Mental fitness is important to our team’s success.

Leaders are responsible not just for our own success, but also for the success of our entire team. As this is such a big weight to carry, challenges big or small can cause us to feel frustrated, restless, unhappy, stressed out and most of all to self-doubt or be pretentious at times. We rarely realize that when we linger on these negative emotions, they can sabotage our mental fitness, relationships with our team, our own well being, our personal relationships and our team performance. 

Mental fitness is important to our team’s success. Knowing our inner saboteurs is crucial to keep our mental fitness in check and have a more fulfilled and happier life as well as achieve better work performance and personal relationships

Shirzad Chamine, a successful business leader and the author of the New York Best Seller book "Positive Intelligence" identifies and describes the 10 different saboteurs to help us anticipate and weaken them.

1. Judge - The Leader of Them All

The Judge is known as the universal saboteur. How does the Judge hinder our journey to achieve ultimate mental fitness that visionary leaders need? Based on its label, it is the culprit of self-doubt and our lack of understanding towards other people. It will beat you up over repetitive mistakes and cause you to self-judge your talents and skills. It causes you to be too controlling over situations and the people around you as you worry too much about future risks. The judge causes you to be fixated on negativity, resulting in having a pessimistic mindset. The Judge is like the leader of all saboteurs. It triggers your "accomplice saboteurs" and leads you to suffer from unnecessary anxiety and stress. Thus, lessening your overall work performance and wellbeing.

2. Victim

Do you feel like you are not accepted by the people around you? Do you feel the need for getting the attention of other people just to feel that you are important or cared for? The victim focuses your mind on painful emotions and negativities. It leads you to the path of social withdrawal. Above all, it causes you to feel sad, isolated, alone, guilty and helpless. Thus, these reactions and emotions stop us from giving our best shot and achieving high performance at work.

3. Pleaser

Another thing that is worth tackling in mental fitness classes and executive leadership coaching sessions is how we manage the Pleaser saboteur. This inner saboteur meets its needs by pleasing, rescuing and flattering other people. It helps other people because it wants to feel affection and acceptance from them. It becomes resentful through time as you will lose sight of your own needs. It hinders you and your team’s growth. Because you are more focused on pleasing other people, you lack critical and analytical thinking. As a leader, it limits your capability to provide constructive feedback that your team needs to improve and better perform. 

4. Hyper-vigilant

This inner saboteur self-doubts itself and other people almost all of the time. It is extremely anxious and worried about dangers and things going wrong. It is always suspicious, cynical and skeptical of other people. Thus, hindering leaders from supporting his or her entire team towards their performance improvement goals.

5. Restless

The restless saboteur easily loses focus and is distracted from new things around you. It is always in search of excitement from a lot of varied activities. It is constantly impatient and avoids lasting focus on relationships as well as life challenges. 

6. Hyper-achiever

The hyper-achiever is always in constant outstanding work performance because it is where it gains its self-respect. This inner saboteur hinders one positive intelligence by triggering us to be goal-oriented and have a workaholic streak. In the process, you lose touch with yourself and sometimes sacrifice personal relationships over one's achievements. The hyper achiever wants you to perfect your outer self  more than knowing your inner self and finding true bliss. Hyper achievers' happiness comes from achievements and the feeling of worthiness.

7. Hyper-rational

This saboteur takes everything around it rationally. Its main characteristic is having high concentration and valuing understanding, insight and knowledge the most. It is extremely analytical and is good with survival. It is orderly and always manifests intellectual superiority over other people. It is too rational that it lacks feelings and empathy over the people around it.

8. Controller

The controller is anxious because it always has the urge to take charge and control people's actions and situations. This inner saboteur pushes other people beyond their comfort zone and limits. It intimidates the people around it and sometimes communicates in an offensive way. It refuses to accept mistakes and criticisms. Above all, it is resentful and gets temporary success at the cost of others' emotions and successes too.

9. Stickler

Perfectionist. This word best describes the stickler. It always has the need to keep things organized and in order. It always practices self control and has high standards. 

Due to the need for perfection, the stickler is always facing frustration from itself and other people too. It is self-righteous and cannot easily change or adapt to the styles or opinions of other people. Because of this, others would feel anxious, stressed out and will also have self-doubt when working with a stickler.

10. Avoider

As the name suggests, the avoider chooses to steer clear of challenging and unpleasant situations. It always settles for immediate comfort and satisfaction. It is a procrastinator when the actions needed are difficult. 

This saboteur suppresses emotions like resentment and anger instead of expressing them. It is in constant denial of conflicts in personal and work relationships. As it fails to act on challenges immediately, it leads to bigger problems and loss of trust from the people around him/her.

Identifying your own saboteurs is crucial to our mental fitness. Remember that when we are mentally fit, we are on top of our game with less stress and anxiety to deal with.