our own worst enemies

Sometimes, we can be our own worst enemies, contended Sullivan in her post Five Lies that Could be Ruining Your Career (and Your Life). 

“That voice we hear in our head recites some pretty interesting narratives so often and so frequently that we really start believing them after a while,” she wrote. “These… turn into our beliefs about ourselves, others and the world in general. They create our reality.”

The trouble is, what we think in our own minds creates a reality that is also just our own. “There are as many different realities… as there are human beings,” Sullivan wrote. “That’s good, because it means the reality we live in isn’t already fixed.”

Then there are the “lies people tell themselves that keep them in jobs and careers and relationships that are bad for them,” she wrote. “It's often easier to have a victim mentality that the cards have been dealt and whatever you've ended up with is all you'll ever have, or that you really have no options left, except terrible ones, and everybody knows it.”

Why do we think this way? “The stories we tell often start out as protection for our ego; they make us feel better about bad situations,” Sullivan wrote. “But then they spiral into excuses and beliefs that have the potential to ruin us.”

Sullivan offered the top five lies that professionals tell themselves. Among them:

“I haven’t found my passion/I don’t have a passion. Is that true? You cannot think of one thing that you love doing or being? Is there something you do better than most other people you know? If you had a free day all to yourself to do whatever you wanted in the world, could you think of something you might gravitate toward?,” she wrote.

“It’s too late to change direction now… How many years of life do you think you have left? Now multiply that by 8,765, which is the number of hours in each year. Is that really too little time for you to change direction?,” she wrote. “Never put off a goal because it will take too long — the time will pass anyway. Might as well spend it working toward a goal that makes life fun.”

“I hate my job now, but I will be happy as soon as I [get the promotion/finish the project/collect my bonus/get my degree]. Are you sure? This one thing is all that is holding you back from happiness and liking your job? How long do you think you'll stop hating your job after you accomplish this magical goal that will make you happy? Happiness experts tell us it's pretty temporary.”