Self-Sabotage: What Is It and How Can You Move Past It?
Have you ever found yourself spiralling into self-sabotage, negative thoughts and self-doubt? If you have you’re not alone. This is something so many people struggle with.
What if I told you it didn’t need to be that way? Not just in health and fitness but in every aspect of your life.
To find out how let’s dig into what self-sabotage is.
What is Self-Sabotage?
Self-sabotage is when you get in the way of your success in a repeated fashion through destructive behaviours. Doing so will prevent you from accomplishing your goals which can hurt your mental health and your life.
With every failed attempt at something, you’re proving to yourself why you don’t deserve the thing you want to do.
Sometimes you’re not even aware you’re doing it. Your brain has a funny way of protecting itself from fear, disappointment and failure. Self-sabotage is essentially your brain shutting down an opportunity before it happens. It does this so you never have to experience disappointment if or when something doesn’t happen.
Self-sabotage can look like…
- Feeling anxious or stressed when trying to do something important.
- Feeling like you don’t deserve success so giving up is the better option.
- Working towards a specific goal only for it to fail when you mess something up.
Negative self-talk and low self-esteem are what drive these thoughts. You tell yourself you’re not worthy of success and that you cannot reach to your goals.
Some people self-sabotage because it leads them to feel like they are in control of the outcome. This is nothing but destructive in the long run.
Self-sabotaging thoughts set you up to fail. They cause you to spiral into negative behaviours. They can even diminish your reputation if you’re not able to follow through with what you say you’ll do.
I understand if after reading that, you may feel like it’s a habit you can’t get out of. But trust me when I say, YOU ARE NOT DOOMED. There is a way out.
How To Beat It
Here are 5 ways you can overcome self-sabotage - and replace it with self-confidence!
Step One: Recognize your self-sabotaging behaviours.
This starts with asking yourself the painful questions. You need to become more in tune with your behaviours so you can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Consider your goal setting… Think of a goal you’ve had for a long time but haven’t been able to accomplish. Ask yourself:
- Is it that far out of reach?
- Is it not realistic?
- Do I believe I don’t actually have the capabilities to reach it?
The answers to these questions will give you a better idea of how you can find a solution and reach your goal.
Step Two: Understand the emotions that lead to the behaviour.
Most often self-sabotage stems from anxiety, anger and worthlessness.
Let’s say you’re going through a workout program and you get to that one exercise you despise.
This exercise is super challenging! You don’t feel like you can perform it to the best of your ability right now - which can happen sometimes. But this leads you to feeling angry, stressed and not even finishing the workout.
That event triggered an emotion in you which led to a self-defeating action.
This happens a lot with Type A, People Pleasing Perfectionists (or recovering ones like me).
When I was younger I would try to learn a new dance move or soccer skill. If I wasn’t good at it right away I would feel anger, frustration and unworthiness. I would think ‘It’s not for me’ and give up. I wouldn’t allow myself the grace and space to get better at something new.
So what can you do? Be patient with yourself and give yourself that time to grow.
Step Three: Spot the thinking or beliefs that cause the emotion.
Chances are irrational thoughts are causing the emotions that lead to your destructive behaviour. Try to notice what you say to yourself when you’re engaging in self-sabotaging behaviour.
Negative self-talk is a very common thing when you’re dealing with self-sabotage. Take a moment to write down all the negative self-talk - no matter how silly it may seem.
This helps you to get clear on the negative self-talk and on what deeper beliefs you have about yourself. Start to question those negative thoughts when they come up.
Are they rational?
Are they based on facts?
Are they actually true things?
Step Four: Change your emotions, behaviours and thoughts.
Try to become more aware of the negative emotions, behaviours and thoughts that trigger your self-sabotage.
Then start to challenge them with logical thinking and positive affirmations. Stop creating assumptions about yourself and gain a positive perspective.
I realize this is easier said than done… but practice creates progress. You can’t expect to be good at this right away, it will take some time and effort to work.
Link the new positive self-talk to what you want to do and what you can achieve. This can help you to create the mental, emotional and physical state necessary to do whatever you set your mind to.
Step Five: Develop self-supporting behaviours.
When you’ve identified and begun to defeat the false rationale that you’ve created inside your brain, you can start to rebuild your self-esteem.
Use these three questions as prompts for journaling to reflect on what that looks like for you:
- What can you say to yourself that is positive or encouraging?
- What options do you have? Is there more than one way to achieve your goal?
- Can you build your self-confidence by setting and achieving smaller goals?
Use those answers to come up with a message that inspires you to move forward in a positive direction.
Trust me when I say this… you CAN beat self-sabotage by monitoring your behaviours, feelings thoughts and beliefs. You can challenge them when they stand between you and your goals.
Once you understand what's behind your self-sabotage you can start to develop positive behaviours.
If you're struggling with self-sabotage I encourage you to give these tips a try.
It can be difficult at first just like any new habit. But it’s well worth the effort in the long run and will help create more positivity in so many areas of your life.
Find more help on this topic on the Find Your Strength Podcast. Episode 6 dives further into working through self-sabotaging behaviours.