Self Sabotage
by Kellen Von Houser, M.A.How we Sabotage Ourselves
Most of us utilize multiple forms of self sabotage and our sabotaging behavior is typically subconscious. This is what makes it so difficult to identify. Do any of the descriptions below sound like you? Has anyone in your life accused you of doing these things? If so, you may want to focus on your behavior more carefully and see if there is truth in what they are saying.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Abusing alcohol or drugs is an excellent way to sabotage efforts to succeed. Being drunk or high will prevent us from doing the things we need to do in order to get ahead. The hangover which occurs afterwards will also impair our ability to perform at our peak levels or meet our responsibilities.
Abusive Relationships
Being involved in an abusive relationship takes all of our time and energy and distracts us from taking care of ourselves. All of our time and energy is used keeping the abuser happy. If self sabotage is the opposite of self care, any form of self abuse is the ultimate form of self sabotage. Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and abusive relationships all fit that bill nicely.
Birds of a Feather
Those of use who self sabotage are usually drawn to other people who self sabotage. We are who we associate with. We surround ourselves with people who are negative and hypercritical. They constantly remind of us of how incompetent and unworthy we are. And they talk to themselves the same way. Surrounding ourselves with people who are going nowhere, and don’t want us to go anywhere either, will make it that much harder to fight our way out of old, destructive behaviors.
Drama Queens
Creating a lot of drama in our lives allows us to be distracted from working toward concrete goals. It has the additional benefit of distracting us from the very fact that we aren’t meeting our goals or getting where we want to be. How do we create drama? We become overly impatient with people or take out frustrations on innocent bystanders. We cause unnecessary conflicts. We catastrophize minor annoyances or problems until we believe they are life altering experiences. We collect other drama queens as friends so if we are running short of our own dramas we can always become involved in one of theirs. There are as many ways of creating drama as there are people sabotaging themselves with it. Dealing with all of these “crises” uses all our time and energy and prevents us from pursuing the really important things. It also provides a nice excuse. We simply couldn’t get to that job interview because we had a “crisis” to deal with.
Procrastinators
Putting things off to the point that they never get done is an excellent way to sabotage our own efforts. This allows us to pretend that we are going to get to it someday, just not today. Actually, we never get to it and it never gets done, but this way we never have to face that fact – or take responsibility for it. If this is your preferred method of sabotage, you may want to read a more in depth discussion concerning “Procrastination”.
Martyrs
Many of us spend so much time taking care of everyone else there is nothing left for ourselves; no time, no energy, nothing. A lot of us simply don’t realize that we are putting so much into everyone else at the expense of ourselves. Once brought to our attention, we will stop doing this behavior and start to take better care of ourselves. Some of us, however, are heavily invested in being perceived as suffering and sacrificing. When this is the case, we must look closely inside ourselves to see what we are gaining from such a perception. It may be a convenient excuse for avoiding success. “If only I didn’t have to take care of my sick wife, I could apply for that better job.”
Type A Personalities
Type A personalities function a lot like drama queens, only they internalize their self created crises rather than externalizing them onto others. Type A personalities often create impossible deadlines and expectations for themselves then stress out about not achieving them. Perfectionists are often Type A personalities. The unreasonable demands Type As place on themselves cause stress and that stress often spills over onto others. If we are a Type A personality our obsession with meeting these impossible demands also prevents us from stepping back and seeing the big picture so we can focus on bigger goals. We miss the forest obsessing about the trees and never get where we want to in life.
Negative Self Talk
It’s difficult to succeed at anything when we have a constant stream of criticisms, name calling, insults, and derogatory remarks directed at ourselves. Those of us who were raised in hypercritical families may have internalized the way they spoke to us and now speak to ourselves in the same negative, self-defeating ways. If we constantly tell ourselves how stupid we are, that we will never get anywhere, or that we don’t deserve anything we won’t be able to show up and do what’s necessary to succeed. To find out more about read the article, “Self Talk”.
Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions are beliefs we hold that are untrue. We then act on these untrue beliefs which often causes problems. An example of a cognitive distortion would be if “Joe’s” supervisor tells him that he wants to meet with Joe at two o’clock this afternoon. Joe starts to ruminate about what his supervisor might want and decides the supervisor is going to fire him. Joe then works himself into a frenzy based on this belief and prepares a hostile statement to make to the boss based on this false belief. Joe marches into the supervisor’s office at two o’clock, fuming and prepared to tell him off, only to find out that the supervisor merely wanted to speak to him about the project on which Joe was working. It’s easy to see how Joe’s incorrect assumption could easily have cost him his job. The issue of cognitive distortions is covered more thoroughly in the article, “Cognitive Distortions”.
Negative Thinking
Negative thinking is one form of a Cognitive Distortion. It’s hard to “move toward the light” in our lives when we consistently focus solely on the dark. It’s hard to move towards what’s right when we are constantly focusing on what’s wrong. More on this subject can be also found in the “Cognitive Distortions” article.
Now that we’ve identified some of the forms self sabotage can
take we can be more aware of some of the ways we sabotage ourselves.
If you’ve identified a form that you use to sabotage yourself,
and you were referred to a more in depth article on that topic, start
by reading that article. Learning as much as we can about the forms
of sabotage that we use on ourselves can make us more aware of our own
behavior, and therefore more likely to be able to change it. The question
then becomes, “What can we do about it”?
Self Sabotage
What is Self Sabotage?
Causes of Self Sabotage
How we Sabotage Ourselves
How to Change Self Sabotaging
Behaviors
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