve. I especially was STARTED once I started tracking daily spending and screen time. Like… what?!!

I made a quick and free Notion template in case you want to join me – nothing crazy, just a daily tracker for the most important things to you (you can change the properties as needed). You can copy it to your Notion.

if you don't have a cycle, just delete the "cycle" column

There is also a journaling section that appears if you open the page and click on “Journal” with a few prompts for the morning and evening.

a day’s page

if you click into a day's page and hit "Journal," you'll find a few morning and evening prompts I've been using too.

And if you’ve read this far and any of it sounded relatable, I want to remind you:

You don’t owe discipline to anyone but yourself. But you do deserve to feel strong, focused, and like you’re actually showing up for your own life. For you. Not for anyone else.

Greetings from sunny Lisbon where I feel more inspired than ever ☀️❤️

Talk soon,net
Maria

P.S. What’s the one thing you keep saying you’ll do for yourself – and keep not doing?

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P.P.S In other unrelated news, I want to show you the cutest dog I met at the gym today and the book I started yesterday 😍 Would love to hear what everyone is reading!! You can always simply reply to my emails <3