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Overcoming Self Sabotage - How to Stop Holding Yourself Back
Self-sabotage makes you feel small. It’s not perfect when you want to achieve your dreams. Here are some tips to stop self-sabotage.
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Sabotage Keeps You Small
Self-sabotage is a real problem and quite widespread. People often sabotage themselves when they believe they’re worthless or good enough.
We are our problems, creating the shadows we stand in. This keeps us small and prevents us from living our dream lives.
Let’s stop that. Here are my tips against self-sabotage, which I hope will help you as much as they have helped me.
Recognize Self-Sabotage in Yourself
Self-sabotage is often very subtle. You usually don’t realize you’re doing it until you examine yourself closely.
For instance, I avoided saving money for years with all sorts of valid excuses: I had too many expenses, I didn’t earn enough, it was too complicated, I wanted to enjoy my money now, and so on.
However, the desire to build a financial safety net never left. Yet, obstacles and reasons to stop would appear whenever I tried to start a savings plan. I was sabotaging myself.
It took me a few years to realize what was happening. Once I saw it, I could address my behavior.
Recognizing your self-sabotage patterns is genuinely the first step toward freedom. The most common form is procrastination, but we sabotage ourselves in many subtle ways.
- You sabotage your happiness by constantly focusing on things that are wrong or could go wrong.
- You sabotage your productivity by constantly getting distracted.
- You sabotage your success by procrastinating because success scares you.
- You sabotage your health with perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking.
- You sabotage meaningful progress by constantly starting new projects.
- You sabotage intimate relationships by building walls around yourself because you’re afraid to be vulnerable.
- Etc.
Let’s look at small steps you can take to reduce self-sabotage.
Accept Fear and Uncertainty
You engage in self-sabotage because you feel fear. You feel anxious and uncertain about the results you can achieve, causing you to sabotage yourself unconsciously.
You might even say you’re afraid of your power and potential. This isn’t surprising. You can achieve seemingly impossible things when you genuinely manage to step out of your way.
But that’s the point: becoming truly powerful means everything will change. And that change can feel terrifying.
If you give your all, you can become very successful. But success comes with responsibilities and expectations that you find daunting, so you procrastinate.
- If you open up entirely in a relationship, you feel incredibly vulnerable. That vulnerability feels threatening, so you build a wall.
If you put yourself out there and show what you’ve got, people will have opinions about you. The thought of negative opinions holds you back, so you keep yourself small.
Becoming more successful than many people around you can impact those relationships, which can feel threatening. So, you jump from project to project without genuinely committing.
- You’re afraid of feeling completely happy because you can’t bear losing that happiness. So, you focus on problems and worries.
You’re afraid to fully relax because you feel like you’ll lose control of your life, so you cultivate stress.
- Etc.
Once you understand what you’re afraid of, you can work to accept it. By clearly seeing your fear, you shine a light on it. Fear is like darkness—it disappears once you shine a light on it.
By examining your fear, you often quickly see how irrational it is. This helps you weaken the fear, allowing you to move forward.
Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen. — Alyce Cornyn-Selby
Define Your Dreams
What would you do if you didn’t keep yourself small? If you didn’t worry about fears? What would you do if you couldn’t feel fear?
Think about it. The answer gives you an idea of the dreams you’ve been postponing. What do you truly want?
Thinking about your biggest dreams without the associated fears gives you the freedom to look further than usual. Use this broader perspective to set an inspiring goal for yourself. Mark a point on the horizon and acknowledge your fear and uncertainty.
For example:
- I’m going to start my own business and take it seriously. Even though it is fascinating, I will do everything to achieve the success I envision.
I will take steps to realize that world trip, even though I’m terrified of leaving.
- I choose to be vulnerable in this relationship, even though it feels incredibly awkward and scary.
- I will finish this project, even though I sometimes feel incapable and unworthy.
- I will focus on gratitude and love, even though negativity feels more comfortable.
You can experience fear and still move forward, like walking step by step through a dark cave with a flashlight. It’s scary, uncertain, and uncomfortable, but you move forward toward the life of your dreams.
Move Forward in Small Steps
In a dark cave, you shouldn’t run or bike quickly. You’ll likely hurt yourself, preventing you from continuing the journey.
This also applies when moving through unknown and frightening areas of life. Going too fast can create more problems, cause emotional damage, and lead to even more self-sabotage in the future.
Moving forward in small steps reduces the chance of self-sabotage. Why? Because small steps aren’t threatening.
- Planning an entire world trip feels overwhelming. Reading a travel guide for an hour is manageable.
Starting your own business feels scary and complicated. This afternoon, I read a few web pages about how VAT works, and it is simple.
- Being vulnerable in a relationship is scary. Working tonight to open up and not be defensive is doable.
- Giving a lecture every week feels unimaginably scary. Working on your slideshow for an hour now is fine.
Being super successful in your work feels challenging and complex. However, taking a small step toward success now is easy.
The smaller the step, the less resistance you feel. By combining many small steps, you can steadily move toward your dreams without being paralyzed by self-sabotage.
And that’s important to know. Because self-sabotage keeps you small while you have so much potential to contribute in ways that benefit us all. You carry a unique set of talents that allow you to contribute uniquely to the world around you. By sabotaging yourself, you prevent the world from benefiting from what you have to offer.
That sounds like a real shame. So, move forward, step by step, and do what you must to realize your dreams.
You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you. — Lisa Kleypas
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