Have you wondered why whenever something good happens in your life, it doesn’t last? Perhaps it’s been a relationship where you felt in the beginning this is the perfect person for you, but then you start feeling let down by them or convince yourself they don’t truly care for you in the way you do for them? Or maybe you started your dream job, but then a short time later you come across a really difficult co-worker or boss that makes your life miserable and you start really disliking your job?
You might have an inkling that you are self-sabotaging but you don’t know how or why, or perhaps you didn’t even realize you were self-sabotaging and you believe the other person is at fault and not yourself. Let me explain what self-sabotaging is and why it happens.
Psychology Today describes self-sabotaging when your own behavior creates problems in daily life and interferes with long-standing goals. Some of the most common forms of self-sabotaging behaviors are procrastination, comfort eating and self-medicating with alcohol or drugs. It also might be picking fights with your partner or family members or continually getting into relationships with the wrong person or maybe you will almost be at your goal weight, then go on an eating binge as a reward and the list can go on.
Now we know what it is, why does it happen? My perspective is that self-sabotage happens because deep down we don’t feel like we are enough. It will happen when we expect something from other people that we haven’t been able to provide to ourselves like love and respect. For example, if you want your partner to hold you up on a pedestal and treat you like royalty every day, but you feel that they don’t always put you or your needs first, then you will start getting upset and even a little indignant that they aren’t treating you in the way you expect. You may even believe they lack respect for you. However, deep down you don’t treat yourself in the way you want them to treat you. Perhaps you don’t have established boundaries so you either let others walk all over you or you might be saying yes to things you don’t want to do. Maybe internally you criticize and beat yourself up constantly when you make a mistake or you could even have emotional outburst when things don’t go your way. So, if we don’t fully love and respect ourselves, how can we possibly expected others to do so? We should role model the way we want others to treat us. This isn’t something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about because most of us have insecurities, often which stem from early childhood experiences. Most of us grow up feeling like we aren’t enough and if we felt that way in childhood, we will continue to find situations and experiences throughout our life to reinforce that belief. Ultimately when the things we truly desire come along, deep down we don’t believe we deserve them, so that is why we end up sabotaging the very thing we wanted and felt would make us happy. That was a lot to take in and you may take some reflection time to really process it.
So, what can we do about it? We need to start believing that we are enough for this to change. Sounds simple, but we know that we can’t just change a limiting belief immediately and it takes work. Here is a link to one of my other articles that talk about how to overcome limiting beliefs, so I won’t go into it in here. It takes a lot of effort because our Ego gets in the way. Let me talk a little about Ego first so you understand. Our Ego’s job is to keep us safe and within our comfort zone. That is why we get that little voice full of self-doubt popping up right as we are about to step outside of our comfort zone. That is really our Ego talking because it likes where we are now, it wants us to stay safe and comfortable, thinking that is the best thing for us. However as we know that isn’t really the best thing for us as we need to continue to grow and develop throughout our lives and take risks to live the life we want and reach our full potential. To override our Ego, we need to tap into our intuition or instincts, which will guide us in the direction that is right for us, although one that might be uncomfortable at first, but if we are listening to our intuition, it will never steer us wrong. To do this however, you need to make space by getting out of your busy, overthinking mind and start to tune into the physical sensations within your body to really hear what they are telling you. You can do this through many different methods such as meditation or tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique), journaling, breathing exercises etc. Anything that takes you away from focusing on your thoughts and creates some quite space. I used to believe that I couldn’t meditate until I learned how to do it properly and now I do it every single day as I’ve seen so many benefits from it. It takes no more than 15 minutes of my time, but if I skip a day for any reason, I really can feel the difference. If you are someone who has tried Meditation before and felt like you couldn’t do it, check out my blog post on Meditation Made Easy as it explains how to meditate without feeling like you’ve failed at it.
Back to the self-sabotage, once you start overcoming your limiting beliefs and truly start believing you are enough, you will find that you no longer self-sabotage as you finally believe you deserve what you have and your future desires. One important note though, don’t forget to express gratitude for what you have because that will encourage life to keep providing more great things to you because you are so grateful and it will also keep you happier in general because you will recognize all of the amazing things you have in your life every single day.
If you need additional support or are ready to go deeper, schedule your free transform your life coaching session where we will explore your vision and goals and uncover your hidden challenges. You can book this free session at www.liveyoursensationallife.com
Photo by Luz Fuertes on Unsplash
