Self-sabotage refers to actions or inactions that cause someone to hinder/undermine their own success—these can be unconscious or conscious behaviours.
We can find ourselves self-sabotaging because we are looking for control over a situation, because we want to stay in a familiar place that isn’t challenged by success/happiness, or because we have a fear of failure/success/happiness.
Signs/symptoms include:
- Procrastination
- Negative self-talk/high levels of self-criticism
- Refusing to ask for help
- Setting goals that are too high/low
- Perfectionism
- Giving up when things get difficult
- Picking fights/starting conflicts
- Self-medicating with drugs/alcohol
- Focusing on what is not working or not right
- Not taking responsibility for your actions
- Overeating
- Imposter Syndrome
Where does self-sabotage come from?
Often our self-sabotaging behaviours are rooted in experiences from our childhood, which can mean needing to overcome ingrained behaviours that we have learnt from our upbringing.
Something from childhood that could need to be overcome is modelling – basing our behaviours on those of our parents, including things such as a parent with low self-esteem who lacked confidence or a parent who worried excessively about danger and led to the child being overly cautious of danger. In cases where there has been rejection, neglect or trauma in childhood, this will also have a big impact on adult behaviours such as ability to trust and having a negative self-image.
Self-sabotage and relationships:
Some of the symptoms mentioned previously give an insight as to how self-sabotaging ways can impact relationships of all kinds.
- Picking fights/starting conflicts.
- Self-medicating with drugs/alcohol can impact your behaviours when socialising with friends and also your ability to perform at work.
- Focusing on what is not working or not right – thinking about work situations specifically, it can lead to you not being able to work on solutions for things because you are too focused on what is not working.
- Not taking responsibility for your actions can lead to frustration and resentment in friendships and with work colleagues.
- Refusing to ask for help.
Within a work environment, self-sabotage can also present as not speaking up. This could be due to a lack of confidence and a fear of your idea being rejected/dismissed.
Most people self-sabotage in relationships to protect themselves from future hurt – even though it can lead to the same outcome.
It can manifest as pushing people away or finding reasons to get out of the relationship.
Tips for breaking out of a cycle of self-sabotage
- Work on recognising your triggers.
- Work on accepting/taking responsibility for your actions.
- Open up about your feelings.
- Try to let go of past experiences and focus on the current situation.
- Set realistic goals.
- Make small changes.
- Engage in positive self-talk.
- Communicate what you need (e.g. more support) – especially if it is impacting you at work.
- Watch out for red flags in relationships.
- Practice mindfulness to help develop self-compassion and stay in the moment (especially good for noticing if something has triggered you/what it is).
- Monitoring your relationship with alcohol/drugs and reaching out for supporting if you feel you are using one or both as an unhealthy coping mechanism.
- Recommended therapy for support with self-sabotage would be CBT or DBT, or a mindfulness based therapy.
We can work on reducing self-sabotage at any age but it can take work and we have to ready to do that work. Sometimes this readiness to look at the hard things comes with age. Facing the behaviours, especially those unconscious ones that are linked to childhood experiences can be difficult and take time to move forward from. Therapy can help with this and be a positive experience to learn about yourself and grow so if this is something you are interested in, do get in touch with Nafs Health to discuss your therapy needs.