Are you stopping yourself from achieving your dreams and desires?
Ever had the time of your life only to ruin it later?
If yes, read on to find out how to stop doing this to yourself.
It’s normal to expect that we will actively seek out our own happiness.
So, it’s a little frustrating to discover just how often we ruin our chances of getting what we truly want. Such behavior cannot be explained as simply bad luck. It deserves a special term.
Inside this Article
What is self-sabotaging behavior?
Behavior is said to be self-sabotaging when it creates problems in daily life and interferes with long-term goals. Self-sabotage happens when one part of you starts to act in conflict with another part of you.
Your biggest obstacle to success is yourself. The whole problem with self-sabotage is that you don’t take it seriously.
You are not aware of it when it happens. These actions are subtle but significant.
You aren’t always aware that you are sabotaging yourself.
Any thought or action that interferes with your desires is a form of self-sabotage.
For example: You desire to lose weight, but then a birthday cake in the office stirs you off course.
Need to finish a project? You will do it much better after you watch a TV episode on Netflix, right?
Want to create a romantic relationship? You will do it after you finish pointing out what your partner did wrong, right?
Need to call your business partner? You will do it after checking Facebook, right?
Self-sabotage is common. We all engage in it on some level.
“The world will put countless obstacles in your path but none will be as big as the ones you create for yourself.”
When we have goals that are achievable with enough time, effort, and planning, and when we don’t achieve them, it usually boils down to self-sabotage. We consciously know what we truly want and what we need to do, but then we do other things without understanding why.
Self-sabotage is usually accompanied by an overwhelming sense of guilt, sadness, and shame. When we don’t turn toward these emotions, the cycle of self-sabotage continues.
Self-sabotage leads people into depression. It can ruin friendships and relationships.
In my opinion, self-sabotage is a battle between your ego and your authentic self.
The ego is that familiar sense of you. It is your lower self. On the other hand, the authentic self is your true self. It is your higher self. Your higher self wants to do one thing but then your lower self sabotages it.
SUGGESTED: What is the ego?
Another way to think about self-sabotage is when your conscious mind is in conflict with your subconscious mind. For example, in your conscious mind, you might logically think that you want to eat healthy. However, when you subconsciously believe that you don’t eat healthy, you will sabotage yourself because the subconscious mind is stronger.
“Stop standing in your own way. Wash yourself of yourself.”
Lastly, you can think of self-sabotage as something that we trigger when we’re experiencing a happiness level with which we’re not yet comfortable. Psychologist and author Gay Hendricks, who introduced the upper limit theory in his book The Big Leap, describes an “inner thermostat setting” that determines the amount of good feelings we allow ourselves to enjoy.
When we experience a level of joy and success that’s higher than our baseline, we approach our upper limit. Subconsciously, we invite self-sabotage to bring us back down to the level of happiness that we are most comfortable with.
If you have been familiar with instability, chaos, and interpersonal conflict, then your ego will try to stay consistent with that. It will try to keep you in the comfort zone.
Things will be going well but then this strange urge to mess things up will arise.
What is the evidence that self-sabotage is real?
First, you don’t accomplish your goals in realistic time frames.
Second, you are suffering; you’re not happy and fulfilled.
Third, you pretend to be a good, moral person.
You notice evil in others but not in yourself. You deny that you can be evil, too. You notice how everybody deceives themselves but you don’t see that in yourself. You criticize others but not yourself.
How do we self-sabotage?
- Procrastinating
- Overindulging (overeating, overspending, binge-watching, playing too many video games, over socializing, overanalyzing, over planning… anything in excess)
- Hanging around the wrong people
- Negative self-talk/thinking
- Making excuses, justifications, and rationalizations
- Not resolving our emotions
- Doubting
- Second-guessing ourselves
- Coping with stress by using drugs and alcohol or by smoking
- Suffering from addictions
- Being distracted
- Over-thinking and worrying
- Playing the waiting game (“I’ll do it after xyz.”)
- Being a perfectionist
- Engage in limiting beliefs
- Not resolving childhood traumas
- Not taking care of our health (nutrition, exercise, and sleep)
- Not taking risks
- Having high/low expectations
- Focusing on our weaknesses and ignoring our strengths
- Assuming the worst
- Magnifying problems and setbacks
- Giving up on our dreams
- Avoiding emotional labor
- Basing self-worth on accomplishments
- Needing things to be under our control
- Being afraid to say “no” to others
- Taking the opinions of others personally (“If they think I’m bad, then I’m bad.”)
- Denying a dysfunctional past (making something that feels bad look good with logic)
- Putting yourself in an environment that’s not helping you grow
- Resisting resistance
- Shiny object syndrome
- Disorganization
- Comparing ourselves to others
How do beliefs sabotage our happiness?
Your mind influences how you see the world and how you act in the world.
Most people don’t have a clue about how beliefs work.
Your beliefs feel like objective reality. Every belief you hold feels true. It feels like reality. That is the definition of it.
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People stay consistent with what they believe to be true because it seems familiar to them.
The problem is that you don’t consciously select most of your beliefs. You just absorb them from your family and culture. That includes thoughts and behaviors that interfere with your goals.
Beliefs are dangerous because they create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They tend to neglect contradictory data and they distort your perception.
If you unconsciously believe that you don’t deserve success and happiness, you will sabotage yourself.
Therefore, every time you feel happy and successful, you will sabotage yourself because happiness and success are not congruent with your beliefs. If you view yourself as unworthy, incapable, inadequate, deficient, and flawed, your beliefs will create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That was the case with me. During my childhood, I unconsciously picked up a few limiting beliefs.
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Let’s say Ana gets a new job or a promotion at work. She believes that she is not worthy of success and happiness.
What will happen then is that she will be waiting for people to realize that she is not smart enough/able enough/experienced enough to handle the new job or role. That might not be obvious to her, but that’s what will happen. She will feel uneasy and something will be bothering her.
This also happens when people meet their dream partner. Instead of connecting with them, they push them away.
“Don’t believe in everything you think.”
When we believe that we don’t deserve success and happiness, we might consciously tell ourselves that we desire something. Then, when the universe gives us what we want, we will subconsciously reject it.
The point is, you will reject a better job or a new healthy lifestyle if that new positive reality is not in alignment with your negative inner reality.
You will then tend to beat yourself up for betraying yourself, which further fuels your limiting beliefs.
Next, let’s say you believe you’re not worthy. If you believe that, you will put yourself in unhealthy situations. I mean, if you believed that you were worthy and that you mattered, you would put yourself in healthy and empowering situations.
Don’t be like most people and start questioning your beliefs.
“Self-sabotaging behavior is your biggest obstacle to success.”
Subconscious beliefs behind self-sabotage
- I don’t deserve happiness / I don’t deserve good things.
- I’m not capable of change.
- I’m not worthy.
- I’m not smart enough / I’m not good enough.
Affirmations to end self-sabotaging
- I am good enough / I can learn to be good.
- Abundance is my natural state of being.
- Well-being is my natural state of being.
- Why do I deserve to be happy?
- Why do I enjoy the results of my work?
- Why am I worthy of success?
- Why do I deserve good things?
- Why do I deserve to feel happy?
- Why do I practice positive self-talk?
- I’m not broken and healing. I’m awake and transforming.
- I have the courage to open myself up to more happiness, joy, and love.
How to stop self-sabotaging behaviors?
- Develop introspection.
The best solution is introspection. To stop deceiving yourself, you will need to look inward. You will need to truthfully observe the dynamics of your psychology and mind. When you look inward and it doesn’t feel right, that’s a clue that you’re fooling yourself.
It takes practice to develop this skill.
You will need to expand your awareness. As you go through the motions of everyday life, notice how you do things automatically. Notice how thoughts and actions can be either a manifestation of your authentic truth or just egoic falsehood.
You will need to observe the mechanics of your psychology in such a way that you are not getting entangled in the functions of the mind. It takes practice to observe something in a truthful, impartial, and accurate manner.
While doing this, you will notice the interplay between thoughts and emotions. You will notice emotions and what causes them. Most often, the causes will boil down to how you’re thinking about the situation, your belief system, and the meaning you’re attaching to these things.
Notice your victim mindset, notice your excuses, notice your justifications and rationalizations. Notice how your mind can make anything justified and true.
Notice how you’re blaming others and avoiding responsibility. Feel into it.
Notice your limiting beliefs.
Look inward and feel that the attachment to sabotaging thoughts and actions is wrong.
Notice when a thought feels dirty and inauthentic.
- Expand your awareness.
You can expand your awareness with meditation and mindfulness. When you become more conscious, you will be building your self-regulation skills, which will help you to manage your emotions and thoughts.
A great deal of self-sabotage happens when we can’t face our emotions. Mindfulness will help you to better cope with your emotions.
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Mindfulness will also help you to unhook yourself from low-consciousness behaviors. Simply by being more mindful during the times when you’re the most unconscious, you’ll learn to disidentify from low-consciousness behaviors.
Be more mindful WHILE engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors. Don’t stop it. Just watch it. Notice how it’s hurting you. After a while of that, the behavior will auto-correct.
- Unhook from stimulation and create a sober lifestyle.
Stop watching television, deactivate your social media accounts (or use apps that restrict your access to these sites), stop watching porn, play fewer video games, avoid junk food, and stop smoking and drinking.
When you allow yourself to get blasted with so much stimulation, you lose sensitivity to life.
Example #1: If you’ve gone through the process of cleaning up your nutrition, you had a powerful ah-ha moment when you tried to eat fast food again. The fast food almost made you sick. That happens because your body becomes more attuned to what it truly needs. If you eat fast food every day, you will most likely not even notice how that food is affecting your mood. You don’t have enough experiences to contrast them with each other and see the difference.
Example #2: Using too much technology. When we are engaging in over-stimulating activities like watching porn and scrolling through social media, the dopamine centers in the brain get over-stimulated. You subconsciously feel a sense of reward from doing these activities. Consequently, you feel less motivated to pursue your goals if you do them in excess.
“Self-sabotage thrives when you are over-stimulated.”
Abstaining from activities that cause over-stimulation will help you to increase the happiness chemical receptors in the brain. As a result, you will sharpen your senses and be better able to sense what is truly good for you and what is not.
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Over-stimulation happens when you continually feed yourself with over-stimulating activities, not allowing levels of the happiness chemicals to drop to a normal state.
On the other hand, a normal experience with a happiness chemical has a short spike, when you experience the effects, with a quick drop back to a normal state after the experience is over.
To prevent over-stimulation, allow the levels of happiness chemicals to drop to a normal level. This helps to maintain sensitization and not create an addictive pattern.
- Be your own gatekeeper.
Be the gatekeeper of your own thoughts, actions, and decisions. Examine your thoughts… and change them if they are self-sabotaging. Notice when you’re doing anything in excess and moderate your consumption.
- Be clear about what you want.
Being clear about what you want will keep you from changing your mind. It will be easier to stay consistent. Doubts will no longer control you.
- Notice how you waste time.
- Eliminate all your body blockages and limiting beliefs.
- Undermine selfish impulses.
Once you observe and become aware of selfish impulses, you will need to get rid of all your selfish desires.
- Break your upper limit.
Know your happiness comfort zone and confront your ego when it tries to bring you down. By becoming aware of the thoughts and feelings that accompany the upper limit problem, but not allowing them to control you, you can begin to let them go.
Maintain mindfulness especially after a big breakthrough in happiness. Your mind will come up with a thousand tricks to put you back into your old self. You must outsmart your mind.
“Feel the feeling, but don’t become the emotion.Witness it. Allow it. Release it.”
I realized that I hit my upper limit when I analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that I was doing better than ever before.
I sabotaged myself for years in this way. I was just not conscious enough to see it. I found that I sabotaged my happiness and success a few days after I told my accountability partner how great I was doing.
To break my upper limit… I started confronting my egoic impulses to bring myself down. I understood that those impulses were not me but were still part of me. So, I started to accept my shadow (unconsciousness). I was no longer denying it.
I told myself that I would live a more conscious lifestyle. I told myself that I would face my inner demons. I started maintaining more mindfulness over my selfish impulses and unconsciousness.
And when I started living this way, I became sober.
After years of trying to quit my addiction, I finally made it.
Going back to the upper limit problem, I also noticed how I was ignoring and not acknowledging compliments.
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For example, friends would give me compliments about my work on social media posts and I was just liking their comments. Or maybe I was having a conversation with them and then, when they complimented me, I would say something else without acknowledging it.
So, I started to accept compliments and thank people for them. For example, I would say, “Thank you, I really worked hard for this and it’s finally paying off!”
When somebody compliments you, acknowledge it.
Enjoy the good things, share the good memories with other people, and fall in love with your life.
Say this affirmation to yourself: “Why am I blessed this way?” Pat yourself on the back for achieving a level of success you’ve never believed possible.
- Ask yourself deep questions.
“Which thoughts, inner talk, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, actions, and choices are NOT aligned with my highest good and most delightful outcome?
“Can I let them go?”
Asking yourself questions will help you to shift your focus to different things. It will help you to connect to your heart intelligence and your truth.
- Practice the art of letting go.
Identify something within your experience and let it go.
This could be desires, grudges, needs, emotions, attachments, frustrations, thoughts, obsessions, habits…
- Contemplate the past and forgive yourself.
- Connect to your heart center.
Start thinking independently and rationally. Stop emphasizing religion, traditional family values, and authority just because you grew up in a culture and environment that supports them.
Notice how most people don’t choose their worldviews when growing up. If a Christian grew up in a Christian family, they would most likely become Christian. Rarely would somebody become a Buddhist or Muslim if they grew up in a Christian culture.
That’s a clue. People’s psyches are heavily influenced by the way they grew up.
They simply adopt the beliefs and values that were approved by the culture in which they grew up.
I’m not saying that’s wrong. It needs to be this way. This is the optimal strategy for our survival.
However, we must go beyond survival and express our true selves.
What I want for you is authenticity. If you’re reading this, then I guess you’re ready for it.
The truth that’s residing in your heart might not be approved by the culture in which you grew up.
You will have to be courageous enough to follow your heart and not cave in to peer pressure.
You will have to think independently. You will have to illuminate your inner truth.
Let me give you a few more examples to solidify this point of connecting to your heart.
Years ago, Ana started going to the gym. She surrounded herself with people who were eating a lot of meat. She watched YouTube videos and articles regarding fitness nutrition. She started to adopt the belief that she needed to eat a lot of meat to build muscle. Then, one day, she discovered a vegan fitness model who had her perfect body. She was inspired by the model. Ana’s mind was blown and she started eating like a vegan. Then she told her friends about it but they weren’t as excited about it as she was. Ana started doubting her decision and caved in to peer pressure.
I hope you see that she didn’t listen to her heart—and I hope you don’t make the same mistake.
Let’s look at relationships.
John is considering whether or not to end a relationship. On the one hand, he is very unhappy with his partner, as they have many conflicts and poor communication. On the other hand, he thinks that if he puts in more effort, maybe it could work. He decides to stay, try harder, and give them another chance… even though he didn’t see any sign of improvement.
Do you see where he potentially went wrong? Let me spoil it for you.
He allowed his mind and logic to make the decision.
Situations like this can feel difficult if you don’t connect to your heart.
John could stay for many other reasons. Why? Because the mind can justify anything. It can persuade us to do anything.
Maybe he is not certain if it’s the right time to leave. Maybe he needs more time and evidence to decide if it’s the right thing to leave. Maybe there are children involved and that’s why he stays. Maybe he goes to his friends and family for advice and they tell him to stay.
When you tune in to your heart, you will know what makes you feel at ease and what doesn’t. Listen to your body. Your heart is a great source of wisdom. Connect to it.
When you connect to your heart, your fears and doubts will dissolve.
This can also apply to your career. Your mind can come up with reasons to stay. Maybe you have a great salary but your heart longs for something different. Something like a life purpose. Maybe what you truly want is to start a business and stop working a nine-to-five job.
- Respect your values. Every time we act in conflict with our values, we lose self-respect.
You need to do some soul-searching to discover what these values are.
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- If you experience a little setback or mini-failure, consciously stop yourself from throwing it all away and seeing the whole thing as ruined—and then really ruining it.
One of the major obstacles when one is killing a bad habit and replacing it with a good one is negativity. You skip one day or you switch back to old habits once and then a tremendous amount of negativity creeps in, which can hamper the whole process altogether. It’s essential to get over such short-term negativity and avoid letting it snowball into a big one.
“Acknowledge your suffering without exaggerating it.”
- Look out for thoughts like ‘I will have just one cigarette, I will watch just one episode, I will just quickly check Facebook, Instagram/this funny video…’. These actions can snowball into large time- and life-wasting sessions. Don’t break the chain of good choices. Keep going. If you give up once, it’s much easier to give in the next time.
- Realize that action isn’t the solution! You must shine awareness on the problem instead of blindly taking action. You need to turn inward. The solution is inside you.
Aside from the tips above, it’s a good idea to prepare in advance and have a plan.
Step-by-step plan to stop self-sabotage
The first five steps of the plan require self-reflection and self-honesty. You will need to sit down and contemplate. Then you will go about your day. The last two steps require rigorous self-observation and mindfulness. True self-actualization and self-transformation happen during the last two steps of the plan.
- Identify a self-sabotaging behavior. You can’t stop yourself from sabotaging unless you can recognize where you’re sabotaging yourself. Make a list of your life-wasting behaviors and pay attention when they happen. You can use the list that I presented earlier.
- Uncover and understand the reasons why you self-sabotage with this behavior.
This will help you to discover your motivations.
Reasons include things like: it feels good in the short term, it’s a way you cope with stress, it’s a limiting belief, negative thoughts, approval, money, sex, comfort, toxic values, insecurities, fears, a way to avoid pain…
When you find what motivates you, you will be able to start eliminating your low-quality motivations and desires.
Most of the things that motivate you and that you desire are low-consciousness things that your culture has programmed into you.
When you shed awareness of your neurotic motivations, they will start to crumble and you will feel lost.
You will outgrow many motivations over the years. Trust that your motivation will come back to you in a more authentic, noble, and divine way.
- Think about how this behavior fits into the bigger picture of your life.
Are you using this behavior to distract yourself from finding yourself or seeking out the truth?
Are you using it like a drug while your vision is to actually live a healthy lifestyle?
Are you using it as an escape mechanism?
Are you allowing cravings and temptations to corrupt you and, thus, separate you from what is pure and correct?
Are you submissive to this emotion because you don’t want to face the emotional labor involved in solving it?
Yes?
Then simply notice that. Don’t overreact. Think about what will happen down the road if you continue to allow this. Consider the consequences.
“Through self-reflection you will gain the necessary insight, perspective and understanding to begin the process of change and transformation,” explained Deep Patel.
- Reflect on the times when you’re most vulnerable to engaging in this behavior. Think about what triggers this behavior.
During vulnerable times, we tend to lose the ability to see things clearly. That is when our subconscious is more likely to take over.
So, being aware of triggers is of fundamental importance.
When you know them, you can recognize them. When you recognize them, you are aware of what is going on inside yourself. When you’re aware of what is going on inside yourself, you can deal with that. When you can deal with what is going on inside yourself, you can avoid self-sabotage.
When you avoid self-sabotage long enough, you will internalize the shift from self-sabotage to self-empowerment.
Common triggers include: being bored, stressed out, tired, angry, lonely, anxious, burned out, or hungry.
- Find an alternative activity that would better serve you in that situation.
This is where you will need to do a little experiment. In this experiment, you will try to find out which activity is the best fit for your particular situation. You will need to have some patience here because it might not be the first one you try.
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- Become mindful of sabotage as it happens. Observe yourself.
Create space between the event and your response.
Awareness alone is helpful. Notice how you do these things largely mechanically and unconsciously.
Notice how it’s affecting other areas of your life.
When you’re consciously aware, you’re not going to be self-sabotaging. Self-sabotage happens only unconsciously. When you become aware of the habit, it is no longer a habit; it becomes a choice.
This attention is subtle but it is also a very big factor in busting through resistance, procrastination, and other self-sabotaging behaviors.
- Turn inwards. Let truth and love guide you.
Conclusion
Your turn: Share a story about how you’ve overcome your ego. Let’s get expressive in the comments so that others can draw inspiration from those stories.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment below.