If you feel that you continually undermine your own success, well-being or goals, I want you to know that you can change everything by the time you finish reading this article.
Self-sabotage is caused by thoughts, habits and behaviors that get in the way of progress, even though you genuinely want to achieve something. For example, if you habitually delay important tasks and procrastinate what you know needs to be done, that’s a form of self-sabotage. If you constantly doubt yourself and believe that you’re not good enough, that negative self-talk is limiting your potential. Perfectionism can paralyze you so that it is impossible to achieve your goals. Escaping discomfort or responsibility with food, alcohol, or other distractions will undermine your efforts to succeed.
Without talking with you directly, it is impossible to know your specific causes like old wounds, limiting beliefs, or unresolved emotions. But if you tend to undermine your own efforts and repeatedly experience failure in what you do, there are universal reasons for that and you must become aware of them.
Self-sabotage occurs when you want a result more than you want to do the work itself.
When a result matters more than the work itself, then your attention and desire is somewhere in the future. You hope that by doing this, you’ll get that, and getting that becomes the measure you use to determine the success of the project. For example:
You think you can get a great-paying job if your GPA is high enough, so your studies are limited only to what it takes to get good grades.
Or, you study and get good grades only because you want to do better than everyone else in the class because you love how that makes you feel.
You take a job because of the pay and pension, and your work at that job suffers because you’re not interested in it; you just want to be paid.
You start a YouTube channel because you want lots of attention, so the content you put out is only designed to gain followers.
In these instances, the work itself suffers from a lack of quality and attention because your motive is anchored somewhere else. As is true with anything, when the quality of work suffers, everything else is doomed to failure.
Often, the result you want is to avoid something because you’re afraid of it.
Whenever you are afraid and don’t know how to deal with it, you will unconsciously act in ways that you believe will separate you from that feeling. For example:
You take on a project at work because you’re afraid you’ll lose your job if you don’t. You are not giving your attention and best quality to the project itself; you’re just trying to deal with your fear.
For years now, you’ve been working at a job that you hate. Why do you stay? Because you don’t know what else you will do to pay the bills. Fear of uncertainty immobilizes you.
Your work suffers from a lack of feedback. But you avoid feedback because you don’t like hearing negative comments about you or your work. You are afraid to lose the approval that is so important to you.
If you allow fear to go unchecked in yourself, it will poison everything you do as a result.
In short, you self-sabotage because you don’t really want to do whatever it is that you’re doing. You either want something else, or you don’t want something else to happen because you’re afraid.
All wanting and fear happens when we are not present. We live with too much future or too much past and not enough right now. We separate ourselves from this moment by wanting or not wanting, and in that space between ourselves and the present lives greed, insecurity, anxiety, worry, nervousness, dread, panic, lust, disapproval, and lack of control. Can you really succeed with any of those things running in the background of your life?
That’s why you suffer from self-sabotage.
Do you want to understand how to stop the madness? Accept that you do your best work and are your best self when you are one with this moment. Stop separating yourself from what is right in front of you by thinking of something else that you want instead. Stop removing yourself from reality because you are afraid of what reality might bring. Both of those mindsets take you away from the thing that is right in front of you. With those mindsets, you cannot have an honest conversation with someone you love. You cannot reach your own potential or complete your best projects. You cannot achieve your goals.
So how can you eliminate self-sabotage from your life?
You can become one with the moment and thereby do your absolute best work and be your best self by consciously assigning one of three motives for doing anything:
- Accept it.
There are a lot of things that you must do simply because they need to be done – routines and tasks and responsibilities that are necessary to function in life. For example, paying the bills, washing the dishes, changing the oil, paying taxes, or attending a meeting. These are not things you would choose to do, but you have to do them, so accept it!
“This is in front of me right now and it has to be done so I accept that I must do it.” – allows you to become one with reality and the moment rather than separating yourself by fighting it, resisting, complaining, or wishing you were somewhere else. Accepting also allows you to be able to accomplish those tasks with your well-being intact and whole.
- Enjoy it.
Nothing can bring you joy. Many people have the false idea that something out there or someone else can bring them joy, which is a victim mindset that depends on all kinds of things that are outside themselves and outside of their control.
Instead, you bring your joy to it. “En” means from within. If you enjoy something, it means that the joy that is already within you shows itself in that activity. You infuse what you are doing with your joy.
Enjoyment is the second reason to do something. You know that what you are about to do connects with your spirit in such a way that you want to do it. You can’t wait to do it. You love it!
When you bring your joy to your task, then each step of the work is deliberate, filled with quality, joyful, and not interested in a future result.
- Be enthusiastic about it.
Enthusiasm adds a goal to something you enjoy.
As we’ve already seen, “en” means from within, or in.
“Thus” comes from the Latin word for God.
So enthusiasm literally means In God.
Which gives a higher purpose and perspective to what you enjoy.
Whenever you form a goal out of what you enjoy, you are enthusiastic about pursuing that goal. But the goal does not become the measurement for your well-being or identity; it’s simply a result of you doing what you love to do. You’d do it anyway, with or without the goal. Adding the goal is simply a way for you to contribute and give back to the world.
Don’t do anything without assigning one of these motives to it. When you work, play, relate, converse, eat, or do anything using one of these three motives, you become present, intent, observant, and creative, which is you showing up at your best.
That’s how you stop sabotaging yourself in your efforts.