You have a big interview coming up, and although you really want to do well, you can’t help but feel that there is no way you will get the job. So, you don’t prepare much for the interview and *surprise surprise* it goes wrong. You have a classic case of self-sabotage.
Or maybe you’re in a relationship, but you think to yourself who could possibly love me?and so you start to distance yourself. Eventually, your significant other thinks something is wrong, and the relationship fizzles out. The diagnosis is conclusive.
We often sabotage our own lives when we believe that something is going to fail regardless of our actions. However, by confirming our negative beliefs and self-consciousness, the cycle of self-sabotage only continues. By creating systems of thinking which perpetuate our own avoidance, we are quite literally setting ourselves up for failure.
TikTok’s most recent manifestation trend ‘Lucky Girl Syndrome’ has got me thinking about how I can stop sabotaging my life. The idea is that by having a positive attitude and using affirmative mantras, life will work out how you want it to.
Tiktok user Sammy K shared her experience of this manifestation, explaining that she and her friend ran their own social experiment in college where they used positive mantras to help them do well in their academic work and get their preferred accommodation.
But this isn’t necessarily a new concept. The ‘Lucky Girl’ mentality is just TikTok’s new trendy way of referring to the law of attraction and positive thinking. The idea that your attitude can manifest positive outcomes in your life has been around for centuries.
However, some have noted that a large majority of the TikTok creators who champion ‘Lucky Girl Syndrome’ are probably benefitting from privilege. It’s the creators promoting the “everything works out for me” mantra who are, for the most part, white, cis-gender, and conventionally attractive.
The idea of relying on luck and words of affirmation is not a reality for people who are affected by systemic biases. Chance doesn’t operate in a vacuum of random possibility- it’s important to acknowledge that white privilege, ‘pretty’ privilege and able-bodied privilege afford a lot of people what they may assume to be ‘luck’.
To bring the argument back to the issue of self-sabotage, I think a positive attitude is key to changing your perspective and your life’s outcomes. On the other hand, labelling this mindset as ‘luck’ and suggesting that this can be a reality for everyone only denies the privileges that exist in our society.