Avoiding Self Sabotage – 7 steps to Permanent Positive Change

Self Sabotage is something we are all guilty of at times, however those who engage in constant negative self talk find this cycle of initial motivation to complete failure is a regular occurrence in one or more areas of their life. People can and do change! Do not, under any circumstances assume you are “just like that” and cannot legitimately transform your actions, behavior or circumstances. I’ve done it and seen plenty of other people do it too. If you have taken the time to come here and read this, you are already on the way to achieving it! I believe self sabotage stems from people not believing that deep down they deserve what they want. Life doesn’t have to be depressing, hard, sad and pointless.
Life should be abundant, happy, exciting, educational and emotional, don’t settle for anything less.

My personal experience

I’ve noticed the people most affected by this tend to be very selfless and generous. Always doing things to please other people. They get immense pleasure from helping and supporting everyone around them, to the extend that they are uncomfortable if the favour is returned and feel awkward asking for help when they need it.

If there is one point I want you to take away from this article, it would be:

If you notice you are in a cycle of self sabotage, become more selfish.

Learn to become comfortable with doing things for your own benefit. Take time to consider how your intended behavior or action might affect YOU in the near or distant future. Will it be a good day at work tomorrow if you yell at a colleague because they are late on a task? Will you be fitter next week if you skip today’s training session? I believe just as we can have physical imbalances in our bloodstream/body, our emotional levels can be out of balance. If you self sabotage in any area of your life, it might just be that you need to be more selfish and realise that if YOU are happier and healthier, it will resonate with everyone and everything you deal with on a daily basis. If you enjoy making other people happy, you should know by now how to do it, so give a little of that medicine to yourself.

What do I mean when I say for your own benefit?

• Being comfortable handling highly stressful situations
• Being assertive at work without being aggressive
• Eating wholesome food to support your body (your life’s vehicle!)
• Avoiding conflict by calming down before responding to accusations/arguments
• Using spare time to educate yourself on something you need to be better at
• Telling people you love, that you love them!
• Celebrating achievements no matter how small

Do any of these things “benefit” you?

• Flying off the handle during arguments
• Admitting defeat before you begin
• Unwillingness to increase demands during training
• Make excuses for not eating nutritionally dense, healthy food
• Blame someone, something for anything that you perceive as going “wrong”
• Procrastinating instead of taking immediate action
• Taking on too much at once
• Being disorganised

Everyone has the resources and ability to initiate a true change in their behavior to stop the cycle of self sabotage. The positiveness can and will snowball to the point where you have no choice but to accept it! You need to get momentum with that initial drive and goal, and then change into a comfortable gear to get through the journey in a reasonable time frame.

Are you lazy by nature? If so, it will strongly affect any long term change. Be prepared for this and do whatever it takes to remind yourself daily that this really matters to you. I’ve said before – a bad day shouldn’t create a bad week. Accept you didn’t get it right this time and pick up where you left off, immediately. Celebrate improvements and ignore failures. Focus the energy on what you want, not what you are doing wrong.

Be realistic with goals, expectations, time frames when planning anything in your life. Keep in mind that other people will do their best to bring you down, not even consciously a lot of the time. Jealousy can cause people to say and do things they wouldn’t do if they were conscious of it. Don’t rely on other peoples compliments or comments to uplift you. Beating self sabotage is a deeply personal, internal experience that must be driven by you, for you.

Ready to stop self sabotage? Get a pen and paper and continue on:

• Allow yourself to accept praise. You need to be comfortable feeling proud of any change and achievements. Give yourself permission to shine! What has happened in your life to make you think you do not deserve long term success? Write it down.
• IDENTIFY Take the time to write down what it is you are “failing” at. What areas of your life do you continually self sabotage? Next to each one, write how you can combat it. You might plan to count to 10 before responding to an email, or packing your training gear into the car so you can get changed at work and go right to the gym. Plan simple strategies to combat the individual circumstances so you have a failsafe in place to keep you on track.
• What is the PATTERN? Get detailed here and really express on paper what goes through your mind before, during and after a cycle of self sabotage.
• How long does it take from motivation to failure? (hours, days, weeks, months?)
• Barriers to success – List anything or anyone who presents a challenge to your success? (e.g. work hours, family member, lack of information) Present solutions to each of your barriers.
• What should the priorities in your life be? (For me they are fitness, health, education, happy relationships, time for rest/play, helping others.) Can you combine priorities to ensure success?
• Seal the deal. If you train yourself to have immediate awareness when initiating your pattern of behavior that results in self sabotage you can stop it before it gets any momentum, and redirect your energy.

Thankyou again for reading, I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to check out my articles. I love writing and hope I have helped someone today!