The Illusion of Success and What to Do About It

In a success-obsessed world it can be easy to define ourselves by our goals but, unfortunately, many men find themselves chasing goals that ultimately leave them feeling hollow and unreal – this suggests that something has gone ‘wrong’ somewhere.

This article explores the deeper psychological and spiritual reasons why ‘success’ in the form of ‘achievement’ alone rarely scratches that inner itch that calls us towards fulfilment:

We’ll look at how shame warps our desires, how society’s version of ‘success’ often disconnects us from our truth, and why realness – not reputation – is the only foundation that truly holds and gives us what we’re truly looking for.

You’ll discover how compensatory behaviours rooted in unresolved shadow aspects keep you stuck in cycles of overwork and under-fulfilment and – most importantly – you’ll learn how to reclaim your power by reconnecting with the truth of who you are and what really matters (your REALNESS).

With practical steps and real insight, this is a wake-up call for any man who’s tired of wearing masks and ready to live from purpose, not performance.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

The Role of Shame: Twisted Desires, Twisted Direction

Before we even talk about success, we need to talk about shame because shame is the invisible hand that’s constantly steering the ship of our lives off course:

Most men don’t realise it, but shame distorts your desires:

It convinces you that you’re not ‘enough’ as you are in your realness and that success is the only way to earn your worth (because you fall into the trap of thinking that your realness is something you need to ‘achieve’ instead of simply ‘receive’).

It quietly implants the belief that if you can just achieve more, prove yourself more, get more validation, then maybe – just maybe – you’ll finally be able to say you’re okay.

This kind of striving is rooted in a lie because shame doesn’t just affect how you feel – it affects what you want. It makes you chase things that don’t actually fulfil you because you’re not chasing from a place of realness, you’re chasing from a place of ego and compensation.

This is why so many men climb the ladder of ‘success‘ only to eventually find it’s been leaning against the wrong wall.

When you don’t heal your shame by returning to the truth about yourself, then your ambitions are built on compensation, not conviction – you want power to make up for feeling powerless; you want validation to patch over self-doubt. You want attention because deep down, you don’t believe you’re worthy of love without it, and – with this emotional ‘stuff’ driving you – it all just feels so hollow, even if you ‘win’.

Before we talk about the illusion of success, then, we have to realise that most of us are under an illusion about our desires in the first place – we’re chasing things not because we actually want them but because we need them to keep the ego that we created in reaction to our own shame in place.

In other words, until you face your shame, you’re not choosing your path – you’re reacting to pain.

The Cult of Success

Success is one of the few socially acceptable obsessions for a man (even though obsession is often frowned upon as a weakness):

From childhood, we’re programmed to chase it – grades, trophies, money, girls, admiration, and status. We’re taught that to be a “real man” is to be a successful man.

And so begins the hamster wheel and all of the endless ‘chasing’ that comes with it.

What’s ironic however is that most men have no idea what success actually means to them because they’ve never really sat down to think about it or talked to anybody about figuring it out.

Instead, they’re chasing a vague image that was handed down by their parents, their peers, or society at large – a collage of cultural noise—status, wealth, muscles, women, reputation.

This collage might shiny on the surface but, for many, the more they achieve, the emptier they feel (because they’re chasing something that only seems meaningful on the surface and not that is actually aligned with their real values and deepest intentions).

When you think about it, the lesson here is pretty clear:

Success isn’t real unless it’s rooted in REALNESS.

Realness Over Reputation

Realness is your relationship with the truth and you’re ability to keep 1) uncovering the truth, and then, 2) living and breathing the truth.

It’s not about society’s truth. It’s not about your parents’ truth. It’s about THE truth and your ability to understand it from the point of view of your real relationship with you actually are.

This means that your real ‘success’ comes from the core of who you are underneath all the masks which is why shifting into a real gear can be so uncomfortable:

Most men have no idea who they are without those masks.

Part of the problem is that we’re constantly taught to measure ourselves by external results: for example, money, career, relationships, or how many people envy us on Instagram.

But those things aren’t real – they’re just symbols imbued with emotional and cultural meaning.

They only mean something REAL if they’re expressions of the truth – not substitutes for it.

When a man is disconnected from his truth, everything he builds is shaky and his life is on a tenuous and unreal foundation:

He might build a successful business, an impressive physique, or a polished reputation but if it’s not grounded in authenticity, it can never satisfy him.

At the end of the day, you can’t outsource your own wholeness and trying to do so just leads to a deeper and deeper sense of fragmentation.

The Shadow Dance: Compensating with Success

Enter the Shadow Dance – the ongoing tug-of-war between your Ego and your Shadow Self:

• The Ego wants to be seen as powerful, smart, successful, capable but…
  
• The Shadow contains everything you’ve rejected, buried, or refused to face – your shame, fear, insecurities, and the values, goals, and desires you’ve labelled as ‘unacceptable’ (even though they may bring you great joy or be totally healthy).

What most men don’t realise is a lot of the ‘success’ they chase is actually an unconscious attempt to compensate for what’s hidden in the shadow without giving up the ego they’ve become dependent on (to feel a false sense of ‘safety’ in the world).

Feel powerless? Chase dominance. Feel unloved? Chase validation. Feel unworthy? Chase achievements.

Absolutely nothing you gain externally will ever fix an internal fracture because what you’re really looking for isn’t success – it’s integration.

Wholeness.

And the bottom-line is that you can’t access that while parts of yourself are still living in the dark – no matter what you chase or try to find ‘success’ in.

Good Things Become Bad Gods

It’s not that achievement, money, women, or ambition are ‘bad’. Far from it. They’re good things. Very good things, in many cases.

The problem is that they become bad when you treat them as the only thing that matters (and become outcome-dependent which means investing your self-worth in these things because your shame has detached you from it).

Many men lose themselves not because they were chasing the wrong thing – but because they turned one good thing into everything:

They sacrifice their health, relationships, peace of mind, and self-respect on the altar of ‘success’ and then they wonder why they still feel empty and filled with shame when they reach the top.

When ‘success’ becomes a mask rather than an expression of something real, it leads to burnout, anxiety, and numbness.

You’re working hard, but you’re not working true, and so you take yourself out of life and put keep yourself locked in your head instead.

You Can’t Fill the Void with Trophies

There’s a Void inside every man who’s disconnected himself from the truth about himself, the world, and reality. It’s not depression, exactly, but something much deeper – the existential ache of being UNREAL.

And here’s the truth most men don’t want to hear: you can’t fill the Void with trophies because ‘success’ never has, never will, and simply doesn’t fill the Void.

What does fill it is a sense of purpose. Real purpose that reconnects you to yourself. The kind that strips away ego, heals shame, and brings your whole being into alignment and the natural drive towards wholeness that’s in every single one of us.

Purpose isn’t just about doing or even being – it’s about becoming. This means that it’s not so much about the goals (though they’re really important) but about the process of becoming more whole, more honest, more integrated.

It’s not something you achieve. It’s something you live by letting go of all the unreal ‘stuff’ you picked up and focusing on something REAL.

Practical Steps to Reclaim Your Realness

1. Define Success for Yourself
   Stop using society’s scorecard:
   
   Sit down with yourself and ask: What actually matters to me? What kind of man do I want to be when no one’s watching? What values am I willing to suffer for as I bring more of them into the world?
   
2. Identify Compensatory Goals
   Look at what you’re chasing and ask: Is this coming from truth or is this an attempt to compensate for shame, fear, or insecurity? Be honest with yourself. Most of your goals will have both. But the awareness changes everything and makes sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing (so you’re not just acting on autopilot because of ego).
   
3. Do Shadow Work
   Start a daily or weekly practice of self-inquiry:
   
   Journal about what you reject or judge in others – these things often points to ‘parts’ of yourself that you’ve disowned. Embrace what you’ve buried and unravel the threads that need pulling. There’s gold in the darkness that you can build into your life.
   
4. Embrace REAL Purpose
   Choose purpose over performance:
   
   Real purpose connects you to others and requires service, integrity, and truth. It might not impress everyone – but it will fulfil you deeply more than any external idea of ‘success’ ever will.
   
5. Deconstruct Shame
   Notice the voice in your head that says You’re not ‘enough’.
   
   Question where it came from: Whose standards are you really living by? Are they yours or are they inherited?
   
6. Let Go of the Image
   Stop curating a brand and start becoming a man:
   
   The goal isn’t to look good but to become good from the inside-out.
   
   When you focus on realness, success becomes a by-product, not a burden that you’re endlessly carrying with all that chasing.

Conclusion: Success Without Realness Is Just Another Costume

The world will keep telling you that ‘success’ is about metrics – money, followers, six-packs, and an endless grind of empty busyness.

The quiet truth is pretty different:

Real success is becoming the man you were designed to be, not the man the world expects you to be.

When your version of success is built on realness, it nourishes you, grounds you, and heals you (because it brings you back to wholeness).

When it’s built on shame, ego, and overcompensation, it becomes just another form of self-abandonment (because you become fragmented).

Next time you find yourself striving and not getting anywhere, take pause. Because success without realness isn’t success at all. It’s just a gilded cage.

Stay real out there,

If you’d like to overcome the illusion of success and grow real and you’re interested in coaching then book a call with me.

The Void: Why Do So Many Men Feel Empty?

There’s a gnawing emptiness that a lot of men feel but rarely talk about – a kind of Void that they seem to be constantly outrunning. It eats into their sense of presence and makes them suspect that there must be ‘more’ to life. Much more.

(Not that they ever know what this might be…they just know it must be ‘there’ somewhere).

The more that they try to ignore this sense that something is missing, the more the blackhole of the Void seems to consume them. It’s an endless itch that can’t be scratched, a bottomless pit that can’t quite be filled, and – no matter how much ‘success’, money, sex, or validation they chase (even if these things do give a little release here-and-there that soon fades away like a fine mist) – it never goes away, no matter how much they try to ‘think’ themselves out of it.

This is because they’re trying to fill the Void with things that don’t fit:

The Void isn’t just loneliness, boredom, or even existential dread and angst – it’s something much much deeper: a disconnection from truth.

When I say “Truth” here I mean the unfashionable, ‘absolute’ truth of wholeness – in other words, the real deal. Not just “my truth” or “your truth” – which are both really just interpretations – but “THE TRUTH”.

This isn’t just about conceptual facts and ideas but the unshakable core of who you are beneath all the layers of conditioning, labels, ego, and avoidance:

When a man is disconnected from this truth, he falls into shame, and shame opens up the Shadow Dance – the internal battle between the Ego (the mask he wears) and the Shadow Self (who he really is when he takes the mask off and integrates whatever he was hiding from himself).

Keeping this dance going – in an attempt to ‘protect’ the Void-identity/Ego that he has become identified with and attached to – is what keeps him stuck and keeps the Void having power over him.

The only way out is to face the truth about yourself, the world, and reality again:

You don’t escape the Void by numbing yourself to it or by trying to fill it with external things; you ‘fill’ it by becoming it – because it’s just a signal that your relationship with yourself and life is distorted – and by returning to reality, to purpose, and to a sense of something bigger than just ‘yourself’.

This article will put you on the path to becoming the Void and returning home – but, first, let’s look at why so many men fall into it in the first place:

The Common (But Failing) Strategies Men Use to Fill the Void

When a man feels the emptiness of the Void inside himself, his first instinct is usually to reach for something external to fill the gap.

Unfortunately, external ‘solutions’ don’t actually work – they just provide temporary relief from the tension that’s been caused by being unreal with oneself. This temporary release of tension may seem helpful at first, but all it ends up doing is creating dependencies and compulsions because we think we ‘need’ these things to get a taste of being real (when we don’t because what’s real is always real).

Here are some of the most common ways men try (and fail) to solve their own emptiness:

1. Addiction (Drugs, Alcohol, Porn, Food, Work, etc.)

Addiction isn’t just about substance abuse – it’s about anything that gives the illusion that you can escape from yourself and then becoming dependent on this illusion to keep hiding (though the truth always comes out in the end).

It could be drinking to ‘relax’ (when really you know it’s to escape), vegging out in front of Netflix to avoid thinking about whatever you’re facing, or endlessly scrolling social media to avoid confronting real life. The problem is, these things don’t solve the emptiness. They just silence it for a while – until it comes back louder than before because it grew in the shadows whilst your attention was on something else.

2. Distraction (Mindless Entertainment, Video Games, Over-Socialising)

Distraction is the close cousin of addiction and is just about using unreal things or relationships to avoid facing the real things that need staring down in your life:

Instead of facing reality head one (which may suck in the short-term if you’ve been away from it for a while), many men fill every second with empty stimulation – background noise, social media, gaming, or mindless socialising.

The Void isn’t being filled in these cases – it’s just being ignored as you try to fill the emptiness with more emptiness (when it can only be filled with something and that means finding your own REALNESS).

Ignoring the Void doesn’t make it go away – it makes it worse.

3. Seeking External Validation (Women, Status, Achievement, Approval)

Some men try to fill the Void by chasing women, money, or status:

They tell themselves things like, “If I just had more women, more money, more respect, then I’d feel whole” -but this can and never will work because the only solution is the TRUTH and all of these external things are being treated as a substitute for the truth.

Many of these things can be ‘good’ and maybe even fulfilling, but ‘good’ doesn’t mean the ‘best’ and -when it comes to filling the Void – the only best thing is the truth.

It’s the only medicine for the malady of the Void – all these other medicines will eventually just become poison because you’re using them in an unreal way.

Start on a foundation of truth and then bring these things into your life. Not the other way round.

4. Over-Intellectualising (Philosophy, Self-Help Overload, Analysis Paralysis)

Some men don’t turn to addiction or distraction; they turn to thinking their way out of the problem:

They read every book, listen to every podcast, and theorise about life endlessly – but they never act. Why?

Because deep down, they know action requires confronting themselves, and that’s terrifying so they stay stuck in the loop of consuming information without ever integrating it.

This kind of information consumption is really just a form of worrying: it feels like you’re doing something to solve the problem but all you’re really doing is playing with ideas and concepts and not touching reality with anything that you DO (and that’s the only way back to the truth and away from the Void).

The Shadow Dance: Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of the Void

The real reason men struggle to escape this emptiness is because of what I call the Shadow Dance – the constant push-pull between the Ego and the Shadow Self.

• The Ego is the mask. The version of yourself that you present to the world, shaped by what you think will get you approval and success. You wear this mask because of shame – some unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ you picked up that made you fear the truth of who you actually are.
  
• The Shadow is everything you reject, suppress, or disown about yourself. Your fears, weaknesses, and unhealed wounds along with some of the ‘good’ things that we’re acceptable to your ego like your joy or your love or your real purpose (again, because these things got shamed and so you sent them into hiding).

The Shadow Dance causes problems in our lives because of a simple fact of life as a human being:

Unconscious intentions always triumph over conscious desires.

If your unconscious mind (where your Shadow ‘lives’) believes that real growth will expose you to pain, rejection, or failure, it will sabotage your conscious efforts every time.

This is why many men stay stuck in cycles of self-sabotage and never get out of the Void and back into realness – they’re fighting themselves without even realising it.

No matter how you identify on the surface-level and no matter what you ‘tell’ yourself with your conscious mind, the hidden ‘stuff’ will always win.

You can reverse engineer what’s going on in your life to see what your intentions really are – check out this post to learn more: Hacking the Unconscious Mind: A Psychological Hack for REALNESS

Awareness, Acceptance, and Action: The Path to Wholeness

To truly move beyond the Void, you must engage in a three-step process (this is the process I use with my coaching clients – book a call if you want to go deeper): Awareness, Acceptance, and Action.

This is the framework for real transformation (no matter who you are or where you’re trying to get to):

1. Awareness: See the Void for What It Is

The first step is recognising that the emptiness you feel isn’t random or unfixable -it’s always a symptom of disconnection from the truth about yourself (and identification with the Ego which is just a character we play within the dreamworld of the Void).

Start digging deeper into your relationship with yourself to see where you’re fragmented instead of whole:

• Where am I living inauthentically instead of being real?
• What emotions, fears, or truths am I avoiding?
• What patterns keep repeating in my life and what does this say about my unconscious intentions?

Self-reflection and radical honesty are key here because until you see the problem, you can’t fix it – you’ll just be forever running around in the Void and rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic whilst it sinks.

2. Acceptance: Stop Resisting the Truth

Most men fight against reality even though real always works and reality always has something to teach them:

They suppress and resist emotions, deny their past wounds, and cling to false identities (ego) but healing always requires acceptance of your past, your emotions, and even your failures (because acceptance can only ever lead back to the truth and solve the problem of disconnection).

Start facing some of the facts:

• Accept that the Void exists for a reason (you have lost touch with you’re realness).
  
• Accept that suppressing emotions only keeps you ‘stuck’ (because emotions are e-motion, energy in motion and the only thing that stops them naturally being integrated and becoming whole is the mental blocks of ego and void-identity).
  
• Accept that change is possible, but it starts with facing reality (so you’re building on something solid and not just empty ideas in the sky).

3. Action: Align with Truth and Purpose

Awareness and Acceptance mean nothing without real Action:

Action in this sense means moving towards what is real and away from false distractions.

You can change your life by:

• Pursuing a purpose that aligns with the truth in relation to you and your life (after raising awareness and acceptance of what this is)
• Practicing emotional integration instead of suppression (by acting on the real things that are calling for expression from your Shadow Self).
• Facing fears head-on rather than avoiding them (because then you’ll see that most fear was actually just F.E.A.R: False Evidence Appearing Real).
• Building relationships rooted in honesty, not validation (by understanding that the truth is the greatest foundation of all, not the things or people you try to fill the Void with).
• Learning to regulate your nervous system so that you have the energy and presence to face life in a real way (without seeing threats where there are opportunities etc.) – check out this article for more on this: Nervous System Regulation for Realness: Finding Your Natural Rhythm

When you take consistent, real action, the Void begins to dissolve – not because you’re ‘filling’ it with distractions, but because you’re removing the layers of fragmentation that created it in the first place and becoming who you were meant to be.

Conclusion: The Path Back to Wholeness

The Void isn’t some mysterious curse that you have to live with – it’s just the consequence of living a life that is out of alignment with truth.

When you stop avoiding yourself, stop numbing yourself, and start becoming yourself, the emptiness fades because – at your core – you were never ’empty’ to begin with…you were just buried beneath layers of fragmentation, fear, and false identities (and thought this filter was the truth).

The world will tell you that you need more things to be happy but what you really need is more realness and this means LETTING GO of a lot of the unreal things you have been chasing.

When you can trust and let go like this then you’ll find more truth, more integration, more purpose.

Because – as the old Chinese proverb says – “Tension is who you think you should be but release is who you are.”

Stay real out there,

If you’d like some guidance on becoming the Void in your own life and you might be interested in coaching then book a free video call with me.

How to Stop Self-Sabotage and Get on Track With Your REAL Life

Self-sabotage can be one of the most frustrating and insidious forces in a man’s life – it’s like constantly hitting your head against the same brick wall and expecting things to change but they never do.

The cycle always unfolds in the same way:

Just when you’re making progress, something drags you back into an ‘old’ way of being that you’re consciously trying to outgrow – an old habit, a bad decision, a ‘pull’ towards comfort and self-destruction instead of the drive towards stretching yourself and creating something real.

To make things even worse, most men don’t even realise they’re doing it because they identify with the symptoms of their sabotage instead of seeing that it’s something unreal in them pulling them off the path they really belong on.

This quick article will break down exactly how men sabotage themselves, why it happens, and – most importantly – how to stop it.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

The Dance Between the Ego and the Shadow: Why Self-Sabotage Happens

To understand self-sabotage, we need to look at the unconscious battle happening within every man (and every human being, for that matter):

On the surface our relationship with ourselves and life is the Ego – the part of you that has goals, ambitions, and a self-image to uphold (though these goals, ambitions, and self-image are often unreal because they’re driven by shame and not as an expression of who you really are in truth).

Beneath this, lurking in the darkness of whatever you’ve disowned about yourself to ‘fit in’ and be ‘acceptable’ within the world, is the Shadow Self – the part of you that carries all the things you reject, fear, and repress about the truth of yourself, the world, and reality.

Most men think they’re making conscious choices in life, but the truth is something different (that’s worth remembering):

Unconscious intentions always triumph over conscious desires.

For example:

You might want to succeed, get fit, be disciplined, or build a great relationship, but if there’s an unresolved wound in your Shadow – one that believes you’re unworthy, weak, or destined to fail, for example – that deeper belief will override your conscious will every time and so you will never get the results you keep telling yourself you ‘want’ (because like we just said: unconscious intentions always triumph over conscious desires – write that down and remember it because it can change your life).

This is one of the main reasons why many men repeat toxic cycles, fall into destructive habits, and struggle to break free – they aren’t just fighting ‘bad’ habits; they’re fighting a hidden part of themselves that is actively working against them because they haven’t faced it and integrated it.

Knowing this can help you to see that self-sabotage isn’t random:

It’s the result of an internal war between the Ego (who you think you are) and the Shadow (who you really are but refuse to accept).

The more you ignore your Shadow, the more it controls you beyond your conscious control and you’ll wonder why this keeps happening (like Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate/God”).

If you want to stop self-sabotage, you have to stop rejecting the parts of yourself that are creating it in the first place which means that you need to integrate the Shadow, bring your unconscious fears into awareness, and stop pretending they don’t exist.

Only then can you move forward without tripping over yourself.

The Ways Men Unknowingly Self-Sabotage

1. Procrastination: The Most Common Form of Self-Sabotage

Every time you put something off, you reinforce the idea to your unconscious mind that you are not capable – this just strengthens your unconscious intention regardless of what you ‘think’ or tell yourself at the conscious level. Procrastination is self-betrayal disguised as ‘waiting for the right moment.’ The truth, however, is that the ‘perfect’ time never comes. You act now or you don’t act at all (but it’s way easier when you know what’s going on at the level of your Shadow and not just your Ego).

2. Addictions and Escapism

Porn, junk food, video games, mindless scrolling – men destroy their potential by numbing themselves to life and avoiding reality (which is what we always need to face to get the best results in life). Escapism feels good in the moment, but it steals your energy, focus, and drive in the long-term. If you’re constantly escaping, ask yourself: What am I running from? and then start running towards something REAL instead.

3. Perfectionism: The Fear of Taking Imperfect Action

Many men think they need to ‘be ready’ before they start something, but that’s just unconscious fear talking and weighing them down. Perfectionism is procrastination in disguise – instead of aiming for ‘perfect,’ aim for ‘progress’ and start taking real action TODAY. Start with just one real thing and watch how quickly you can start to build momentum.

4. The Fear of Success is Self-Sabotage

It sounds ridiculous, but many men sabotage themselves because they’re actually afraid of what will happen if they succeed. Success comes with responsibility, expectations, and the unknown – all of which are a ‘threat’ to the Ego and the familiar ways of seeing ourselves, others, and life itself. Fear of stepping into that power keeps them small and causes them to keep shrinking away from what they really want (because their unconscious intention to stay the same outweighs their conscious desire to ‘succeed’).

5. Staying in Weak Social Circles

Who you spend time with will either elevate you or drag you down and many men sabotage their potential by surrounding themselves with people who reinforce their weaknesses instead of challenging them to grow. If your social circle normalises mediocrity, self-destruction, or avoidance, it’s only a matter of time before you follow suit. If you tell yourself that you want to be a stronger version of yourself but keep hanging around with people you don’t respect or that are weak then your unconscious intention is to not respect yourself and to treat your own weakness as the status quo.

6. Playing the Victim

Blaming your upbringing, past failures, or external circumstances keeps you powerless because it causes you to identify with a static image of yourself instead of tuning into the process of evolving and growing real. When you see yourself as a victim, you hand over control of your life to everything outside of you. Real men take ownership – of their choices, their mindset, and their destiny and know that this all starts by tuning into the power that’s within them (identifying as a victim usually means that we fear this inner power because we know it’s going to disrupt our lives….even though we really want to change them).

7. Ignoring Their Health

Your mind and body are connected as one system. If you don’t take care of yourself physically, you’ll struggle mentally. Many men sabotage themselves by eating garbage, avoiding exercise, and neglecting sleep – then wonder why they feel like failures. If you keep making poor choices like this then you’re literally signalling to your unconscious mind that you don’t care about yourself. Then you wonder why you’re not getting where you know deep down you want to be?

How to Stop Self-Sabotage and Get Out of Your Own Way

1. Face Your Shadow and Accept Your Flaws

Instead of pretending you don’t have insecurities, fears, or weaknesses, own them and start being REAL with yourself. Your Shadow only has power over you if you reject it (and there’s a lot of ‘good’ things about you down there too – it’s not just ‘bad’ qualities or wounds but your joy, your ability to trust life, and your real emotions). The moment you acknowledge your self-sabotaging tendencies, they lose their grip and you can start moving in a real way again.

2. Take Relentless Action (Even When You Don’t Feel Like It)

Real action is the antidote to sabotage – the more you act, the less room you give fear, doubt, and self-destruction to take over because when you take action you get EVIDENCE that all of your unreal beliefs about yourself are exactly that: unreal. Discipline isn’t about feeling ready – it’s about doing what needs to be done regardless of how you feel and reminding yourself what you really want.

3. Upgrade Your Environment

If you’re surrounded by people who reinforce self-sabotaging behaviours, you’ll never escape them. Level up your social circle and choose to be around men who hold you accountable and push you to be better. If you’re stuck with a bunch of ‘losers‘ then you’re just increasing the odds of becoming one yourself (by telling your unconscious mind that it’s okay to be one and then getting frustrated because – at the level of the conscious mind – you tell yourself you want the complete opposite). Do the work.

4. Develop a Non-Negotiable Routine

Structure is freedom. Having a strong daily routine – one that includes training, good nutrition, productive work, and time for self-reflection – creates momentum and keeps you on track. Figure out a set of habits that will support you to be the man you want to be daily and then stick to it (you’ll see your growth compound over time in all areas).

5. Get Comfortable with Discomfort

Growth is uncomfortable because it means letting go of ego and facing the shadow ‘stuff’ -if you avoid discomfort, you stay stagnant which is an unreal state (because real life keeps moving). The greatest men in history weren’t the most talented; they were the ones who leaned into difficulty and trusted themselves in life instead of running from it all and distracting themselves.

Conclusion

Self-sabotage is not random. It’s not bad luck. It’s not something that just ‘happens’ to you.

Instead, it’s a direct result of your relationship with your own Shadow and the unconscious intentions you hold about yourself. If you don’t address these intentions, you’ll just keep tripping over the same patterns, making the same mistakes, and watching your potential slip through your fingers whilst being bewildered and wondering why this keeps happening.

If you do the work – if you face the Shadow, take action, and start making decisions from a place of realness instead of fear – you’ll break free and start living a life that you can be proud of.

The choice is simple and it’s yours:

Keep sabotaging yourself or start taking responsibility for your future?

Stay real out there,