Are You Sabotaging Yourself? How To Stop Self-Sabotage

Self-Sabotage

The interesting thing is that the people who were approached felt that they were not expert enough to comment —despite being handpicked by the interviewer herself! Even though the article is referring to women selling themselves short, I see self-sabotage as a problem that happens to everyone, not just women.

Imagine you are scouted by the hiring manager of a highly prestigious company. Believing that you would be a good fit, she asks you to come down to her office for an interview. Not confident of your abilities, you tell the manager that you don’t have the right skills and turn her down, even though you secretly want the job.

Isn’t that a waste? I mean, if there’s a hiring manager who tells you that you have what it takes, shouldn’t you be ecstatic about the opportunity? Wouldn’t you want to jump at this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

The Insidious Mind Traps of a Self-Sabotager

Turning this back to you, have there been times when you rejected opportunities because you thought you were not qualified enough? Times when you jeopardized your chances for success because of your self-limiting beliefs? Times when you stepped on your own foot just so you wouldn’t be able to take a few steps forward?

In those incidences, why did you do that?

Having coached many different clients, trained hundreds of people at workshops and oversaw hundreds to thousands of participants through the live challenges at PE, I see self-sabotage at work every single time.

For example, someone who deliberately dumbs down his achievements in his resume because he doesn’t want to appear pompous (a self-limiting belief). Someone who works hard at losing weight, and then gains it all back with a series of poor eating habits. An aspiring video blogger who refuses to record videos because she’s waiting for a million things to be in place first. A great artist who sticks to drawing as a hobby, because he feels no one will be interested in what he has to share.

After examining many people’s self-sabotaging behaviors, I have found two common trends.

Trend #1: Every self-sabotaging behavior is always justified by a reason

Maybe you are a writer, and you refuse to start writing your new book because you want to feel inspired, and excited, and relaxed first. Maybe you want to lose weight, but you keep padding your diet with junk food because your family eats junk food and you have no other option (is that true though?). Maybe you want to create a video channel and share your knowledge with the world, but you keep putting it off because you want to have the right equipment, right set-up, right getup, and right everything in place first (but why?).

For every self-sabotage, there will always be at least one reason backing it up, which is in turn supported by multiple other reasons. These justifications encapsulate that (sabotaging) behavior and protect it from being shaken by other opinions, be it yours or other people’s. Addressing that behavior then becomes no different from getting through the labyrinth of self-justifications in your mind. Consider it as solving a puzzle, except in the mind.

Trend #2: We are the strongest justifiers of our self-sabotage

For the longest time ever, I held back on outsourcing. I knew it was something I would have to do at some point as my business expanded, just that I never thought I was truly ready to do it. “Now is just not the time yet. I’ll definitely do this next time,” was what I kept telling myself.

The problem was, it never seemed like the right time. I had about a zillion reasons why I shouldn’t outsource just yet, from “It’s so much faster to just do this myself,” to “I want to learn the ropes first so I can handle things if they ever go wrong,” to “Hiring people costs money which can be spent on other things,” to “I don’t know any good people I can rely on,” to “It takes time to find good people.”

When I finally loosened the reins and outsourced various aspects of my day-to-day work (since end of last year), I realized I was stepping on my foot the whole time. I should have outsourced long, long ago, because it made me so much more effective. For the first time in a long while, I was finally spending my time on the core of my passion – content creation. Not administration, graphic editing, day-to-day stuff, or stuff unrelated to the core of my work.

This episode made me realize how elusive self-justification and self-sabotage can be. A lot of times, we may go all out to explain our actions to other people. We may even be able to convince others that what we are doing is really how things should be.

Yet, self-sabotage is tricky. It’s elusive. It’s insidious. It can masquerade something as righteous and good when really, it’s self-defeating and bad. If you want to overcome self-sabotaging behavior, you have to be the one to step in and say, “Hey, this isn’t right.” You have to be the one to do this, because only you know the labyrinths of your mind. Other people can tell you what they think, but until you acknowledge that, your self-sabotage will keep looping itself over, and over, and over, again.

How to Tackle Self-Sabotage

What should you do to ensure you are not binding yourself with self-sabotage?

1) Be Your Own Gatekeeper

To correct self-sabotage, you have to be the gatekeeper of your thoughts, actions, and decisions (or non-actions, in some cases).

This means with everything you do, ask yourself: “Will this help me with my goals? Am I limiting myself in any way?” Be conscious about your thoughts, actions, and decisions, because you are the one who is going to live with them.

This doesn’t mean that you should be a devil’s advocate. No, not at all. A devil’s advocate is someone who takes the opposing stance for the sake of argument. Your role here is not to oppose but to examine the validity of what you do (or don’t do). You don’t want to undermine yourself. You do, however, want to empower yourself. Being more conscious and self-reflective is the key to that.

After realizing some of my past behaviors were in fact self-sabotaging, today I’m careful not step on my own foot. For example, I have learned to share ideas even if they may not be complete, as long as they provide value to others. I’ve also learned to be better at outsourcing. I’m constantly evaluating my decisions to ensure that I’m not jeopardizing myself. I have found that I tend to overcomplicate situations and make things difficult for myself, so that’s something I’ve been working on.

2) Examine Your Thoughts… and Change Them if They Are Self-Sabotaging

As your gatekeeper, examine the thoughts that run through your mind daily. Do you carry thoughts that sabotage your intentions?

Let’s say you want to record videos and put them up on Youtube. However, you are afraid to do it because you don’t think your videos are good enough. You also don’t think anyone will care to view your videos. Those are two self-sabotaging thoughts right there.

Or let’s say you want to work at Forbes as a news writer. However, you hold back from submitting your resume as you gather they probably have lots of people applying for the job. I probably won’t stand a chance. Why submit if I’m not going to get it? you think. That’s two more self-sabotaging thoughts.

Self-sabotaging thoughts are like invisible ropes that hold you back from moving forward. You can’t see them. But you can feel them. To stop sabotaging yourself, you need to remove these self-sabotaging thoughts. Delete them. In their place, instill new, empowering thoughts that will push you forward.

3) Examine Your Behavior for Self-Sabotaging Actions

Many of our behaviors are things we do on auto-pilot, guided by our undercurrent beliefs, habits, and past practices. As your gatekeeper, it is your role to cross-check your normal behavior for any self-sabotaging action.

For example, I have a friend who runs an up-and-coming business. When she started two years ago, she was heavily involved in the back-end of her business, such as product creation, quality testing, and talking to suppliers. If there was anything that required her to be in the “limelight” (so to speak), such as being in interviews, presenting at business conferences, or being a part of large social events, she would readily shy away from them. Because of her introverted nature, she preferred to do things from behind-the-scenes.

However, as her business grew, she realized that her natural disposition toward such scenarios was a self-sabotaging behavior that prevented her business from growing. By turning down speaking invitations, she was turning down networking opportunities that might spring into new business opportunities. By shying away from interviews, she was saying no to free business exposure. By staying behind the scenes, she was limiting the upward growth of her business.

Upon realizing this, she switched to a more liberal, proactive approach. Today, she readily takes up opportunities for exposure, socializing, and business networking. This is subsequently helping her business to grow in a new direction.

I’m not saying that all introverts have to practice being social. That’s for each individual to decide. All I’m saying is that what you see as natural character traits, habits, and reactions may well be self-sabotaging you without you realizing it. It takes a conscious person to take a step back, evaluate his/her behavior, and recognize, “Hey, maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

Consider your usual behavior  and ask yourself these questions:

1. Does this behavior help me with my goal? Or does this hold me back?
2. If it doesn’t help me, what is the approach that will help me then?
3. How can I modify my current behavior to the above?

4) Understand the Reasons You Self-Sabotage (and Let Go of Them)

There are many reasons why we would want to sabotage ourselves. Maybe we are afraid of success. Maybe we are scared that we wouldn’t be able to handle it when we make it. Maybe we are scared that there will be nothing left to do when we make it. Maybe we just want to keep things simple. Maybe we like to make things complicated. Maybe misery loves company and we want to make ourselves miserable.

Without understanding your reasons for self-sabotage, your self-sabotaging inclinations will keep returning even after you address your self-sabotaging thoughts and actions.

Consider this scenario. Peter wants to work as games developer with Square Enix (a video game publisher). Initially he self-sabotages by convincing himself that he should not apply, since Square is such a renowned company. After overcoming his self-sabotaging thought patterns, he sends in his application and subsequently secures an interview, much to his surprise. However, during the interview, he self-sabotages himself by committing several interview blunders. In the end, he fails to get the job.

Here, Peter self-sabotages himself because he doesn’t find himself worthy of that opportunity. Hence, he does one thing after another to get in his way of success. It’s his way of convincing himself that he truly does not have what it takes, when the only issue in question is his low self-perception.

For me, I used to sabotage myself in the area of writing and sharing because I was afraid to write things that wouldn’t be useful to other people. With regards to holding back from outsourcing, I sabotaged myself there because doing menial tasks, being occupied with them, and completing them in a regular fashion was my way of making myself feel useful and productive. Of course, these were just self-limiting beliefs. (See Point #2.) Recognizing these reasons and letting go of them subsequently eliminated the self-sabotaging behavior.

Ending the Cycle of Self-Sabotage

Practicing the four steps above on a regular basis, especially the fourth step, will be instrumental in weeding out self-sabotage.

For the chronic self-sabotager (like someone who procrastinates heavily, experiences frequent laziness), it may take a while before you can act in a way that’s most aligned with your intentions and devoid of self-sabotaging consequences. That’s alright. What you need to do is to start practicing consciousness in your day-to-day thoughts and actions, via what I have shared in this article. Soon you’ll find your behavior more congruent with your deepest wishes, and less self-conflicting.

I hope you found this piece useful for you. Pass this article along to a friend or family member who may be a self-sabotager at heart.