Are you one of the many people who have successfully tried different therapeutic approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), exposure therapy or mindfulness but have found yourself quickly going back to your ‘old’ ways such as negative self-talk? If so, have you considered that you might be unconsciously sabotaging your success and recovery? This is a very common phenomenon.
Do you find yourself acting out any of these behaviours?
Examples of self-sabotage include walking away from a project as soon as it becomes a little difficult, chronic procrastination, overeating, dating people who are unkind or at worst abusive, putting yourself down, drinking too much alcohol, being late for work, blaming others for your mistakes.
Why do people self-sabotage?
The action of self-sabotage may be a learnt survival technique to help you cope with difficult situations. Many people wrongly believe that they are not meant to be happy and feel familiarity and comfort in negative states such as arguing, being late or putting things off. They may also sabotage their goals because they are frightened of failure and falsely believe it is better not to try.
How can I overcome this?
Changing any behaviour takes time and energy to put right but it is worth the work. A good place to start is identifying what your goals are and what you are doing to sabotage the goal. For example, if you are often late for work are you allowing yourself to press snooze too many times? It may help to keep a diary or journal of the self-defeating behaviours and consequences. Talk to people about how you are feeling and ask them if they have noticed any sabotaging actions. Try to identify anything that triggers sabotage of your goals such as hunger, boredom, feeling overwhelmed. Use this list of triggers to identify what can be done to prevent the feeling or reduce the impact.
The good news
The good news is that it is something that can be overcome with the appropriate support and techniques. Contact me today to start the process of overcoming self-sabotaging behaviour.
