How To Stop Sabotaging Yourself
FACT: We all sabotage ourselves from time to time. You might delay filling out a tax form, calling a particular service, studying for an important exam,… You are simply human. On the other hand, it becomes a problem when it develops in a chronic way and overtakes your life fully. This, in particular, is what we will dive deeper into.
What is self-sabotage?
Self-sabotage is wanting to do something or work on a goal, but doing a contradictory action. For example if you want to lose weight, you start binge-eating and gaining pounds instead of actually working towards your goal. You’re doing the exact opposite of what you intended to do. Self-sabotage may come from the deep inner core belief that you’re not good enough to get anything done. This inner-belief can play a conscious or a subconscious role in your daily life.
The conscious role
You know, consciously, that you have to do a task but you postpone it. You are aware that the task is of importance and needs to get done by a certain time, but you would rather not do it. An overwhelmingly uncomfortable, anxious feeling builds up inside your stomach and in addition, you find a temporary distraction so that you don’t have to think about it or feel your feelings.
The subconscious role
This mind frame seeps deep throughout life areas such as career, relationships, finance, family, mental/physical health and social life. The sabotage goes by unnoticed. It can take weeks, months or even years to come to the realization that you have been subconsciously putting off anything in your life.
Examples of self-sabotaging behavior in relationships could be pushing the other person away, never committing to real, serious relationships and not wanting to make a close bond with a friend, or even avoiding meeting new people and making new connections. In finance, you could be postponing paying the electricity bill which has consequences. You might get a fee due to being behind on time. You could also be devaluing yourself by not following your goals or dreams in starting a business by new-found ideas or not applying for that new job that you have been wanting for so long. It can even go as far that you start postponing on basic needs such as taking a shower, making or eating food, brushing your teeth, getting dressed,… You might be blaming yourself for being lazy over postponing literally anything, and feeling like a failure. Please be nice to yourself. You are fighting daily battles that make you overly exhausted already. You might set standards that are unattainable or way too high for yourself, so that you already give up in the first place. There are these and many other factors that can come in to play about why you sabotage yourself. See how many of these aspects of self-sabotage you recognize within yourself:
Factors of self-sabotage
- Mental/physical self-harm
You punish yourself for not doing a certain task by withdrawing basic needs on conscious or subconscious level. For example: you don’t eat lunch until you finished cleaning the whole house. It is possible that you even forget to eat throughout the day.
- Procrastination
Both on small things but also important projects in life, as mentioned before. For a more in-depth look of procrastination, check out my previous post: https://www.mywaysofhealing.com/2022/08/laziness-procrastination-am-i-lazy-or.html
- Not finishing what you start
Maybe you have been looking forward to this amazing language course or learning a new beneficial skill or applying for a sport, and you finally pushed yourself to enroll but after a few sessions, the motivation starts to fade and you pull the plug on it.
- Perfectionism
Refusing or not doing something unless it can be done as perfect as humanly possible
- Negative thoughts and self-worth
The feeling of not being good enough at a skill, not liking who you have become, constantly pushing yourself down, afraid to fail and put yourself out there, afraid to get judged, feeling worthless, comparing yourself to others,
- Being chaotic and messy
Starting with one task, doing this only half-way and then moving on to another task, never fully finishing what you started. Your brain might also be a chaotic mess of thoughts and feelings blended together.
- Imposter syndrome
Feeling like a fraud when you show off your skills to the world. You feel as if you are actually not as skilled as you show to the outside world and you’re afraid to get exposed any minute.
- Over-self-protecting & self-criticizing
Being scared of getting your feelings hurt each time you put yourself out there, talking in a strict voice to yourself,…
- Over-indulging
Binge-sleeping, binge-eating, binge-gaming, binge-watching netflix,.. to avoid the tension building up.
- Over-controlling, over-worrying, overthinking
Each situation that goes on in your life, you try to control it. If you can’t control it, you worry endlessly about what will happen, worst-case scenarios,..
- Over-assuming
Waiting for people to guess how you feel or what you need, and then hold it against them if they don’t see it.
- All or nothing mentality
When you make a certain goal, you make it so out of reach for yourself that you don’t even do it. For example: you make a goal of losing weight and going to the gym. You tell yourself you MUST go daily 2 hours no matter what, or else you are a failure.
- Having a hard time putting boundaries
This can happen in any area of life. You put everyone else’s needs before your own. People-pleasing also becomes a huge part. For example at work, you might be taking on more projects of other colleagues because you are afraid to say no to them while you are already overwhelmed. Another example on the relationship area is giving away your time and energy in listening to a friend’s problems when you are already burnt out. Afterwards, you start hating yourself for even picking up the call and giving in.
- Intimacy and commitment issues/overavoiding
Having a hard time building a real connection with your partner, emotionally pushing them away from really getting to know you. You could also have been experiencing problems in bed with your partner as you don’t dare to open up to them physically.
- Not asking for help when needed
Or even thinking that you don’t need help in the first place. Feeling like you have to solve everything by yourself and you are your own hero.
- Rejecting compliments
When someone tells you that you look beautiful in that dress or the way your hair shines in the sun is amazing, you say: “Oh no, that’s not true” or you switch the conversation to another topic completely.
- Overattachment
Opening up and attaching to others too fast. This can lead to feelings of always being disappointed because you expect others to do the same to you. You may start to isolate yourself the moment you feel hurt.
These are few of many that contribute to self-sabotaging behavior. What you can observe is that anxiety is a huge element in most of these. From this stems different origins like childhood trauma or even a trauma later on in life whereby self-sabotage is used as a coping mechanism to not have to deal with the debilitating feelings of failure, disappointment, betrayal and pain in general. People that chronically self-sabotage learned at some point that it ‘works’ very well in the short-term and this is why they keep doing it. It can become a daily program routed deeply inside the brain. There is not one solution or magical fast way out or any easy answer. Being kind to yourself, practicing self-compassion and resilience in all times and not being too hard on yourself can go a long way. I will end with this quote: