Today we´re talking about another one of those expressions in English that I love, and that I think lose their charm when translated into Spanish.
Se trata de «getting out of your own way», que básicamente quiere decir dejar de estorbarte a ti mismo, en el sentido de dejar de ser un obstáculo en tu propio camino. Yo cuando lo oigo, me imagino un camino delante de mí, con un pedrusco enorme en todo el medio, bloqueándolo… Y me doy cuenta de que muchas veces ese pedrusco lo pongo yo.
Vaaale, no siempre es un pedrusco tan grande, a veces son piedras más pequeñas… Pero el caso es que me pasa, me saboteo a mí misma, y es algo que nos sucede muy habitualmente a las personas.
Today my daughter Eva, who´s reading the Harry Potter books, mentioned Dobby, the house elf. If you remember, every time Dobby realized he had done something against the rules, even if it was with the best intentions, he said "bad Dobby!" and tried to injure himself, doing things like banging his head against a wall, etc.
Well, I get the feeling that we humans do something similar sometimes, unconsciously of course. Our rational side establishes a goal or objective and wants to make progress in that direction, but it finds itself hindered (and sometimes, sabotaged) by an ever deeper side of ourselves, which somehow believes that achieving that goal would be against how things should be.
So, when we realize we´re finding it difficult to get closer to our goal, and we´re taking one step forward and two steps back, it´s time to start digging to see what´s hidden below that self-sabotage: there may be beliefs, values, or even aspects of our own identity that are in conflict with whatever it is that we want to achieve. And that´s where a coaching process can help a lot, in order to shine the light on those "hidden forces" that make us get in the way of our own success.
What about you? How are you getting in your own way, blocking your own path? And what would it take to remove those blockers?