Self-Sabotage: How To Turn Resistance Into Momentum

Self-Sabotage: A wall that can stop you from reaching success

Photo by Rachel

“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.

Photo by Hilary

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.

Photo by Luis Sarabia

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!

Comments

Avani-Mehta

My way of sabotaging is thinking that I have been working too hard and now I deserve to relax / take a break / slow down etc. It totally slows down the momentum built.

Nathalie Lussier

That's an awesome one, thanks for pointing it out. I do that sometimes when I decide to take a break, and then I "lose my motivation".

Jeff@MySuperChargedLife.com

Nathalie - I really like this post! It is very accurate in my experience. It sure would be nice if growth and success were easy, but they are not. It definitely takes stepping outside your comfort zone.

I certainly feel myself resisting my own progress from time-to-time. I'm so glad you wrote this article. I think it will help a lot of people deal with this issue. It will give them the tools they need to recognize these behaviors and overcome them.

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks so much for your kind words Jeff. I think we often assume other people don't face the same issues we do. Just knowing that others like yourself have faced these issues gives me hope.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting! :)

Maya

Thank you for introducing this term/concept to me in the way that you have. Somehow, for me, just recognizing that I am sabotaging myself is half the problem solved. Thank you for the scenarios and the why section. I really have to start looking to see where all I sabotage myself and see if there is a pattern.

Nathalie Lussier

I'm glad this article was helpful for you Maya. I appreciate you stopping by and commenting. I am sure you will be better able to recognize the self-sabotage and do something about it. :)

Daniel Richard

Great article for learning on how to turn self-sabotaging situations into a momentum that keeps us going on.

I can relate to this when I will at times go on and say that I'd buy this huge thing and then got myself to put tons of energy to fast at the start only to burn out and start over again. This time handling that at a much better pace and without any worries. :)

I'm sure your post will be helpful for others too. Thanks for publishing this. :D

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks Daniel! I'm glad you've learned to deal with your own forms of self-sabotage already. It's great to see others succeed like this! :)

Rosabel

Great post! I used to self-sabotage myself that I can't make it, I should accept things the way it is though I'm not happy/satisfied. However, a voice within me just keep me moving and changing my thinking. Think positive and be positive at all time are the essential elements that we must have to keep moving towards our goal!
All happenings have a reason, but we always look at the positive side of the happenings and learn from them. Good and bad experiences are meant to help us become a better person! Have faith and hope and be positive!

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks Rosabel! I know what you mean when you say that you "should just accept the way things are", since I often do that. Sometimes I think acceptance is a good thing, but then other times I know it's just an excuse for not taking action.

Thank you for bringing light to that possibility. I love your positive attitude!

e8jf83

I really like the post! The website shouldn't just be billionairewoman, since us guys can use this kind of help as well! Self-sabotage is like an addiction that affects everyone. :(

Thanks for sharing the ideas!

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks for stopping by! I write most of my articles with women in mind, but I'm glad they are helpful to many men as well! :)

Stephen Hopson

I found this to be quite an interesting article - self sabatoge happens more often then most of us realize.

I had an "Ah-Ha" moment when you included a scenario where one has a big presentation but can't sleep the night before. I've been in that position before but I still go ahead and give the presentation (because I was hired to do so!) and proceed to do the best I can.

The more I give professional presentations, the better I sleep the night before. One thing that helps me is what a friend told me recently:

"Let your inner child come out during the presentation and watch the magic unfold"

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks Stephen, I have had the "can't sleep" before a big day thing happen far too often. But the times where I went ahead anyways were always better than I had expected.

I love the idea of letting your inner child do their thing. That really does work magic! :)

Vered - MomGrind

What an interesting idea. It reminds me of the idea that we use failure to our advantage. Thank you for a thought-provoking article, Nathalie.

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks Vered! I always appreciate your visits. :)

Robin

Hi Nathalie - I think this post is great - thanks!

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks for stopping by Robin, always appreciated! :)

kstaib

Self-sabotage is a tricky thing. Sometimes we don't even realize that we are doing it. It's first being aware then giving yourself the dose of the right medicine. I'm not a big fan of tough love because the resistance always comes back stronger. I like to take the approach of thanking these feelings and working with them as if they are a friend. Yes, it may sound new agey, but it works. Your accepting these feelings and working with them in a positive manner.

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks for sharing your insights Karl. I don't think that tough love always works, but it has worked for me in some cases. It is always a good idea to check whether the things you want to accomplish are actually aligned with your inner compass.

Thanks for adding to the discussion, this gave me and other readers lots to ponder!

Pink Ink

Great article! I am taking notes as I read...really needed to hear that today :-)

Nathalie Lussier

Thanks Pink Ink, glad it's been helpful to you! :)

Zoe

I like to think I'm not guilty of self-sabotage, but a few of the examples you gave sprung out at me. I can definitely relate to working hard on an application, only to notice that I seem to care about it less and less as the deadline approaches...

It helps to think of all the reasons you started working on something. Maybe you'll see that those reasons are still important to you, but maybe you'll realize that they're not as relevant to you as they used to be. But I do agree with you -- it's important to make sure you're not just changing your goals to sabotage yourself!