Well hello Friends! I hope you guys had an amazing week.

Today I want to talk about something that I think we’ve all struggled with at one point or another in some part of our lives, and that is Self-Sabotage. It’s something I see my clients do on occasion. I’ve seen it play out with people at work and I’ve done it myself on occasion.

As I said, we all have at some point. So, this episode is going to be super helpful for all of us, I think.

In this episode, we’re going to learn the definition of self-sabotage, how it shows up, WHY we engage in it and how we can stop.

So, let’s start with the definition. 

For this I decided to go straight to the source. I googled Websters. 

Interestingly, Webster’s didn’t have self-sabotage in their online dictionary, which I thought was odd. But they DID supply the definition of Sabotage, which they listed as “an act or process intended to hamper or hurt.” 

So, that’s a very good definition. And we can make it work for Self-Sabotage by just adding “ourselves” at the end. Which would make the definition: “an act or process intended to hamper or hurt ourselves.”

There’s just one thing about that which is the word “intended.” Because when it comes to SELF sabotage, it’s important to know that it’s not always a conscious choice. 

In fact, according to psychologists there are two types of self-sabotage: Conscious and Unconscious.

Conscious self-sabotage happens when you’re aware (in the moment) that what you’re doing is actively undermining yourself and your goals - that you’re working counter to what you really want – but you do it anyway. An example of this could be when you KNOW you need to finish that presentation for work but instead of doing that, you binge watch Netflix or meet friends for drinks. 

Does that one sound familiar? Probably shows up as procrastination, right? I know I can relate to this one.

And then there’s UNconscious self-sabotage. And that’s when you do something that undermines yourself and your goals, but you don’t realize it until later. Sometimes MUCH later, like when you’re dealing with the consequences of it. An example of this might be habitually showing up late for work or turning in sub-par work. You know you shouldn’t be doing that but you’re not consciously connecting to what’s REALLY driving that behavior which is probably some sort of underlying fear of failure or maybe self-doubt or feeling not good enough. At first, you might chalk it up to being disorganized or maybe to poor planning. But when it keeps happening over and over and over again, at some point you realize, “Oh, it’s a thing. I’m doing it on purpose.”

For some Self-Sabotage is an occasional or point-in-time thing. So, it’s not as harmful. But for others, it’s a deeply embedded chronic pattern of behavior that eventually leads to major issues in their career or some other aspect of their life like their relationships, their financial health or their personal health or wellbeing.  

For more, give the episode a listen.

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