Here are the top ten signs of subtle self-limiting. If you spot a few, you have roadblocks to clear in order to live the life you want.

10) You feel overwhelmed and behind.

Being overwhelmed is neither a sign of ambition nor a matter of having bitten off more than you can chew. When you feel overwhelmed, it is never a matter of what or how much you have to do; rather, it is a matter of having delayed doing it. ALWAYS. In fact, the biggest reason you feel overwhelmed is either momentary or habitual procrastination, and this is always your single biggest waste of time.

9) You feel you have plateaued.

If you feel you have plateau-ed, you undoubtedly have. But plateau-ing is not something that happens to you; it’s something you create. Look closely at any plateau. You will almost always find a moment when you allowed something to dull your passion or enthusiasm and you backed off, went into idle mode, and started going through the motions only. This form of subtle self-limiting robs you of the victories you would experience if you instead appraised the situation, then renewed your embrace of it and engaged in it more fully.

8) You are bored.

If your life is boring, the activities you do are not the cause. If you are momentarily bored with an inconsequential activity, the solution is to change activities. However, if this activity is something that began as an interest, then you need to back up, reappraise and perhaps reengage. If you feel bored more generally, you may have begun to disengage across the board. Boredom, a form of stifling yourself, is a passive, self-limiting reaction to something that demands more attention and greater engagement on your part, not less. All forms of disengaged passivity are self-limiting. Boredom is one of the biggest ones.

7) You feel restless and dissatisfied.

Restlessness and dissatisfaction are among the early signs of what can become the impetus for substantive, meaningful change. Therefore, these feelings are worthy of investigating and acting upon. They become signs of subtle self-limiting when they persist without your taking action. By constricting action and remaining in an uncomfortable stasis, you limit yourself.

6) Little things knock you off course.

During any given day, if you do not resolutely decide otherwise, a thousand things can pull you off course. Some of them appear to be opportunities; some appear to be urgencies. If you get derailed often, you are engaging in a self-limiting surrender to invasion, no matter how angelic or necessary the source may appear. Curb, then eliminate, this tendency. You will remove a major way you limit yourself and you will feel a palpable increase in power.

5) You find yourself looking over your shoulder at what you feel was some fatal error.

Looking over your shoulder at some error means that you have yet to leave that error behind. At a deeper level, it means that you have neither fully processed the error nor extracted its lessons before you started an unsuccessful attempt to walk away from it. This is a major way to tie up and limit your self. Realize that the mistake you make by clinging to an old mistake and dragging it along with you is far worse than the original mistake. Don’t act like making a mistake is such a big deal. It should not have been your first and should not be your last, unless you have collapsed your life down to a crushingly over-learned and severely limited, no-risk routine.

4) A primary relationship feels unsatisfying.

What are you waiting for? Don’t sit by, feeling unsatisfied without taking action, or you will drain the life out of the relationship and your lack of satisfaction will drain the life out of you. If you want out that is a very indirect way of going about it. Take action to defend the relationship and exploit every opportunity to renew it. If you do not go to the trouble of working at, working on, and resolving things the moment they show up, a brief lack of satisfaction becomes chronic, and soon you are grinding at each other. Whether with an important co-worker or a life partner, keep things satisfying for both of you. Anything else limits your happiness by limiting you.

3) You are unsatisfied with your team or organization’s performance.

The defining distinction between an unwillingness to accept mediocre performance and a grumpy, critical reaction to others’ limitations lies in how you react to your lack of satisfaction. If you look at what you may have done to contribute and you act to correct it, fine. If you look at what you can do to enhance your team or organization’s performance and take that action, good. Anything else is a self-limiting form of passivity that devitalizes you and robs your team and organization.

2) You wish you had better assignment, boss, supervisor, or support staff.

Wishing for what you don’t have can quickly segue to whining, the classic self-limiting energy suck that carries the added feature of making you a pain in the butt to everyone else. You may be surrounded by less than stellar support and supervision but thinking everyone else is the problem may reveal that you are not carrying your weight. This limits you and brings those you complain about further down. Curb the prima donna act, roll up your sleeves, and get in there. Make yourself and everyone around you better

1) You do not like your current position.

Any proportion of complaining, blaming others, or seeing the problem as residing outside you, limits your degrees of freedom and your experience of success. Therefore, look to see how you can transform a current position into something more suited to you and your talents and interests. You and your organization get the most from you, and you get the most from your life, when you are totally invested, not when you are subtly doing battle or have deployed the notorious self-limiting drag chute of indifference and mediocre effort.