Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological response. It occurs when hostages or abuse victims bond with their captors or abusers. This psychological connection develops over the course of the days, weeks, months, or even years of captivity or abuse.

If this sounds to you like a fancy clinical condition that only exists in the textbooks of psychology, I am afraid I have some bad news: you probably have or had Stockholm Syndrome.

You have been held a hostage before.

You have developed sympathy for your captors.

But here you are reading these words and laughing about how wrong I am.

Your problem is that you are taking this at face value. You’re thinking of a hostage/captor situation within a Hollywood bank robbery frame.

Ask yourself, though, how many times you have been in a relationship with someone who abused you physically or verbally? And everytime you tried to escape or end it, you found yourself making excuses for that person?

Remember that job that made you miserable to your core? But when you’ve been let go or thought about quitting, you had these withdrawl feelings and starting to want that job back?

Your social circle. So-called friends. Bunch of medicores has-or hasn’t-been who never supported you in any way, shape or form. They made fun of you every time you tried to get in shape, or learn something new or ask a girl out. People who don’t want to see you win. But everytime they ask you to join, you go. They message you, you answer.

See, friend? You might begin to realize you do actually have some degree of Stockholm Syndrome. And just like any other flaw we have in our characters, it disguises itself as false love, fear of missing out, fear of being alone, fear of failure. But eventually, it is only but one: self-loathing.

Again, you are shaking your head thinking how more ridiculous this post can get?! Who in earth hates themselves? But then again, friend, you are wrong. Self-loathing is not self-hate. It doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself; it just means you don’t believe you deserve any better. And the reason you feel that is because deep inside you, you know you haven’t paid the price of greatness.

You didn’t put in the work.
You know you slacked during that workout and you stopped at count 8 instead of 10.
You know you didn’t study hard enough.
You know you quit that new hobby you started in less than 2 months.
You know you didn’t earn this job, or that girl.

When you don’t put in the work, doubt creeps into your heart. Self-doubt turns into self-loathing. Self-loathing turns into settling into bad situations.

Enter Stockholm Syndrome.

The cure isn’t in reading a book.
The cure isn’t in doing a therapy session.
The cure isn’t in hating your captors.

The cure is in believing in yourself.

And you can start believing, only when you start putting in the work.

Start with saying yes to yourself, and no to everything and everyone else.

To conquer the world, first, you have to conquer yourself.