The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest (Summary)

Last update on 2024-02-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon

Have you ever wondered why we often engage in behaviors that are just bad for us?

Even sometimes, when we know that something is not good for us, we still do it, don’t we?

In the book “The Mountain Is You,” the author Brianna Wiest talks about the triggers that cause self-sabotaging behavior and also explains how to identify and fix them to build an ideal life that we would like to live.

Alrighty, so without wasting any time, let’s dive in.

Lesson #1: We are the ones holding ourselves back.

Yes, it’s not the other people or situations holding you back from achieving your goals.

It’s you.

You are the mountain that you need to overcome.

As soon as we find ourselves in tough situations, we immediately think that we are unlucky.

Most of us never think that the problem could be within us.

For example, all of us want to be confident in front of other people, but we keep complaining and say to ourselves “why am I not confident enough?”

And that’s it.

We just complain and forget.

Most people don’t do anything beyond that.

They want to be confident, but at the same time, they don’t want to let go their unconfident version of themselves.

They always hold themselves back and find some excuse to not change anything within themselves.

If you also show this kind of behavior, then realize that it’s not always the external situations that hold you back, you also play a role in this.

You don’t allow yourself to grow out of fear.

You don’t want to take the accountability.

Most people do this unconsciously, though, and they never find out why they always fail to grow.

Let’s understand this properly in the next lesson.

Lesson #2: Conflicting desires create self-sabotaging behaviors.

The growth-limiting behavior we just talked about stems from conflicting desires.

And these conflicting desires ultimately create self-sabotaging fears and behaviors.

The term “self-sabotage” sounds as if people consciously sabotage their own lives.

But it’s not true.

If people were conscious about it, they would naturally avoid doing it.

Actually, it comes deep from the subconscious mind.

There are two types of desires operating in our minds whenever we try to do something challenging.

First, there is a desire to win.

Second, there is a desire to not face the worst case scenario, or in simple words, a desire to not lose.

These two desires contradict each other and create a great tension in our minds.

The tension occurs when the coping mechanisms in our minds kick in.

Our mind doesn’t want us to face any pain.

So it stops us from taking actions that have any potential to cause us any mental or physical pain.

However, the problem is that the more we give in to these coping mechanisms, the weaker we become.

Basically, when we don’t challenge these fears in our heads, we end up with low self-esteem.

We end up creating a big mountain of insecurities and doubts.

This is why it’s crucial to identify these types of fears or behaviors before they get too big to overcome.

Lesson#3: Identify your self-sabotaging behaviors so that you can overcome them.

Self-sabotaging can over time blow your self-esteem.

It’s important to uncover them as soon as possible.

Simply pay attention to how you behave in stressful situations.

Usually, people with past traumas tend to have more self-sabotaging behaviors.

For example, someone who is regularly failing at interviews or exams might carry a low self-esteem, and thus they might develop a coping-mechanism to avoid them. They might not even try to pass the test, thinking that they will never get good grades.

Self-sabotaging behaviors can appear in any area of our lives.

People with difficult childhood develop anxious or avoidant attachment styles and thus never feel secure in their relationships.

And thus when they enter a relationship, even if their relationship is going great, they self-sabotage it by creating a lot of drama.

If you want to learn about your self-sabotaging behaviors, observe if you show these kinds of behaviors or not.

Obviously, no person is perfect. A little bit of these behaviors is normal.

But if it’s affecting your work or relationships or your life in general, then you need to be careful. Chances are, you will repeat them over and over again in different ways.

You must have seen how so many people today cheat their partners despite their partner being so good. Most people these days have commitment issues.

Nobody wants to commit to a single person.

Nobody wants to take accountability.

It just tells how a big population on earth unconsciously self-sabotages their lives and relationships.

Here are some behaviors you must observe:

1. Procrastination. People with self-sabotaging behavior often try to delay crucial tasks to avoid any kind of failure.
2. Perfectionism. People with perfectionism feel that if they don’t meet all the standards, then they will not be appreciated. They carry a sense of shame within their hearts if they are not doing something perfectly. This is also a self-sabotaging trait.
3. Heavy indulgence in unproductive activities. If you regularly find yourself wasting your life, it’s also a self-sabotaging behavior. Deep down, you don’t feel good about yourself, so you numb those uncomfortable feelings or thoughts by engaging in things like partying, eating junk, playing games. Kindly note that doing these activities once in a while is not self-sabotage. But if you don’t have a purpose, but like to just pass your time, it’s self-sabotage.

Spotting these tendencies or behaviors at an early stage is critical.

Otherwise, they may give us chronic struggles in almost all aspects of our lives.

Lesson #4: To overcome self-sabotaging behaviors, we need to learn emotion management skills.

Identifying self-sabotaging behaviors is the first step.

Our goal is to gradually eliminate them from our lives.

And in order to do that, we need to know the root cause behind self-sabotage.

Usually, bad emotions like anxiety or fear are the ones that trigger self-sabotage.

Here is how we handle our emotions.

The first step is to understand what you are feeling.

Emotions aren’t always in our control. That’s why before we decide to do anything about our emotions, we must try to understand how we feel at the moment.

For example, if you are feeling anxious, let yourself feel it. Let it do its thing.

Try to see what happens in your mind and body when you feel anxious.

Accept that it’s your emotions that are causing all those changes in your mind.

The second step is to feel them instead of running away from them.

If you are feeling a bad emotion like anger, your first response would be to repress and not allow it to run through your mind.

The more you repress your emotions, the harder it gets to understand them and let go.

So don’t rush while you feel any sort of emotion. Feel it entirely. Let it run and do whatever it wants. But stay a bit aloof.

Remember: No action. Only observation.

The third step is to try and figure out why you are feeling them.

For example, if you are feeling jealous, try to figure out what is making you jealous. Are you jealous of your friend’s achievements? Are you jealous because you don’t have a pretty face like your friend? It could be any event that could be triggering that emotion.

Finally, once you figure out what you are feeling and why, think about the best course of action.

Lesson #5: Engage in meditation regularly and find your purpose so that you are always in touch with your true self.

Why are we learning about self-sabotage right now?

We are learning all this because we want to build our ideal life.

The problem is: Most people don’t know what kind of life they want to live. They just follow other people blindly without taking time to think.

You are not going to build your ideal life if you don’t have personal goals and principles.

In simple words: you need a purpose to drive your actions.

All your actions are meaningless if you don’t have any purpose in life.

And to identify your purpose correctly, you must be in tune with your mind to a certain extent.

Meditation is one of the best ways to tune yourself correctly.

Plus, you need to do a quick QnA session with yourself.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What drives me?
• What kind of career would I choose if I didn’t have to worry about other people’s opinions?
• Which skills come naturally to me?
• What would I do if today was my last day on this planet?
• What would my ideal version of myself like to do?
• What kind of relationship would I like to have with my partner?
• What advice would I give to my younger self if I get to go back in time and live all those past years again?
• Which routines or behaviors do I need to change to become my ideal self?

You just need to do meditation, visualization, and some self-inquiry to gain clarity.

And once you figure it out, all it takes is action, consistency, patience and discipline.

If you simply make a list of things that you care about, you save a lot of time by not indulging in things that you don’t care about.

The key is to be true to yourself and not get triggered by your emotions.

Let your inner wisdom guide you.

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