Getting an Internet Marketing business off the ground is hard enough as it is (although still much easier than, say, opening a pizza parlor), without getting blindsided by some “dark force” that knocks you out of the saddle. Have you ever tried to check off some major benchmark in setting up your business, finishing a product to sell, for example, and just at the very end, suddenly been hit by seemingly overwhelming resistance? This resistance could be just feelings of doubt, or a sudden urge to over-analyze whether your product is good enough, or even seemingly external factors such as illness, running out of money, or a fight with a loved one.
Almost all entrepreneurs I have talked to have experienced this resistance at one time or another, and it’s almost always worst when they are about to have a breakthrough.
This phenomenon has a name (several, in fact), and it is a well-known thing in psychology. It’s called “Cognitive Dissonance” or, using a term I think I first heard Dan Kennedy mention, “Self-Sabotage.” Don’t quit reading in disgust — this is not some touchy-feely folk illness that someone made up to account for their failures. This is a well-documented phenomenon that can plague anyone who breaks certain rules as they work toward a goal.
I have written a whole book on this subject, available elsewhere on this site, that explores Self-Sabotage in far more detail than I will in this article, but simply put…
Self-Sabotage is your sub-conscious mind preventing what it perceives as an unbearable mismatch between it’s world-view and the reality you are trying to impose on it.
You see, we all spend our lives programming our sub-conscious mind that the world should work a certain way. “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” “I won’t spend my hard-earned money on that.” “An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”
Add to life-shaping sayings like that any self-judgments we may be under because of some past or present actions that we feel are wrong — in other words, guilt — and when we approach something wonderful like an internet marketing business that could clear six figures per month, and our sub-conscious mind has a cow. Suddenly, we can’t concentrate, or we forget important tasks, or we say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, or we spend our money on senseless things. All these actions are initiated by our sub-conscious mind to ensure that its “true and fair” world-view is not threatened.
Skeptical? Look at celebrities. They know that they wake up with bad breath, and get zits, and have weaknesses, yet the public worships them like demi-gods. Their reality is one of largely undeserved wealth and love from strangers, yet most of them were raised with a similar world-view as their common-people fans. The cognitive dissonance eats away at their sub-conscious minds, screaming that they don’t deserve this, not really, and the next thing you know, they’re in need of rehab, or they’re arrested for committing foolish crimes, or they shout scandalous statements, blow up their marriages, or punch somebody in the nose.
Problem solved. Reality is brought back into balance with the limiting world-view.
All this happens under the radar, below conscious thought. And it happens to you, too. Almost nobody escapes Self-Sabotage. But there is a way to overcome it, and stop shooting down your own chances for success.
I’ll reveal those in part two of this article….
