When dreams and desires hit the outside world they often land with a great deal of turbulence. Very rarely do we imagine the situational challenges that can unfold as we strive to turn our goals into reality. Competition, the performance environment and our personal circumstances can combine to bring discomfort to what might otherwise be an easy path.
So we work towards understanding the challenges as they emerge and recognise that all we need in the face of such disruptions is our strong desire to perform successfully.
We can, (and do), take a wrong turn here though, and in doing so become our own worst obstacle. How? Well, we are really good at adding to our strong desire to perform with success. We add consciously or subconscious beliefs that go beyond successful performance, and tell ourselves that outstanding performance is the only performance worth achieving and that perfection is what counts.
That wrong turn results in self-defeating behaviours like rebellion, procrastination, withdrawal and lots of other self-sabotaging. This tends to happen most when our challenges get extremely challenging. These behaviours occur like the martial arts moves of our own inner ninjas. We can't even see ourselves engaging in them and they feel impossible to defeat.
So start at the source, and be elegant in your self-reflection. Recognise your proneness to thinking that you need to be outstandingly perfect instead of successful.