Self-sabotage: how to stop messing up your life and make a real difference

clinical psychologist, author of the book “Psychosomatics. How our brain deceives the body”

How often do we make a promise to ourselves to start a new life on Monday? Go to the gym, start reading a book, enroll in a course, start studying… But as soon as the cherished day comes, there are immediate reasons not to do it. This destructive subconscious behavior is called self-sabotage by psychologists.

Why is it dangerous and how to overcome it?

What we are talking about

Self-sabotage is a behavior in which a person harms himself. It manifests itself in the form of procrastination, self-harm, and eating up problems. It is also typical that failures are attributed to external factors, while successes are attributed solely to oneself.

Let’s test ourselves for self-sabotage right now. Is there anything on this list that is very similar to you?

1. Do you often justify your failures to external forces? Think back to the last time you were late for work, who was at fault? The bus driver or the barista who took too long to make your coffee?
2. Usually believe that all successes are solely your own merit.
3. It’s easy to quit halfway through.
4. You look for a catch in everything.
5. Staying friends with a toxic friend because you don’t believe the world could be any different….

They’re just a few little touches on a portrait. They’re all about the same thing – the human tendency to betray one’s interests, simply because it’s easier.

Why do psychologists call it sabotage? The fact is that a person can, just doesn’t want to do anything to change their life and get positive results.

You could call it laziness, but there’s a nuance here. Honest lazy people are happy people. They give themselves permission not to do something and are quite harmonious about it. If a person engages in self-sabotage, then tension grows inside him. He deceives himself and has to constantly invent excuses, external enemies and other reasons for his inaction.

Now the main question is why does he do it? The fact is that more than anything else in the world, a person is afraid of change. This is how the psyche works. It believes that the familiar is safe, and the new is dangerous (because it is unknown). That’s why the brain will try to push back the time of change as much as possible, sabotaging it in every possible way. The forms can be different.

How it manifests itself

1. Negative attitudes. These include formulations: “the world is cruel”, “everyone wants to use me”, “it is impossible to change”, “I am not capable of anything”. They are instilled in us from early childhood.
2. Fear. In our unconscious there is a fear of leaving the comfort zone, which was inherited from our ancestors. In today’s world, it often becomes a hindrance.
3. Comparing ourselves to others. Many people mistakenly believe that comparison with others is useful, because it allows you to analyze the process of self-development. However, this is a false opinion. When comparing oneself, self-esteem is lowered. The level of happiness also suffers.
4. Repetition of the family scenario. Not in vain they say that all problems come from childhood. Many things are laid in the child from an early age. He unconsciously absorbs the scripts, behavior and reactions of his parents. Then he acts in life the same way as they did. This happens on an unconscious level.

How to stop it

So what to do if the moment has already come in the habitual paradigm when it is time to change something and move somewhere? In the case of self-sabotage, all the techniques used to eliminate procrastination (a similar phenomenon) work very well.

First, it is the technique of “small steps”, which allows you to gradually accustom yourself to new habits. Second, the practice of training the external observer. It’s about tracking your thoughts and buying the tendencies to look for excuses (in the bud).

Realizing that sabotage is the psyche’s attempt to protect a person from being overwhelmed, try to help it. Start taking more care of yourself. Replenish the internal resource, follow the sleep schedule, watch your diet, exercise, get a massage or other relaxing procedures. An energized person is rarely caught in self-sabotage. He happily goes into new experiences. He always has the energy for it.

And of course, always ask yourself the question – Is this where I am going? Is this really what you want? If you are honest with yourself and find the real meaning of life, then articles about self-sabotage will cause you only a smile.