My Self-Sabotaging Behaviours – Do You Recognise Any of These Too?
Today I’m going to talk about my self-sabotaging behaviours and specifically my personal experiences with self-sabotage which are many and varied.
If, like me you have a desire to achieve more in your life by setting goals for the things you want to have, do and be, but then you fail to achieve some or all of the things you know in your heart you’re capable of, then you will probably recognise some of these self-sabotage tactics at work in your life too.
Of course, I don’t have all the answers (if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post!) but I hope that by surfacing my own self-sabotage demons that it will help you identify where and how you could be self-sabotaging and then come up with a plan that will help you move forward.
1 Undoing all my previous good work
The most obvious way I self-sabotage is a tendency to undo all the good work I’ve already achieved. I have many examples of this…here are just a few:
• My weight loss/weight gain journey over the last 5+ years
• My love-hate relationship with personal fitness and exercise routines
• The many stumbling blocks I’ve had to overcome to learn how to manage my personal finances – multiple times
If you have a tendency to undo previous good progress, you might recognise this: I keep to my plans and intentions for weeks, sometimes months, and then, for no apparent reason I just stop.
I stop monitoring and recording my progress and stop doing the things that are helping me make progress. If I stay in this mindset for long enough, then the ground I’ve captured is lost. I start to slide and my progress begins to lessen as I fall back into old ways.
2 Failing to Align My Actions with My Goals
It’s so easy to avoid taking actions on goals by getting on with the busy work instead. Busy work for me looks like household chores, dealing with other peoples’ needs and frittering away time on social media.
Of course none of these are bad in themselves, but when I need to be aligning my actions with my goals, using avoidance techniques like this is a sure way to feel frustrated but also smug that I got something done!
But in the greater plan for my life direction, it was the wrong thing to do.
3 Inconsistent Actions
Start-stop and then start-stop again, repeat often on an irregular basis.
As funny as that sounds, this is a fairly regular pattern of how my self-sabotage looks when it’s actively functioning.
I’m well aware that I’m a great starter. I love new, shiny objects and am always willing to give the next scheme a go. But of course, in order to do that, I have to let go of the scheme I’m currently working with.
This inconsistent action then leads to inconsistent outputs as nothing really gets a good chance of getting fully finished before I’m off and running with the next idea.
4 Bad Moods/Good Moods
The secret to success isn’t massive strokes of luck or knowing the right people (although that can and will help), it’s being able to stick with your plans long after the enthusiasm has left.
How often have you not followed through on your plans because you just don’t feel like it? Yes, me too.
I could be tired, upset, feeling angry or disappointed about something and so my mood tumbles. Or, I’m in a particularly good mood, so working on some of the daily routine tasks that will bring my goals to life feels far too tedious so I avoid it.
Moods can be a huge self-sabotaging factor in goal achievement. Realistically, for most of the time you’re not going to feel like doing the work. Instead you’d rather chill, meet with friends, eat-out, watch TV, surf the net, indulge your hobby or do any other instant-gratification activity rather than doing the work your goal will require.
There’s no quick and easy answer to this. We all have mood swings for one reason or another. The trick is to stay aware of any tendency you have to not do the important goal work because you just don’t feel like it right now, acknowledge that it’s ok to feel this way and then just do the work anyway.
5 Too Much Planning
I love planning. The process makes me feel happy and optimistic that this time I will apply myself consistently and I will achieve all these wonderful things I’ve set out for myself.
In fact, I enjoy the planning process so much that I can spend lots of time setting up spreadsheets and tables, downloading ‘helpful’ apps and putting reminder alarms into my phone of when I’m meant to start and stop various activities.
All this is great, until I eventually realise that in my optimism I have given myself far too much to do, particularly as I have a normal, every-day life too that needs maintenance.
Then, of course, the plans get discarded as being too much, too restrictive or too enthusiastic and any one of the other headings can come into play.
6 Not Finishing What I Start (failing to deliver)
It’s easy at the beginning to live off my motivation and enthusiasm to work on my goals. I’m buoyed up for a while with the anticipation of having or achieving something better than I have now, but over time, that enthusiasm will be worn away as I realise the level of commitment that’s needed to see the work out to the end.
Most people give up at this stage because they just feel that it’s too much work.
Related Post: Why You Need To Finish What You Start
This is just another form of self-sabotaging at play. The goal has suddenly become overwhelming and so it’s easier to stop than to push through to the end.
7 Not Applying Damage Limitation Techniques
This is one of my main self-sabotaging methods!
Have you ever had a day where you take a wrong turn and then your plans all seem to fall to pieces? Examples of this could be eating the cake when you’re trying to cut out sugar, getting distracted when you’re trying to get an important task done or giving up instead of asking for help.
But instead of picking up where you left off before the damage was done, you think, well there’s no point carrying on now, I’ll start again tomorrow.
Consider instead if you’d seen the error, distraction or need for help objectively as a pause in your plans, rather than a stop sign and just carried on from where you’d left off?
The idea of damage limitation is that you accept that your plans have gone slightly off track, but there’s no need to keep going in that wrong direction!
Get back to your plan as quickly as possible, and limit the effects of the pause to its absolute minimum and thereby increase your overall chances of success.
How I Lessen Self-Sabotage
As I said at the beginning of this blog post I don’t have all the answers, at least not yet! But what I have developed that is helping me, is an awareness that when I start to procrastinate or avoid my goals, it’s one (or more) of my self-sabotaging behaviours surfacing.
Developing a self-awareness and being mindful of the kinds of self-sabotage methods you use can help you get back to your planned goal activities quicker, or at least help you understand that it’s not that you’re a just a no-hope serial procrastinator!
What to do next…
> Read another post – How To Stay Focused and Motivated When Results Are Slow
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