Self-Sabotage: How To Turn Resistance Into Momentum
“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.” ~Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
Have you ever been so close to success that you could smell it? And then something happened to take it all away? We all have these types of moments, but what we need to recognize is that sometimes we are responsible for our lack of success. That’s self-sabotage.
I would like to suggest that self-sabotage is not an entirely negative experience that we need to avoid at all costs. On the contrary, self-sabotage has some merits, but you need to learn how make self-sabotage work for you and not against you.
Why You Need Self-Sabotage to Succeed
Now before you ask the question, I’m going to answer it. Isn’t self sabotage a bad thing? I’m going to suggest that it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you know how to handle self-sabotage when it comes up. Trust me, it comes up as soon as you start making changes in your life to become a more successful person.
Sometimes self-sabotage is actually a good thing. You need to be able to recognize that when you start sabotaging yourself, you are really on to something. If you feel resistance or you catch yourself trying to sabotage your own plans, you know that the goal you’re going after is the one that is going to help you grow as a person.
Staying in your comfort zone means that everything is safe. When you start to expand and grow as a person, you will definitely find obstacles in your way. Some of these obstacles come in the form of your own resistance to change, and sometimes through self sabotage.
Types of Self-Sabotage
“Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.” ~Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
- Procrastination: Procrastination is one of the most common types of self sabotage, and one that I happen to fall prey to. When you’re procrastinating you feel like there are always more important things to do, besides the ones that will get you closest to your goal. We all know about the 20/80 principle where 20% of our efforts give us 80% of the results. Yet procrastination seems to stop us from doing that 20%. Is it because we don’t want to be successful?
- Sudden feelings of hunger, or tiredness: Your self-sabotage can take on physical symptoms. After deciding to get some work done to achieve your goals, you are suddenly overcome with a craving for some particular food, or to take a nap, or even clean the house. All of these things seem so hard to fight that you just end up doing them instead of the work you know you should be doing.
- Lack of interest when the going gets tough: Have you ever experienced a situation where you were about to get something monumental done, but suddenly you feel overwhelmed or unable to focus. It happens to everybody, and it’s just one of those other ways that self sabotage gets in the way of our personal, financial, and relationship goals.
- Constantly changing priorities and goals: For anyone who has tried to follow a certain diet, or a new business venture, this is pretty common. You start out motivated, thinking that you finally found the answer to all your troubles. The problem is that you can’t seem to stick to the new diet or business idea long enough to get any results. That’s just self-sabotage holding you back.
Typical Self-Sabotage Scenarios
- You have a big presentation, but you can’t fall asleep the night before the big day. The next morning, you decide to put off the presentation, or go anyways and underperform. Your worrying caused you to short-change yourself, and you will never know how well you could have done.
- Everything in your life has been going great for the past few weeks or months. The more you think about how great everything is going, the more you wonder if it’s going to last. Soon enough, you find yourself having a car accident, or falling down and injuring yourself, or you pick a fight with one of your friends.
- There’s a time specific goal that you want to pursue, like a scholarship application, a manuscript, or a resume. You work hard on your entry. Then as the deadline looms you lose interest, give yourself excuses as to why you won’t win. All of this convinces you that you’ve wasted your time (again!) and that you had better get back to real life. You’ve just thrown away your chances of success, without even letting anyone else see your potential!
Why Do We Self Sabotage?
- Staying in our comfort zone is easier. We all have a range of acceptable outcomes, and we live our lives to stay comfortably within these invisible guidelines. It is easy to get a promotion or make a new friend, when that is within your comfort zone. But if quitting your job to pursue a greater opportunity, or meeting your future spouse seems impossible, then you are experiencing the pressures of the comfort zone.
- Fear of success. Sometimes the goals we choose come with greater pressures, once they are attained. For example, when you become wealthy you have more responsibility, more taxes to pay, and people will certainly treat you differently. If you aren’t ready to be in this situation, then you will do everything necessary to make sure you don’t succeed. No matter how much you tell yourself you want this goal, you could be subconsciously stopping yourself because of things you consider to be negative about your goal.
- We want comfort and understanding from others. When you fail, you generally get to complain and tell your story to those around you. Many of us go through our lives making “complainer friends”, where we share the same setbacks and comfort each other. It is essentially the case of an unpopular student who wants to fit in with the “cool crowd”. Where he willingly fails an exam so that he can relate to the cool kids and be accepted.
- We prefer to be average like everyone else. Being average is easy, it is almost what everyone expects of us. Having to persevere or push ourselves is rarely rewarded, except if others think you actually have a shot at success. Unless you have decided that you want to prove other people wrong, you will most likely play right into their expectations. So using self-sabotage keeps you in the average group, where you know everyone and feel comfortable.
How to Make the Most Out Of Your Self Sabotage Habits
So how do you deal with all of the self sabotage? Now that you know it exists, and which forms it can take, you can catch self-sabotage red-handed. Once you’ve gained awareness of this type of resistance to your goals, you will be able to push through them.
- Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of tough love, to get yourself to finish what you started. If your goal is causing you some resistance, you can re-evaluate the goal. Maybe you are associating some negative outcomes with the goal, in which case you should either accept them or find a goal that suits you better.
- Other times you might realize that you are already being too hard on yourself, with unreal expectations for your goals. In this case you need to deal with the self-sabotage, and reframe your goals into more doable bite size pieces. Inch by inch, it’s a cinch.
This is the second article in a series about the power of selfishness. Read the first article about Self-Employment here. You should also subscribe to get the next article as soon as it is posted!
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