Self sabotage

[Gohabsgo]

Yesterday I was on my work break    with a feeling of anxiousness. In the process of calming myself down and reflecting I sat there and I really got the sense that I'm sabotaging myself. I've always understood on a logical level that negative thoughts are holding me back but this time I felt it. I looked back to earlier in the day when a student from my school who knows that I used to play soccer asked me if I wanted to try out for the team, and remembered the thoughts that instantly arose..."what if you don't make it"   and then not long after plans about how to get out of that situation flooded the mind. The way my mind has been conditioned it seems it's holding itself back. Despite being aware of this, it still has a large grip over me... and I still feel on a certain level that these thoughts are me. Definitely an uphill battle. How have you people overcome the self sabotaging thoughts?

[Maarten]

For me, it has mostly been a constant process of trial and error. I tried different things and got different results with each one. From all the things I tried so far, the most important recurring element appears to be to work on the problem directly and honestly (avoiding self-deception), with patience and self-love. Beating yourself up about something is not going to make anything better. It might get you some better performance in the short-term, but it will eat at you in the long run. A good topic about this issue has been posted Martin123, which you can read here. I urge you to read that as they do a much better job at explaining shadow work than I personally can.

[Truth]

Stop deluding yourself into thinking you know the future. It's just as equally viable to say that "everything will work out.". Don't fantasize against yourself, there's no point.

[Joseph Maynor]

The only sustainble way to solve the problem of 'self-sabotaging thoughts' is to transcend the 'Paradigm of Self'.  This is part of Enlightenment work.