Overcoming Self-Sabotage: How to Stop Getting in Your Own Way
Do you have a habit of the following behaviors?
Procrastination? Being overly critical of yourself? Giving up before trying? Perfectionism? Avoiding responsibilities? Gaslighting? Constantly expecting the worst?
You may exhibit self-sabotaging behavior if you say yes to one or more. Self-sabotage can manifest in any and every aspect of your life and worsen your problems, causing great mental distress.
The good news is that there are ways to overcome and prevent future self-sabotage. This starts with understanding its causes, recognizing its patterns and consequences, and implementing actionable strategies.
When your worst enemy is yourself, it’s time to reframe your identity as your new favorite hero.
Understanding Self-Sabotage
What is self-sabotaging?
Self-sabotage is the act of undermining one’s own success or progress through covert, destructive behavior. It’s like psychological and emotional self-harm. And since the sabotage is underhanded, one may not even be aware that it is happening.
For example, self-sabotage could be as subtle as just as you start making progress on your fitness goals; you find yourself skipping workouts or indulging in unhealthy snacks. Or you finally get a chance to showcase your skills at work, but you downplay your achievements or avoid taking on challenging projects. It could be almost paying off credit card debt and then treating yourself to a last-minute spending spree at a sample sale. Or bailing on a blind date even though you’ve longed for a romantic partner. Self-sabotage can take many forms, but the end result is always the same-it’s you getting in your own way.
In life coaching and therapy at Healthy Minds NYC, we help our clients to be aware of moments when they “hit the ULP,” a term borrowed from psychologist Gay Hendricks. The ULP, or upper limit problem, describes self-sabotaging, meaning the moment you’ve reached your internal limit for how much success or abundance you think you deserve. To keep yourself from exceeding this limit, you engage in behaviors that allow you to retreat from your potential growth.
At the root of self-sabotage are negative beliefs about yourself that keep you working in opposition to your happiness and growth. These beliefs may be due to low self-esteem, inadequacy, perfectionism, or a fear of failure. Think of it as a form of cognitive dissonance. Medical News Today defines cognitive dissonance as “the uncomfortable tension a person can feel when they hold two beliefs that contradict each other or when their actions contradict their beliefs.” You want to lose weight and know exercising is good for you. Yet you also believe you’re “not a gym person.” When your alarm goes off in the morning for the gym, you conveniently take too long in the shower, so you must skip the workout or be late for work. You secretly resolved the discomfort of your opposing beliefs (“I’m not a gym person”) by self-sabotaging.
Over time, self-sabotage can be detrimental to your mental health. “Self-sabotage sets you up to fail in a number of ways. First, it reinforces negative behaviors that eat away at your potential for success. [...] It can also damage your reputation. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to, there’s a real risk that your boss and colleagues could come to see you as unreliable, uncommitted, lazy, or lacking drive” (Mind Tools).
Recognizing Self-Sabotaging Patterns
Since self-sabotage is often about the mental tricks we play on ourselves, it can be challenging to recognize self-sabotaging patterns. To demystify this for you, below are some of the common signs of self-sabotaging behavior we see in New York professionals:
At Work
Avoiding opportunities for promotion or advancement due to fear of success or failure
Generating more projects than you can possibly finish at no one else’s request
Investing time and energy into low-priority tasks while neglecting high-priority tasks
Ruminating about strategies to solve various challenges at work instead of taking action to resolve problems
In Relationships
Instigating conflict in intimate relationships to create distance
Engaging in unhealthy relationships with toxic individuals
Complaining about changes other people need to make while ignoring the same behaviors in yourself
Interacting with someone based on potential or expectation rather than reality
In Personal Development
Responding with negative self-talk, especially after receiving positive feedback
Neglecting self-care to put other people’s needs ahead of yourself
Creating self-imposed rules that correlate
Overcomplicating solutions to problems
Adhering to a cycle of denial and then binging on simple pleasures from food to relaxation and entertainment
Depending on the root of self-sabotage in your life, your particular patterns may look different than someone else’s. Here are two critical questions from Barbara Field at Very Well Mind that you can ask yourself to unearth self-sabotage in your life: “Have you been prone to thwart your good efforts repeatedly? Did these acts occur before you were about to succeed or when you were close to achieving your personal desires?”
The goal of these questions is to notice self-sabotage and the triggers that tend to drive you into destructive behavioral responses. “Documenting and analyzing behavior is a key component of preventing self-sabotage” (Psychology Today).
Consequences of Self-Sabotage
Self-sabotaging behavior has true consequences. In the short term, it may cause stagnation in one's personal and professional goals.
The long-term consequences are also bleak, says Dr. Kelley M. Pennington, a social worker and senior vice president of operations and behavioral health at Magellan Healthcare. “Self-saboteurs may then experience the self-fulfilling prophecy principle,” she says. “Because the goal was not reached, their belief that they could not achieve that goal is confirmed. The saboteur continues along the, ‘See, I knew I couldn’t do it’ line of thinking” (Forbes.com).
For example, one of our clients came into therapy wanting to figure out why she couldn’t get ahead professionally. She was drowning in debt from low-paying jobs and suffering from burnout and depression. The longer we worked with her, the more we uncovered her habit of self-sabotaging at work by continually taking jobs beneath her education and experience level. She also was struggling with a deep sense of inadequacy due to verbal and emotional abuse from a previous employer. That job has left her with persistent doubt that she had what it took to compete in an advanced position. So she played small to protect herself from confirming she couldn’t hack it. Unfortunately, the more she took on small jobs, the more she reinforced the idea that she was not meant to play at a higher level. By illuminating her core beliefs about herself and work, we were able to help her aim for more appropriate positions that supported her level of competence while also giving her the kind of compensation she deserved.
Strategies for Overcoming Self-Sabotage
If you’re wondering how to stop self-sabotaging, there are steps you can take to break free.
Start with self-awareness.
In cognitive-behavioral therapy, we teach you how to become an expert at noticing your own thoughts and behaviors. You can develop this skill now by routinely pausing to consider the goals you have for your life and the behaviors that you see happening instead. “Once you have identified the goal and the behavior that’s ‘blocking’ it, you can start to understand what the negative behavior is actually telling you” (Better Up).
Track your triggers.
Overcoming self-sabotage is easier once you identify your patterns. Keeping a journal is a helpful way to notice the perpetual challenges you’re having around reaching your goals. You can share the thoughts you’re tracking with your therapist or coach to get support unraveling your cycle of self-sabotage.
Let’s look at an example. Pretend you find a therapist in New York and say, “I want to have boundaries around my work hours (goal), but whenever it’s 5:00 I find one more task to complete and end up staying late (behavior).” Your therapist notices that you report this occurrence happening each week. So he prompts you to slow down and unpack what’s happening. You realize you work late because, subconsciously, you’re sad there is no one to get home to, and you are avoiding returning to an empty apartment. However, the more you work, the less time you have to develop a romantic relationship or connect to a partner. Instead of focusing on placing more boundaries around work hours, you and your therapist decide to address the grief over your last romantic relationship and also find opportunities for new friendships.
Practice mindfulness.
Choosing an alternative response and breaking out of a familiar pattern can be uncomfortable. Learning to tolerate the discomfort of new, healthier behaviors is a critical mental health strategy if you want to reach your goals. Mindfulness techniques like breath exercises and meditation can help strengthen your ability to be present and compassionate toward yourself in the midst of difficult feelings.
Share your experience.
One benefit of therapy is it provides a safe place to regularly communicate your life goals and receive accountability around reaching those objectives. If you don’t have a therapist or a coach to share with, invite a safe friend or family member to listen as you share some of your desires for your life and how you feel you’re unable to realize certain goals. Verbalizing what you want and the barriers you may face in achieving your goals can be a powerful way to take more ownership of your life. As you speak out about your hopes, you begin to recognize the lengths you’re willing to go to break unhealthy patterns and experience more freedom.
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Resilience
Self-sabotage is fundamentally about being your own worst enemy. Therefore, overcoming sabotage becomes possible when you choose to be an ally to yourself, championing your goals and cheering yourself on as you grow personally and professionally. Start by proactively cultivating self-compassion and resilience.
Self-compassion is “the act of treating ourselves with acceptance, understanding, and kindness, regardless of our personal shortcomings” (Psychology Today). You can do this by integrating small habits in your daily life that foster positive care for yourself.
Care for your body. Maintain rest, movement, and good nutrition.
Be mindful. Rehashing the past or rehearsing the future keeps you from taking positive action in the present. Develop practices that draw you into awareness of the present moment.
Extend yourself radical acceptance. It’s okay that you’re imperfect—so is everyone else. Allow your flaws to be reminders that you are human, and graciously work to grow in areas where you make mistakes.
Be sure to celebrate along the way! Be kind to yourself and practice self-forgiveness during momentary slip-ups. You progress each time you choose to act in your best interest rather than undermine your life goals.
