After learning about the Upper Limit Problem last week from Gay Hendrick's book "The Big Leap", I was able to put into into practice with good results.
The Upper Limit Problem says that we all have a threshold for how good we believe we can feel before we sabotage ourselves thereby bringing our mood back down to a level that is congruent with what we feel we deserve. So when I'm feeling good but then suddenly start mentally bitching about my flatmate or worrying about their reaction to something I might say, that is my way of sabotaging my good feeling.
So over the past 3 days or so, everytime I've started a mental dialogue about this person I've immediately stopped and reminded myself "this is the Upper Limit problem" and then committed to immediately ending the thought streamline to maintain my good feelings. Surprising how effective that is!
So again - It's the level we feel we deserve. Once we go over it, self-sabotage kicks in.
We all have a limit on how much fun, happiness, wealth, success etc we can have. That is the limit of our beliefs.
I'm sure we all could do some inner belief work on this to extend how good we can feel. But even if we do that, we still need to forge a new habit of what we do when we recognise we are self-sabotaging.
My Upper Limit manifests as worry. What's yours?