Self Sabotage: Identifying How You Stop Your Success – Episode 470
If you have the sneaky feeling that you are holding yourself back from taking the actions that lead to success, then there is a good chance you are engaging in self-sabotage. While some self-sabotage behaviors are easy to see, some are subconscious and therefore, hidden.
In this episode of the Ted in Your Head Podcast, Ted describes the behaviors and thought processes that can point to your own self sabotage. Once you are aware of them, you can begin to address them and let them go, creating a path to success and accomplishment.
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We’re talking today about self-sabotage and what I mean by that is behaviors that keep us from our goals and accomplishments. I addressed this subject two years ago, but recently I’ve had a number of people coming to me for help with this challenge so I thought I would revisit the subject with some updated information.
Self-sabotage is when we consciously or subconsciously stop ourselves from getting what we want. This could be due to things we are doing or things we are not doing.
There are many ways that we sabotage our success and happiness and goals. Some we’ll be aware of, but other ways are subconscious behaviors, so this makes it more difficult to identify and address.
Any subconscious behavior is tricky because it’s below conscious awareness, so often we don’t even know we have the behavior.
There are also many reasons why we self-sabotage, consciously or subconsciously. A lot of these may stem from childhood, especially if we had a dysfunctional childhood. Other reasons might be fear of success or failure, low self-esteem, or lack of confidence. But the it’s almost always rooted in fear.
It’s important to understand that if you want to accomplish something, and you haven’t done it, then what you want to accomplish is unknown to your mind and represents safety. Your subconscious mind likes what is known and will keep you from the unknown to protect you. This means that your subconscious mind, a very large part of your mind, will overpower whatever your conscious desires might be, resulting in resistance and self-sabotage.
Let’s talk about how you can identify how you are holding yourself back. You probably know that you are not living up to your potential, and in fact, if you are not achieving what you know to be your potential, than it’s safe to assume that there are self-sabotaging behaviors at work. There are many, but these are the most common ones, so as we go through these, make a mental checklist of which of these apply to you. According to Psychology Today, behavior is said to be self-sabotaging when it creates problems in daily life and interferes with long-standing goals. The most common self-sabotaging behaviors include procrastination, self-medication with drugs or alcohol, comfort eating, and forms of self-injury such as cutting and oftentimes, illness.
- Feeling not deserving. Feeling not deserving would also include imposter syndrome, that sneaky feeling that you are faking it and the fear that someone is going to discover that you’re a fraud. If you have subconscious programming that you haven’t worked hard enough, suffered enough, paid enough dues or you’ve done things that mean that you should not have success or happiness, then your mind will do what it can to keep those things from you. Check out Ted in Your Head Episode 426 titled What you Deserve Has Got Nothing to Do with It.
- Focusing on what is not working or not going right. It’s the feeling that there is always something wrong. “Nothing ever works. Nothing ever goes right for me. You can’t trust anybody. What’s the point?” Always focused on the negative. Complaining a lot. This is deadly and it’s sneaky because it’s a way to let yourself not strive because nothing’s going to work out anyway. This is toxic, this stinking thinking, so if you recognize this in yourself, start to change that as quickly as possible using positive affirmations.
- Negative self-talk and extreme self-criticism. It’s easy to see this in ourselves and others, but it’s one of those self-sabotage behaviors that can become a really bad habit. Always tearing yourself down and beating yourself up, and the more you do it, the worse you feel, the worse you feel, the more you do it, and nothing productive gets done.
- We all procrastinate, but chronic procrastination is most likely self-sabotaging behavior. Putting off what you need to do. Not taking care of the important stuff until there is a crisis. Reasons for procrastination: you are easily distracted. You have poor time management. You are a perfectionist and you’re afraid of not doing it perfectly. Your discipline muscles are weak. You are not good at self-regulation which means not being able to control your emotions. In other words, you’re not good at handling frustration, or you get angry when things don’t go your way or sad that you can’t make something happen. Successful people take action in spite of how they are feeling.
- Comparing yourself to others. It can be depressing and make us feel desperate when we look at others and think: “How come I’m not where that person is? What’s wrong with me?” This can create a feeling of futility, or we beat ourselves up or both. Do you think that’s helpful or motivating? It’s hard to be motivated when we’re feeling bad about ourselves, hence, self-sabotage. That’s when we start convincing ourselves that there’s something wrong with us because everyone else seems to be able to do what we can’t.
When this becomes a habit, it can be the most painful form of self-sabotage. Check out my podcast episode 357 Compare and Despair.
- Refusing to ask for help. “I don’t need anybody’s help, I can do it on my own.” This is so sneaky because it’s self-sabotage disguised as self-reliance. Nobody does it on their own. Or how about “I can’t count on anybody, nobody can do it as good as me, they won’t understand what I need, it’s too much hassle to ask for help, I need to do it my own way. I’ll look weak if I ask for help.” The truth is, when you ask for help, you are holding yourself accountable to the person that’s helping you. That can be scary and feel vulnerable.
- Picking fights or initiating conflicts with valued partners and loved ones. One surefire way to sabotage yourself is to chase away or repel anyone who might support you or encourage you or, again, hold you accountable. This is very common, more than you might think. It’s a way to stop your progress by creating conflict so that you can stay alone, unsupported and blocked.
- Avoiding or withdrawing from others. Instead of picking fights, you can just avoid or withdraw from those who could support you or encourage you. Or, after picking fights and creating conflict, you can just say “To hell with them” This is hard to see, because if we are focused on shaming and blaming others, it’s hard to look at ourself and our own motives.
- This next one is pretty obvious: making excuses or shifting blame. “It’s their fault that I’m not where I want to be, it’s the economy, the government, the politicians, my spouse, my parents,” on and on. Making excuses as to why we can’t do what we need to do to accomplish what we want to accomplish. This keeps the focus off us and allows us to avoid responsibility.
- Substance abuse, overspending, or “overdoing it” and other types of self-medication including overeating. Any type of self-medication keeps us from feeling or looking at those issues that we need to be aware of and overcome. This could also include a lack of attention to your health so that you can use lack of energy or illness as reasons to not put in the time and effort. You may know that some little kids will make themselves sick to keep from going to school. Adults can do it too.
Those are the ones you need to look out for.
There’s a self-sabotage quiz you can take to help you see what your patterns are. It’s at the Psychology Today website:
Here are a couple of articles that might be helpful:
https://www.verywellmind.com/why-people-self-sabotage-and-how-to-stop-it-5207635
https://www.happierhuman.com/self-sabotaging/
There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to self-sabotage. The first step is always awareness. You need to know there’s a problem before you can address it, so I hope this episode was helpful to you.
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If you feel that self-sabotage is holding you back and you are ready to do something about it, you should know that hypnotherapy can be one of the most powerful ways to turn your challenges into possibilities. Book a complimentary consultation with Ted so that you can explore if working together is your best path forward. To request your complimentary consultation, go to https://Tedmoreno.com/contact and he’ll get back to you in 48 hours to schedule your consultation.
“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.” —Buddha
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