It’s natural for every person to seek the best outcomes and invest in their future well-being — is this true? Although this would be the case in an ideal world, reality suggests that it’s not as clear-cut as we would love it to be. Sometimes, self-sabotage quietly enters the scene. We suddenly create barriers to our progress.
People have their reasons for preventing success — we at theliven app have found that many hopeful and ambitious individuals create this trap. Everyone can engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, even without noticing, but its impact still lingers. Why do we do this, and what can be done? Let’s explore it together.
Understanding Self-Sabotage
Imagine this: you repeatedly arrive late to essential work meetings even though you know it will help you get promoted. After several instances, your boss tells you they won’t go with the promotion. You go home feeling like you have failed.
This is self-sabotage.
This activity is a conscious or unconscious hindrance to your happiness or success. It takes many forms, which makes it difficult to spot. It can look like being snarky with your partner, engaging in harmful behaviors, missing deadlines, or choosing unhealthy foods. It’s one of the most difficult to explain psychological patterns that can damage your well-being in the long term.
But it’s not just something that stops you from achieving one goal; it’s a repetitive action that seems to cut you short when you face a chance to improve your life.
Causes of Self-Sabotage
At first glance, engaging in self-sabotage can sound quite strange — after all, who wouldn’t want to become happy, fulfilled, and accomplished? It is driven by deep-seated beliefs and past experiences that frame how we see the world.
Let’s look at the most common reasons for self-sabotage.
Fear of failure or success. Sometimes, we are so afraid of seeing ourselves fail at something that we’d rather immediately skip to this endpoint without trying. Or we can feel relatively comfortable in our status quo and be unsure about changes that can come when we become successful.
Fear of rejection. People who have an ingrained belief that loved ones will reject them can cheat, start arguments, or become emotionally unavailable with their partners. This way, they feel they have simply brought “the inevitable” faster.
Perfectionism. Yes, perfectionists tend to self-sabotage because they dread making something imperfect. If you have a report and want to make it ideal, you can postpone the start date until it’s too late.
Low self-esteem. When individuals don’t believe they deserve success or happiness, they unconsciously act in ways that confirm these notions. For example, those who believe in their inherent unworthiness can purposefully avoid engaging in activities they dream about or do them badly — this only supports what they think they know about themselves.
Sometimes, we do this consciously; other times, these reactions and behaviors aren’t immediately apparent.
Fighting Back: How to Overcome Self-Sabotage
Breaking free from the burden of self-sabotage begins with self-awareness. You should face the fact that you engage in self-sabotaging behaviors. Overcoming such behaviors takes time because they are deeply ingrained in your mind.
Identify Your Patterns
Everyone has their own struggles to face. Ask yourself about the situations when you create setbacks for yourself. You can try journaling and writing down answers to these questions:
- What areas of my life do I repeatedly struggle with despite wanting to succeed?
- Are there specific triggers that lead me to procrastinate, avoid, or self-destruct?
- What people or situations make me feel stuck?
If journaling isn’t for you, you can put a chair on it, look at it as if it’s a person, and talk to it.
Challenge Your Beliefs
We’ve already discussed how deeply rooted views of ourselves can cause self-sabotaging behaviors. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) proposes one of the most effective interventions to do so. It is commonly used in treatment or individually.
Think back to a time when you repeatedly engaged in self-sabotage. Ask yourself this question: What belief pushes me to delay my progress?
Write it down. For instance, you might notice that your inherent belief is “No one loves me.”
Then, question this belief. Consider, “Is this thought based on a fact, or is it my fear?” Write down arguments for and against this thinking. You can make a simple table with two rows and compare both sides.
After that, offer a more realistic belief that would make more sense. For example, instead of the previously generalized “No one loves me,” you can write something like “My partner, my family, and my friends love me. Some people don’t, but it’s okay. I shouldn’t be liked by everyone.”
Develop Healthy Coping Strategies
Self-sabotage is one of the unhealthy coping strategies that you can replace with more productive ones.
Set realistic goals. If you are afraid of big tasks, do them the smart way. Break your goals into small, achievable objectives that can be easily accomplished. Try to focus on progress instead of perfection.
Practice mindfulness. Here’s the tricky thing about self-sabotage: it causes us to grow distant and forget about being in the moment. By practicing various breathing techniques, stretching, or putting away your phone when eating or taking a break, you can ground yourself in the specific situation and try not to escape it.
Don’t forget about self-care. Self-care has many faces, and it’s one of the best strategies for dealing with self-sabotage because they are the two opposite forces. Remind yourself that you deserve to be happy — you can do so by eating something nice, using a cream you have been wanting, or taking a pleasant stroll. When your body believes it should care for itself, your self-sabotaging behaviors can disappear.
Breaking the Cycle
Unlearning something you have been conditioned to believe in can be tough, but it can be done with persistence and self-work. You can destroy the barriers holding you back by recognizing your self-sabotaging patterns and challenging the beliefs causing them. It’s time to stop being your enemy and become your ally.
