Three Reasons Why You Keep Deprioritizing Yourself And What To Do About It

 Often, we fall into the pattern of choosing other things among ourselves. Deprioritizing yourself is the most awful thing you do to yourself. That needs to end now. In this episode, Yanet Borrego shares the three reasons you keep deprioritizing yourself and what to do to avoid a downward spiral in your life. It’s time to take action and reconnect with yourself. Tune in to this enlightening episode with Yanet today!

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Three Reasons Why You Keep Deprioritizing Yourself And What To Do About It

There is a pattern that I observe consistently when I coach high-achieving women. They often run this pattern of deprioritizing themselves. Everything around them takes priority, their work, their social commitments, their husband, and their kids, and they end up last. They don’t make time to reconnect with themselves because they cannot find that time. I’ve seen women, even my clients, delay doctor appointments and their health because everything else takes priority in their lives. They want to do better. They want to find a way of prioritizing themselves or building that foundation of reconnecting to themselves, but they don’t know how.

I’ve been in that position. I can even think of a relationship that I was in where I was running this pattern where my partner  scheduled and everything he was doing took priority over my schedule. I’m going to elaborate more on that example when I’m talking about the three reasons why we keep deprioritizing ourselves and what we can do about it so we can show up for ourselves.

At the end of the day, we are the foundation. If you are not prioritizing yourself, there is no love to give to other people. There is no care to give to other people. You have to fill up your gas tank first. We run this pattern of being in survival mode and prioritizing everyone else. It may seem fine at the beginning, but whenever that tank runs out of gas, that’s when it starts showing up in our body.

Maybe you’re reading this and you are already feeling that stress in your body. You are feeling in survival mode. You are feeling that inner voice saying, “You have to break this pattern. You have to do something about it.” Sometimes, we keep tolerating that pain of not prioritizing ourselves until the pain becomes unbearable. This can end up in a panic attack, disease, anxiety, or so many things where our body is finally indicating, “We have been communicating with you for a while. It’s time to take action right now.”

I have a client. She’s amazing. We have been coaching for a year. When we started coaching together, she was truly living in survival mode. She is a new mom. She’s a wife. She’s a thriving leader in her company. She reached out because she wasn’t feeling fulfilled. She was feeling like an imposter at work, and she couldn’t recognize who she was anymore. She couldn’t reconnect to herself because everything else in her life had taken up that space.

During coaching, she took action on the concepts I’ll be teaching you in this episode. I love what she did because she decided to take one day off every quarter. Every quarter in her calendar, she has one day off for her self-care. It’s not to work, not to the husband, or not to her beautiful kid. It’s for herself. She also found more fulfillment in her career in ways she never thought were possible. Why? It’s because when you start prioritizing yourself and start filling up the love tank, everything else around you starts changing. You start seeing more possibilities instead of the limitations. When you are running low and you don’t have more energy to give, everything else outside of you will suffer, your perception of your career, your husband, and your kids. Everything will be triggering for you naturally.

She also recognized that she could do an amazing job at her work and still be a great mom, which is something she was struggling with at the beginning. Also, as a plus and a very important element in this journey, she even started working on her passion project. When we started working together, she was like, “I don’t have time. I’m in survival mode.” There were so many things that were covering her schedule, her priorities, and her life, and she was last.

When we worked together, she finally decided to fill up her tank first before pouring into others. I always say this is not a perfect journey. There are many times when we fall off track. There are many waves, highs, and lows in the journey, but the most important part is that we keep that direction and keep that mindset of prioritizing ourselves and truly honor that. All of this for her was a result of learning how to prioritize herself, in her case. The foundation is you have to take care of yourself spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Lack Of Feeling Worthy

I’m going to talk about the three top reasons why we keep running this self-sabotaging pattern of deprioritizing ourselves. The first one I’m super passionate about is the root cause of many patterns that we run that are unhealthy and drive this self-sabotage that we have subconsciously. This number one reason is the lack of feeling worthy. It’s all about worthiness.

After four years of working with lots of high-achieving women, we do this transformative session called the breakthrough session. We dig deeper and find the root cause of their limiting beliefs. We find the root cause of everything that has been preventing them from achieving their goals, prioritizing themselves, and finding purpose in their lives. Every time, it has to do with feeling worthy, feeling enough, and this need to prove that you are enough to everyone else.

I see a lot of this, for example, in careers when we are trying to prove that we are enough, but we are overcommitting and overdoing. We are doing everyone else’s work to gain that validation. It doesn’t matter how much more work you do or how much more you please people, you are not going to find that validation externally if you don’t find it within yourself first. Working on, “I’m enough,” and working on your worthiness is super important.

Work on your worthiness.

Sometimes, this lack of worthiness comes from generational baggage. There are plenty of scientific studies proving that we can transfer baggage from generations. When I do this breakthrough session with my clients, we release even generational baggage at the deepest subconscious level with proven techniques. It is important to recognize that You may be struggling with this. It’s not necessarily your fault, but it is becoming aware of whether or not you feel worthy and whether or not this lack of worthiness is driving these patterns of deprioritizing yourself.

Honestly, you have to practice feeling worthy, even tapping into those emotions of worthiness at the beginning of the day or the beginning of a meeting. It’s about visualizing yourself, taking care of yourself, and also allowing time or blocking time in your calendar as my client did. She had one day a quarter, at least, to take care of herself. I have another client who schedules Breakfast Fridays with her husband. That’s a way of taking care of herself and also the relationship. There are so many ways where we can create this beautiful and empowering routine of taking care of ourselves because life is not linear. It can be very busy, and it can get distracting.

Since we are in this reactionary mode, everyone is looking out for their own interests and priorities. Your to-do list is going to be filled up by other people’s priorities. If you don’t set those boundaries of prioritizing your wellness, your doctor appointments, finding your purpose, and finding your passion, you have to step up for yourself. You have to advocate for yourself and start believing at the deepest level that you are worthy of prioritizing yourself and dedicating that time.

I have a client. She’s amazing. All my clients are amazing. S he struggled for a while to finally get support from a nanny. She’s doing so many things. She’s supporting her husband. She’s a leader in a consulting firm. She has a kid. She’s doing so many things. We coach a lot on her feeling worthy to receive help and support. This should be another episode because we have been taught to be self-reliant, which is great. I’m all about relying on yourself, taking action, and keeping yourself accountable, but sometimes or often, we need help. We need that support to get to our goals faster and enjoy life.

She needed this nanny’s help to be able to put some focus on herself. Her kid was still going to be there. She was still going to be there. It was that extra help to allow her to feel more grounded in her routine and her life. It wasn’t until we got to the root cause of her not believing that she was worthy of getting this help that she had this awakening, and then she started showing up differently.

She was resistant for weeks, but whenever she got that breakthrough and hired that help, she saw the immense benefits of hiring help and building this village around you to support you. I used to be like her. I swear. A few years back, I was like, “I can do this. I don’t need anyone.” It was mainly when I transitioned into entrepreneurship, which is so different from the corporate world where you need more guidance. You’re trying to figure out a way.

In corporate, you need guidance, but it falls within the umbrella of the corporation. To me, it was pretty straightforward, to be honest with you. In entrepreneurship, it is like you’re creating this path. Sometimes, at the beginning, you don’t have a network. You’re trying to get help. You’re trying to learn from people who have done it before.

I started opening up my heart and started accepting and allowing help from many coaches, my physical health trainer, my mom, my husband, and my friends. It felt so good to know that I had people around me that had my best interest. Getting that help and support has to do with worthiness. If you are in that position, I want to remind you. You are worthy of getting support. You are worthy of prioritizing yourself. Whenever you become aware of this pattern of not believing that you’re worthy, then you can change it and create a new pattern.

An actionable strategy that I always recommend is tapping into the emotions of feeling worthy. Remember the last time in your life when you felt truly worthy. I want you to go to that time flow, down into your body, see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel the feelings of being truly worthy. As you think of that and tap into those emotions, you start reprogramming your mind.

Repetition is super important. If you do it every morning, you start even asking yourself, “How would a worthy person, a person that she knows is enough, respond to the situation? How would she make this decision?” Worthiness is the root cause of any self-sabotaging pattern. That’s reason number one. You don’t believe you are worthy. You don’t feel worthy of prioritizing yourself because everyone else takes priority in your life and you are the last priority when it comes to that list.

Lack Of Boundaries

The second reason is the lack of boundaries. Boundaries is another topic that I’m very passionate about. When I understood truly the reason for boundaries, everything clicked for me. I’m very assertive and direct with boundaries but with a kind and open heart. The whole purpose of boundaries truly is to build healthier relationships where you have a win-win situation with that person, your boss, and your partner. Boundaries are all about healthy relationships.

A lot of people are afraid of boundaries because it requires communicating in situations where you don’t feel comfortable communicating those things or communicating your needs because deeply, we run so many people-pleasing patterns. The best way to please people and create better relationships is by setting and communicating those boundaries.

It’s important to note that no one will honor your boundaries if you don’t show up and honor them yourself first. I was coaching a client. She was telling me how at work, people don’t honor their boundaries. There was this Friday that she was supposed to be off and people were contacting her. She was connected to her computer online because she had agreed to a meeting that Friday. Agreeing to a meeting that Friday, she was trying to be nice, but that’s exactly the point that she started violating her boundaries.

Leaving her messenger light on green while having that call was another violation of boundaries because you’re giving people the green light to contact you. We coach on this. We coach on how you get to be the first person who respects and honors those boundaries. Only when you do that that you start showing up that way. People are going to understand, “She doesn’t work today. I’m going to respect that.”

A lot of people, to be honest with you, are not crossing a boundary because they have bad intentions. Many times, they’re crossing boundaries because they don’t know it’s a boundary for you. Everyone is in reaction mode and survival mode. They are not thinking too much about what they do, but you’re different. That’s why you’re here tuning into this show to be more intentional.

Since they are not being intentional and they’re in survival mode, and they’re trying to solve all of their problems and rely on a person who is always available for them, if you don’t set those boundaries with those people, they’re going to assume you’re always available for them. This applies to career. This applies to partnerships. This applies to everything. It is for your benefit and the person’s benefit for you to communicate and set those boundaries.

How I communicate boundaries is I communicate boundaries whenever something happens, to be honest with you. It feels uncomfortable. It’s something that we are not used to doing. We want everyone to love us. Sometimes, when there is a conversation that requires a little bit of tension, we are afraid 1) To be rejected, and 2) We are afraid that people are not going to love us anymore if we communicate our needs and our boundaries.

The first thing I like to see in a situation is to look at the facts. What exactly happened? It’s taking out all of the motion like, “What is the thing that happened? What are the facts here?” When I am having a conversation around boundaries, I communicate those facts, and then I communicate how the situation made me feel. I’m focusing on the only thing I have control of, which is like, “This is what happened. This is the sequence of events, and this is how this made me feel.” It is not about them. I’m not blaming them. I’m not saying, “You were hurtful and irresponsible.” I can say, “I feel hurt.” I’m taking accountability for how I’m feeling.

Usually, after that, I communicate the thing that I would appreciate would happen moving forward, like the path forward. It is facts first, how I feel, and the path forward. You don’t want to communicate boundaries to simply communicate and you leave it there. There has to also be a solution to not violate that boundary again. I always ask a person, “Is this okay?” if you honor this boundary moving forward.

When you communicate boundaries, you have to also be open for the other person to communicate anything else. You remain calm, centered, and balanced. The times that I’ve communicated boundaries, honestly, at work, or even with romantic relationships, I’ve gotten more respect and more understanding from the other person. Most people don’t have the courage to communicate what they need, so when they see someone doing that, it is like, “I respect you so much. Please forgive me. I didn’t know this was happening.” Most people are not aware they are violating your boundaries because you have never communicated that it’s a boundary for you in the first place. That’s the second reason, lack of boundaries. That’s why you keep deprioritizing yourself.

Fear Of Rejection

The first one is worthiness. You don’t believe you’re worthy of being a priority in your life. The second one is the lack of boundaries. The third one is this fear of rejection. It’s this fear that if you set boundaries, maybe you are not credible at work. Maybe it’s this fear that if you set boundaries with family members, romantic relationships, or anything else, you are not lovable. All of that, I like to summarize it in fear of rejection and fear of not being lovable.

I mentioned at the beginning of the session that I was in a romantic relationship a few years ago. This person would always be traveling not for work, but for his side business. He would have his normal work, he would come back home, and then he would travel for his side business. He would travel a lot for that side business.

I would always try to accommodate everything in my life whenever he was available for us to spend time to the point that I started delaying all of my training, my coaching training and personal development training, which is something that has fired up my life years ago. I started deprioritizing myself and my fulfillment because I was afraid that if I didn’t do that, I was not going to spend time with him. I was afraid that if I didn’t do that, I was not going to be lovable or he was not going to love me anymore.

If you look at the situation, he was doing everything he wanted to do all the time. I was the one here sacrificing myself to spend time with him. Relationships are a compromise, something that you talk about, or something that you make sure there is also a win-win situation for both parties. In this case, I was deprioritizing myself. I was sacrificing everything. I was sacrificing my certifications, my happiness, and my fulfillment until I realized that and decided to break that pattern and decided to step into my power. Everything from that moment started changing in that relationship. We didn’t end up together, but everything started shifting.

Break that pattern and step into my power. Everything will change in that relationship.

It is worthiness, lack of boundaries, and that fear of rejection and that fear of not being lovable. People who truly love you are going to be there even when you start prioritizing yourself or even when you set those boundaries. A lot of times, that fear of not being lovable is truly based on baggage from the past or baggage from childhood. We have to become aware and come back to our bodies and minds to know that we are lovable already. We got to fill up that love tank because whenever we fill up that love tank and we feel loved, we are going to feel the love from everyone else outside of us.

I always tell my clients, “Perception is projection.” What you perceive on the outside of you is a projection of what’s going on within yourself. You work on yourself. You master yourself, your beliefs, your emotions, your spirituality, and your physical body, and then everything else outside of you will fall into place.

Here’s a cool thing about this topic. Whatever your dreams and goals are, and I cannot think of a single situation where this is not the first step, the first step is to choose yourself. The first step always in this journey is to decide. It’s a decision to prioritize yourself. Sometimes, you don’t see it. Sometimes, it’s not clear to you as many of the clients I’ve coached. Get help. We all have those blind spots where we need that help and that support. Get someone to guide you.

Finding the clarity, confidence, and courage that you’re seeking highly depends on you believing that you’re worthy enough to put yourself first. Whenever you do that, everything around you will meet that level of worthiness, whether it be your coworkers, your boss, and your clients if you have a business, your romantic partner, or your kids. Everything will match that energy.

When you live a life where you are living in integrity within yourself and you are connected truly to yourself, everyone else around you will benefit. You’ll find the fulfillment, love, and belonging that you’re seeking because everything starts with you. We have to stop looking on the outside for the answers. The answers are already within yourself. If you enjoyed this episode learning truly the three reasons why we keep deprioritizing ourselves and what to do about it, please share this with your friends and family. I truly appreciate you tuning into this episode. I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. I’ll see you soon.