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Attachment styles are a popular framework used by many these days, but what exactly is your ‘attachment style’?
Your attachment style refers to the way you have built close, long-lasting bonds first with your mother and father and later in life with other people.
If you had caregivers who were reliable and responsive to your needs most of the time, you were essentially given the privilege of what is called a “secure attachment.”
You would then grow up to be able to approach your relationships with the same responsiveness, security and warmth that you received as a baby.
A secure attachment style is a valuable resource when it comes to success in all areas of life. When you are securely attached, you have a stronger foundation and a larger ’emotional bank’ to draw on for any challenge you encounter in relationships or business.
Simply put, you have greater resilience to “bounce back” from any challenge you encounter in relationships, business, and health.
But what if you weren’t lucky enough to develop a secure attachment style?
What if, like 40% of the populationyou have what’s called a insecure attachment style?
If you’re someone with an anxious, disorganized, or avoidant attachment style, you’ll want to take that into account 3 Key Ways Insecure Attachment Patterns Will Sabotage Your Success
Also know that it is entirely possible to heal and develop what is called “earned secure attachment.”
#1: Being insecurely attached makes us reluctant to take healthy risks.
Being risk averse means: “Not being willing to take risks or wanting to avoid risks as much as possible.”
Research has shown that it is precisely people who are insecurely attached who take more risks.
However, this only happens in the context of unhealthy risk-taking associated with so-called ‘fast-life’ strategies.
Alternatively, an insecure attachment can cause us to take uncalibrated risks in the short term, to the detriment of our long-term health and success.
In fact Studies have shown that insecurely attached individuals, raised in unpredictable environments, adopt fast-paced life strategies that focus on short-term benefits and neglect long-term ones, and form a distorted view of risk/safety.
This sabotages our long-term success due to taking unhealthy, uncalibrated risks in the short term.
Often an insecurely attached individual will not take the kind of risk that will help him achieve positive results in his life.
I’m not talking about standing on the edge of a cliff to take a cool photo for social media here.
I’m talking about healthy risk behaviors, such as accepting the emotional and psychological risk of reaching out and reconnecting.
That emotional risk requires comfort with vulnerability and the ability to regulate your emotions, which insecurely attached people struggle with.
Also consider the well-thought-out steps required to execute a business plan.
Or the willingness to spend money testing new ways to acquire customers and to closely observe the results of these tests.
These types of healthy risks are essential to one’s success and ability to create an infinite life.
As an individual with an insecure attachment, you will not have the security and stability within yourself that is necessary to feel safe to go out into the world and take the big steps you need to take.
What is the solution?
Give yourself back the stability and reliable care you didn’t receive as a child.
This can mean reassuring yourself that you already have everything you need to make big steps towards your destination.
“Understanding your own attachment style can be a powerful tool for personal growth and improving your relationships.” – Amir Levine
#2: It will be harder to form quality relationships with people
The value of human relationships lies in the interconnectedness you both feel.
This connection connects you with each other and adds real value to your life in the form of warmth and security.
However, these types of connections can only develop if you are okay with intimacy.
Unfortunately, insecurely attached people not only feel uncomfortable with intimacy, they often view it as unsafe.
That is, if you have an insecure attachment, you probably don’t trust intimacy, relationships, or people very easily.
In fact, it will be a struggle for you to appreciate connection and intimacy.
As such, you are at risk sabotage your relationships and the quality of each of your relationships will also be lower.
In the context of business and your career, you are more likely to be excluded from your colleagues or unable to respond to your boss’s requests, leading to faster isolation and less chance of promotion in the workplace.
All of this leads to lower life satisfaction and less success, because the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of the relationships you build.
The solution?
Constantly striving to take off your masks and build intimacy with people you trust (and who are worthy).
Reach out and connect with a vulnerable story or simple playfulness. This will help you massage through the knots of fear and trauma you’ve developed around intimacy.
In the workplace, the solution is to dwell less on your own fear and instead develop the ability to align with the goals of your team or your boss.
#3: You are unable to handle conflict
How do you feel when conflicts arise in your relationship or at work?
Do you tend to feel stressed and overwhelmed? Or are you quite relaxed and able to delve into the conflict, knowing that things will work out (and that you will be fine)?
Worse yet, have you been known to escalate conflict further (perhaps unintentionally and unnecessarily?)
The way you deal with conflict is strongly influenced by your personal situation attachment patternsand here’s why…
That’s because your attachment styles shaped your nervous system, probably before you could even put two sentences together.
If you had inconsistent nurturing, responsiveness, and care from your mother (or caregiver), you learned quite quickly that you had to escalate your calls for attention and closeness.
This will cause your nervous system to go from 0 to 100 in an instant if you are an anxiously attached person.
If you are avoidant, you completely shut down your attachment system and become completely unable to be present at key moments during conflict in your work relationships.
What this amounts to is a quicker death of any relationships you have because you are unable to be emotionally and physically present during conflict.
Worrying about it can also cause you to escalate conflicts too quickly and completely sabotage your relationships, causing you to lose your partner’s trust in no time.
How do you solve this?
If you are anxiously attached, learn that recognize your triggers.
Consciously notice that the stress in your body is escalating and literally take a deep breath.
Make it audible and visible if necessary. You don’t have to fear judgment.
Simply give yourself a moment to de-escalate your own stress and then come back to the conflict with a renewed presence.
How to make sure your attachment style never holds you back again
TTo ensure that your insecure attachment patterns never hold you back in life again, you need to use reliable anchors to help you return to a state of trusting connection.
Because it doesn’t matter whether you have avoidant, anxious, or disorganized attachment patterns, they are all just on a spectrum and at their core are two things:
#1: The deep fear that you are not worthy of love, connection and happiness.
#2: And a lack of trust in vulnerability, connection and intimacy.
Intimacy not only means the physical nature, it also means the emotional and spiritual nature.
So what you need to do is have a specific, beautiful memory of a positive attachment to someone from your past.
You can also buy a song or movie scene to watch or listen to whenever you feel like you’re sabotaging your career or your relationships.
Something that calms your nervous system and makes you more willing to connect with others.
Of course, this must be personal to you, and you will know better than anyone which anchors will act as the “safe base” you need and the care you have not reliably received.