Sabotage Your Self Sabotage
Tips and tricks from a professional Sabatuer.
If you’re anything like me, you are an expert sabatuer. I don’t like to brag, but I’ve been dabbling with self sabotage, uh, I don’t know, my entire life? From undermining my goals and dreams, to sabotaging relationships and career ambitions. If it can be sabotaged, I’ve likely done it at some point in my life.
Why this matters
As precious persons on our way to burial, what is it that we’re going to attend to while we’re on earth? Are we attending to the things that matter? Or are we attending to superficial things that give us cheap dopamine
I’d go so far as to say that the outcome of every goal you’ve ever had wasn’t the actual outcome you wanted. The actual outcome you wanted, or at least the one that will stay with you, is who you become along the journey you embark on.
For all of us what’s in the way of who we can become is our own habit of self sabotage. We are all saboteurs whether we realize it or not. are there other things in the way of who you could become? Sure. No doubt. But, self sabotage is most certainly present and likely a lead domino standing in your way.
Now, it’s a difficult thing to consider that you might be the source of all or most of your setbacks in life.
But here’s the thing: we’re animals. We have adapted to three simple strategies that ensure our self preservation. 1) to seek pleasure, 2) avoid pain, 3) and to stay efficient
All these strategies keep us safe and protected. but, they come at a great cost. They stops us dead in our tracks from reaching what Steven Pressfield calls our Highest Calling. That is: from fulfilling our genetic capacity and becoming who we are, in essence.
Self sabotage keeps us in the value system we grew up in at the expense of our highest calling.
We become saboteurs and get in our own way to stay in the little bubble of predicability and comfort we create for ourself. sabotage creates the illusion of control by reliving old patterns from the past
The purpose of this blog post is to cultivate awareness of your own self sabotaging behavior. As well as identify your triggers. Raising awareness around these patterns will help you witness as well as take part in them. A prerequisite to freeing yourself from them.
What are the common reasons for self sabotage?
You don’t know what you want
One of the most underrated reasons why people self-sabotage is a lack of clarity about personal values.
Let’s say you struggle with self-sabotage with sticking to a diet. How much work have you done to really understand and clarify the reasons behind your goal of dieting?
On a superficial level, it might be to lose weight, or look better at the beach. But why do those matter? Why is it personally meaningful to you to lose weight? What will that help you achieve or feel or experience?
It’s a lot easier to resist the things you don’t want when you have a clear vision for what you do want
To resist the pull of these emotions, by empowering yourself with clarity you undermine your habit of self sabotage. The best way to do this is to clearly articulate your values. Make them really juicy and specific
Harsh inner critic
Many people don’t realize the stream of negative self talk that happens just before you self sabotage. this can look like judgement or criticism. and we’re unconscious of it, and it can make a difficult task impossible to do, hence the self sabotage.
When you respond to challenges with self-compassion your capacity to deal with them is greater than you realize.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is an addiction to unrealistic standards. There can sometimes be:
- a fear of being wrong
- fear of being rejected
- fear of criticism
These all lead a person to want to control what their doing to the point of perfection. But of course most things, including who others imagine you to be, is outside your control.
Perfectionism can feel motivating in the short term, but creates self sabotage in the end. And not only that, it comes at a great cost: the need for control requires the sacrifice of your playfulness. A huge, and often unspoken, price to pay to own the illusion of control.
You can only take so much frustration and disappointment before you throw your hands up and quit. Then, you start to give yourself a way out of painful feelings by sabotaging the whole project.
Worrying
This is the ultimate self fulfilling prophecy. worrying is used to avoid feeling the discomfort of a lack of control or of uncertainty. it ultimately solves nothing and makes you incredibly stressed and difficult to be around. making it another great way to self sabotage.
Paradoxically the certainty of life is uncertainty.
Limiting beliefs
you’re not good enough
you’re unworthy
no one loves you
you don’t deserve it
and on and on it goes. many people think these thoughts are unique to them, but in my experience with coaching we’re more alike than we are different. the oldest parts of the brain that we share with reptiles are specialized for self preservation and produce these thoughts to keep you safe.
I call this your lizard brain. It’s always on the look out for potential dangers. Your lizard brain protects you by repeating old beliefs you likely picked up before you were 7 years old.
One strategy is to give your lizard brain a name, so that when these limiting beliefs appear in your mind, you can say ‘…oh! that’s just liz, my lizard brain”. and believe me if you’re doing anything worth doing your lizard brain will play these old beliefs
You’re afraid of being assertive
many people ignore their wants and needs out of fear. fear of upsetting or disappointing others. but let me ask you: how can you hope to meet your goals if you’re unwilling to ask for what you want?
What can also help here is integrating your shadow. learning to fight is a good way to channel aggression in a constructive way. Another is to do shadow work, you can find a shadow work worksheet on my website alexpadron.co
Also check out episodes 3 and 8 on integrating the shadow on the podcast
Lack of boundaries and self respect
Part of the ego thinks we need to lose ourself to please others and make them happy, so that we are happy. you lose respect for yourself when you constantly meet the obligations of others at your expense. A lot of self sabotage stems from a lack of confidence and self respect. It’s hard to respect yourself when you don’t respect your boundaries.
How can you respect yourself, and avoid self sabotage when you’re unwilling to stand up for yourself?
What can help here is to be:
- Really specific with your boundaries
- Don’t set boundaries you’re not willing to enforce
- Give praise when your boundaries are respected
- Clarify the why behind your boundaries
What Nietzsche has to teach us about self sabotage
Friedrich Nietzsche gave us a powerful image to conceptualize self sabotage. In thus spoke Zarathustra He gives us a power image of the Dragon: Thou Shalt. An enormous dragon with the words “Thou Shalt” written on its scales. Thou Shalt refers to societal, cultural, and familial expectations. What you should be doing, or who you should and shouldn’t be.
This is the familial material within you, you haven’t separated from yourself. You’re enmeshed with it in other words. These expectations can and often do disconnect you from your essential self.
The essential self is who you’re meant to be at a genomic level. Think about it as the operating system you were born with before culture began installing suggested apps.
Reconnecting with this essential self is important. Addictions arise when we disconnect from our essential self
Now, some of these scales on this dragon are thousands of years old, and others have been freshly created early this very day. This is what creates your pattern of self sabotage: Fear. This dragon symbolizes fear itself — a part of you wants to achieve something, and another part of you being afraid of the dragon Thou Shalt.
So we stick our necks out to do something new, and the dragon comes knocking on our doors reminding us of what we should and shouldn’t do.
No doubt, rational fear is important for our safety. But when fear becomes imbalanced, it holds us back in life. This can look like: Fear of commitment, fear of uncertainty, fear of change, fear of failure, fear of losing control.
Overview
self sabotage arises from:
- you don’t know what you want
- harsh inner critic
- perfectionism
- worry
- limiting beliefs
- assertiveness
- boundaries and self respect
There are ways to overcome our inner saboteur. It starts with expanding your awareness and getting to the root of your self sabotage patterns.