Summary

The article discusses how life hacks can serve as a distraction from addressing the deeper, subconscious beliefs that truly limit success and personal fulfillment.

Abstract

The author of the article, a self-described former life hack junkie, reflects on their personal journey with life hacks and personal development literature. Despite a successful career and material comforts, they realized that the constant pursuit of new life hacks was a superficial fix. The root of their dissatisfaction lay in deeply held subconscious beliefs that undermined their sense of self-worth and ability to achieve lasting success. Through introspection and emotional work, they uncovered self-limiting messages that had been silently sabotaging their potential. The article suggests that true success comes from inner work to overcome these subconscious blocks, rather than from quick fixes like life hacks, and encourages readers to embark on their own journey of self-discovery to achieve greater success and happiness.

Opinions

Life hacks are seen as a temporary and ineffective solution for achieving long-term success.
The author believes that subconscious self-limiting beliefs are a significant barrier to personal and professional success.
Self-sabotage is a common outcome of not addressing inner subconscious blocks.
The pursuit of external quick fixes, such as productivity tips and life hacks, often prevents individuals from confronting their inner saboteur.
The article posits that self-confidence and self-esteem can significantly increase once a person starts the inner exploration journey.
The author suggests that many people are unaware of their own self-limiting beliefs and how these beliefs negatively impact their lives.
The article encourages readers to take action towards understanding and overcoming their own subconscious messages for improved success and happiness.

Life Hacks Are A Distraction From The Real Reasons You’re Not Successful

Confessions of a Former Life Hack Junkie

Looks like my old coffee table — Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

The five-minute fix is short-term mind candy.

Armed with new information from a prolific, successful personal growth coach/author, you set out confidently to integrate a new Life Hack in your daily routine — knowing deep in your bones that this is finally the magic you need to step up your game.

A month later you can’t even remember it. Or you do, and you feel guilty because you haven’t adopted it. Starting tomorrow…

That’s my story.

My reasonably successful career alternated between IT management and sales/marketing support for big IT-related projects.

I was a voracious consumer of dozens (hundreds?) of business best-sellers and articles, seminars and trainings about how to step up my game.

Me: “Great book! I know I can go out and crush it now!”

Reality: the hack was in my mind, but it was taking up space there without paying any rent. In other words — before adopting it, I started reading the next business best-seller. I often alternated between two or three books simultaneously — probably why I rarely finished one. It’s probably fairer to say I was a collector of business books rather than a consumer of them.

Sound familiar?

Life hacks are baby Pablum.

They’re a cheap substitute for the inner work to clear your subconscious blocks to success. There may be a little voice in there that says you’re not “enough” to achieve success. Smart enough, hardworking enough, strong enough….

That voice might be so quiet that you don’t even realize it’s there. If you’ve never done any inner excavation work

Now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight…

I realize I couldn’t apply all the great ideas from my business/productivity books and seminars because the voice of my inner saboteur was working against me the whole time.

It took a lot of time and deep emotional work to discover that voice, and the many self-limiting messages it brought along with it:

“I’m not enough — good enough to succeed, not smart enough to know how to….(whatever), not determined enough to persevere”.

“There will never be enough money".

“I’m not worthy of great success or wealth”.

“I’m not trustable”.

Those untrue messages were deeply hidden in my subconscious mind, and prevented me from achieving greater success — in multiple facets of life:

I was unable to imagine myself as being highly successful. My dreams only were as big as the next promotion, next project, next sale.
As soon as I reached a decent level of success with a job, I found some way to sabotage myself. I was among the first to be laid off in a business downturn, or fired outright several times.
I was unable to build the long-term, trusting business relationships characteristic of highly successful people.
I didn’t trust men. I viewed them as aggressive competitors for my money, my job, and women. I projected my untrustable inner message on every other man.
I didn’t feel worthy of the love of a wonderful, stable woman — so I attracted women who held similar limiting messages in their subconscious mind. Relationships started out great but later devolved into distrust, bitterness, and fear of intimacy.
I was unable to create long-term, loving, safe, and trusting relationships with my partners and children.

Despite all that, I achieved a reasonable visible level of financial success. I lived in a high-end condo on the 10th green of a golf course, drove late-model cars, owned comfortable furniture, and a new baby grand piano for my talented daughter, who attended a prestigious private high school.

But I never felt financially successful. Despite having never missed a payment and putting away a good portion of my income in a 401-K — whenever I sat down to pay monthly bills I’d break out into a cold sweat. I just knew there wouldn’t be enough money — completely ignoring 30 years’ experience that there always had been enough.

My inner messages were untrue. But each of them played out in my life as if they were true.

I’m not alone.

As the image suggests,

Back to those Life Hacks. When I read a book or a Life Hack now that strikes me as helpful, there’s far less inner resistance to adopting it. I maintain a daily practice log I use to integrity-check myself, I’ll add it onto that. Now those gems of wisdom are useful!

I’m not special.

My life took a turn for the better when I quit looking outside myself for quick fixes — Life Hacks and productivity tips — and started exploring my inner world instead.

“Everyone we meet is beset with their own problems. Most of the time they don’t want you to know that, and they are also trying to figure out ways not to know that for themselves.”

James Hollis, PhD — Living an Examined Life

Everyone — that means you and me, still — has an inner saboteur. Everyone carries one or more of the self-limiting messages I mentioned earlier. But like me for the first 50 years of my life, you may not be aware of them, and how badly they’ve hijacked your success and happiness.

If you haven’t yet embarked upon your own inner exploration journey, may I encourage you to begin? Those near and dear to you will thank you. Your self-confidence and self-esteem will skyrocket.

I’d like to think there’s no accident you chose to read this article. That perhaps you can relate to something I’ve written here, and it stirred something deep within you. Some part of you that knows you deserve more success and happiness.

I’d like to think that you absorbed the meaning of this article, and you are motivated to start tomorrow to take action to begin or deepen your own inner exploration journey.

If I can help in any way, you can reach me at LifeAsArtForm@ gmail.com.

Or, just keep reading and never integrating Life Hacks. It’s purely your choice.

Namaste!

If you’d like to receive occasional reflections about expanding your happiness and transcending your suffering, please join our growing Life as an Art Form community.