What holds you back?
“When you understand your inner saboteur you can fully unleash your power!”
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What holds you back?
I have often found myself asking the question ‘What is holding me back?’ so was delighted when I was recently introduced to an excellent book and self-assessment tool by Stanford professor Shirzad Chamine called Positive Intelligence. This free online tool has helped me to answer that lifelong puzzle!
In essence, the message of the book is that we all have an ‘inner judge’ those words of self-criticism and judgement ring in our head to tell us we are not enough. This voice matches our individual vulnerabilities – perhaps not clever enough, beautiful enough, young or educated enough. This is the inner voice that chirps away in our heads and prevents us from unleashing our full potential into the world.
The self-assessment tool goes further to uncover our more subtle, hidden saboteurs (saboteur is a word for a person who deliberately damages or destroys things) – those coping mechanisms that we learnt as a child and have now become embedded as behaviours as an adult. For example, if we grew up in an abusive home we may have learnt to smooth over troubled waters by becoming a people pleaser, which is useful as a child but this trait as an adult leaves us with weak boundaries and the tendency to being ‘walked all over’ – which in turn sabotages our ability to live a full and fulfilled life. The typical saboteurs include people pleaser, hyper-achiever, controller, avoider and victim.
By identifying what hidden beliefs and subconscious behaviours are holding us back, we can find ways to change them and strengthen our inner power and wisdom. More than that, we become better equipped to understand others around us – which is so powerful as a parent, sibling, colleague and leader!
So if you, like me are endlessly curious about human behaviour and looking for ways to reach your full potential I really recommend the book and the free tool! If you want to go deeper and complete a facilitated course then reach out to SA-based Marlene Cronje for support.
