.
Self-sabotage involves obstructing your success and happiness. You might spoil your relationships, career, or health, for example. Perhaps you wonder why anyone would purposely get in their own way, but self-sabotage is unconscious; few people want to hurt themselves, but there are underlying reasons for their behavior. Here's what self-sabotage is, why it happens, and how to stop ruining your success.
What is self-sabotage, and what causes it?
Self-sabotage is a way of managing past trauma or adapting to stress and often relates to limiting beliefs. It can also develop when children model their caregiver's self-sabotaging behaviors and continue to copy them as adults. Regarding your career, it might manifest as procrastination, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, indecisiveness, or disorganization. Or it could show up as fear of success or failure.
With relationships, it could arise as avoidance, holding grudges, focusing on flaws, being critical, mistrusting, or a variety of other sabotaging behaviors. Self-sabotage may also occur regarding health matters, resulting in inadequate physical or emotional self-care.
Trauma
Trauma doesn't necessarily result in self-sabotage. Primarily, destructive behavior arises when painful experiences are left unprocessed. So, it's healthiest to examine old mental injuries safely, maybe with the help of a professional, rather than avoid looking at what hurts you. Otherwise, self-sabotaging will result from your psyche's attempts to protect itself. Once you acknowledge and deal with trauma, you process it, which means it no longer drives unconscious damaging behavior.
An example is where a child is abandoned by a parent and can't form a happy relationship as an adult. Instead, they behave in damaging ways that ensure the connection fails, albeit unconsciously. The limiting belief in such a case may be that all partners will abandon them given a chance, so they might as well be the first to leave.
Stress
People might unknowingly cultivate self-sabotaging behavior as a coping mechanism when stressed. The idea is to avoid or subdue pressure, but self-sabotage damages them instead of helping. Examples include comfort eating, an addiction to porn, and even daydreaming. Any behavior that reduces your well-being and stops you from reaching your goals is self-sabotage.
The motivation behind indulging in behavior that creates a momentary high is that it will block emotional pain and boost comfort. Or, in the case of daydreaming, mind-wandering might be a form of escapism. If you daydreai rather than face the cause of stress, you can fool yourself into believing everything's okay. Of course, self-sabotage doesn't solve problems and can make things worse. Not acknowledging challenges or handlin: stress in healthy ways reduces well-being.
Modeling
If your parent has low self-esteem, poor confidence, or another limiting belief that sabotages their success, they might inadvertently hand it on to you. As a child, you accept your caregiver's advice and learn from their words and actions. You observe them and might model them on autopilot. For example, if your father hides rather than standing up for himself when adversity strikes, you could learn it's best to withdraw instead of dealing with challenges.
Why self-sabotage hurts
Self-sabotage offers a brief respite from stress. The positive effects don't last, however. For example, eating a whole chocolate cake when you suffer from a relationship breakdown might bring relief for a few minutes. But unfortunately, you soon feel bloated, experience guilt for overeating, and must still deal with the emotional outfall of your loss. More examples of the consequences of self-sabotage: Anxiety levels - lack of self-belief; you think you're not good enough.
And, talk to our experts! Free no-obligation consulting!
Thanks for reading!