You’re doing the work – reading books, listening to podcasts, praying fervently, paying for courses, and doing your best to improve.
But if you’re honest, deep down, you still feel stuck. Stuck in the same emotional patterns. You know there is more to you, but you’re not quite accessing it. You feel something holding back your personal growth, but you can’t say what it is since you’ve checked all the boxes you can see.
The truth is that sometimes, it’s not what you see that holds you back. It’s what you don’t see. Your problem isn’t effort, because you’re doing much of that. Your problem could simply be awareness; the things that most sabotage our personal growth aren’t always loud or obvious.
In this blog, we’ll uncover 6 blind spots that could be sabotaging your personal growth without you realizing it. These are the subtle, often invisible thought patterns and behaviors that quietly block your progress, drain your confidence, and keep you stuck in cycles of frustration.
As soon as you’re ready, let’s explore those blind spots sabotaging your personal growth so you can finally become the emotionally grounded, spiritually aligned, and mentally clear version of yourself that’s been waiting to emerge.
1. You’re Still Chasing Validation
We can never overemphasize the need to quit the chase for external validation. It is obviously one of those blind spots you may not notice that are sabotaging your personal growth and making it look like you’re not doing enough to grow.
First of all, when you live to pursue external validation, you can never live authentically. You’ll only live a life you believe will please others. And there really cannot be personal growth without authentic living.
Secondly, living for external validation means you’ll likely only be more productive when people are watching than when you’re alone. And that kind of productivity isn’t the kind that brings lasting growth.
Also, being too interested in external validation will leave you too scared of taking risks or doing the extraordinary because you’re unsure what it would do to the pristine image you want to keep before others.
2. You Live in Reaction Mode, Not Intention
Another blind spot that could be sabotaging your personal growth is when you live in reaction mode rather than intentionally.
Living in reaction mode keeps you busy doing everything but that one thing that truly changes the game for you. It overwhelms you with so much drama that you’ll have no space for reflection, vision, and intentional living.
When you live in reaction mode, you’ll also be too busy fixing things that you’ll be unable to study patterns in your life. Now, when negative patterns consistently slip past you, you’ll keep fueling the actions that create them. And those actions will most likely cancel out your efforts towards personal growth.
3. You Haven’t Challenged Your Default Beliefs
Your belief system is the bedrock of your actions, and your actions determine the trajectory of your life. So, if you hold on to negative beliefs, rest assured, they’ll have a way of showing up and sabotaging your personal growth.
Sometimes, these limiting beliefs may not be something you learned. They may just be the default beliefs you refused to question and unlearn. They may be hidden biases you’re holding on to from your childhood, a past experience, or societal stereotypes that snuck up on you.
When you do not deliberately unlearn negative or limiting default beliefs, they will surely ruin your efforts to become a better person because beliefs are to your life what a rudder is to a ship.
Take this quiz to find out if you have hidden biases.
4. You Neglect Relationships
You’ve heard that no man is an island, right? You also cannot grow without other people. You know why?
When you talk about personal growth, you’re talking about building virtues and becoming a better person. Now, name 3 virtues you think one can build without interacting with other people.
None.
You need people to become better. In fact, your relationship with others is the way to accurately measure the level of personal growth you’ve attained.
So, when you neglect your relationships or shut down your emotional interactions (out of fear or past hurts), you reduce your opportunity for growth.
Moreover, you’ll agree that we all need other people to make life happier and more satisfying. Can you imagine what personal growth will look like when it is lonely and bitter?
5. Your Self-Talk Is Keeping You Small
Yup. One of the deadliest blind spots sabotaging your personal growth would be your self-talk. And this one is dangerous because you can unknowingly do it as a part of your personal growth routine.
Those limiting conversations you have with yourself can (in a moment) bring down all the work you’ve put into personal development for years.
Self-talk is the quiet voice behind your choices. And they become destructive when they begin to sound anything like, “Who do you think you are to try this?” “You always mess things up anyway,” and “This is probably not going to work, so don’t get your hopes up.”
Unfortunately, limiting self-talk can sometimes feel like you’re just being “realistic.” But over time, that voice becomes a ceiling because you’ll find yourself aligning with the “reality” that voice keeps bringing to you.
6. You Don’t Allow Feedback to Shape You
If you are someone who is aware of and intentional about personal development, it can be pretty easy to live with the belief that you’ve got everything covered. It can be easy to believe that since you have a heightened awareness, you can tell when you’re not getting it right.
But nothing could be farther from the truth. Nobody goes far without embracing feedback from the right sources.
So, if you believe you got it all covered or you only listen to people who agree with you all the time, that could be one of the blind spots sabotaging your personal growth.
We all need feedback. We all need fresh eyes and minds to observe us and our unique situation and tell us what needs to be done right.
Conclusion
As usual, you know I write each of these posts to help you get better. And there is really no getting better if all you do is read these posts and move on like you did not encounter anything.
Now, which of these 6 blind spots that could be sabotaging your personal growth will you take some time to look into? Or, do you think you’re being held back by any one of them? What will you be doing differently?
Stay tuned, I’ll share insanely practical tips that can help you fix each of these things and eliminate those blind spots so that your growth can be holistic and surreal.
