Self-sabotage is a term that most women throw around in different situations. While some women use the term as a form of criticism, some make it feel vague, meaningless, or generic, while still others use it to sound intelligent.
What does it mean to self-sabotage?
Self-sabotage refers to actions and beliefs that stop women from achieving their desires, hopes, and goals. It is a part of our daily lives that, if left unchecked, has the potential to ruin us. We frequently engage in negative self-talk, perfectionism, conflict, avoidance, or procrastination when we sabotage ourselves. This behavior or attitude may jeopardize our physical, mental, or emotional well-being.
Sometimes, self-doubt, fear, and anxiety frequently force us to sabotage our efforts to improve ourselves. Self-sabotage becomes an issue when it becomes a habit and can lead to negative consequences.
Why Do People Self-Sabotage?
Self-sabotage occurs when women continuously believe they are incapable of succeeding to the point where they establish an identity that causes them to sabotage themselves every time they have the potential to thrive.
Here are some of the common ways self-sabotage shows up;
Chronic anxiety
When women suffer from persistent worry, they experience a fleeting sense of assurance and control. Anxiety causes us to misinterpret situations. While it may make us feel like we can do specific tasks, it merely leads to inefficiency.
Chronic anxiety may be a dominant influence in your life when you allow it to stop you from doing the things you need or want to do, ranging from simple needs to more significant life-altering choices.
Resisting change
Another prevalent kind of self-sabotage is resistance to change. It puts you in your comfort zone and forces you to cling to old behaviors. When faced with your lackadaisical attitude to changes, you frequently make excuses.
We resist change due to the collection of psychobehavioral thoughts and habits that prevent us from responding to the call of our inner consciousness. This manifests as justifications, explanations, fears, lethargy, depression, anxiety, and procrastination. Unless you learn to conquer your resistance to change, you’ll continue to live a life of mediocrity.
SEE ALSO: Self-Sabotaging Behaviors That Keep You From Earning Your Worth
Self-criticism/inadequate self-care
Harsh self-criticism and negative self-talk can have a harmful impact on our life. They operate unfettered, instilling self-sabotage in us as a habit. When an inner voice criticizes you and your actions, it can come out as sarcastic, angry, dissatisfied, gloomy, or simply cruel.
The underlying premise of self-criticism is frequently that we are insufficient. More often than not, our self-criticism is so ingrained in our thoughts that we can't discern the difference between self-critic and our own point of view. Negative thoughts might become a reality in our minds this way.
Similarly, when you don't take good care of yourself, you are also engaging in self-sabotage. This includes a lack of exercise, a lack of sleep, poor eating habits, and various other factors.
Relationship problems
Women who have the habit of ruining or abandoning romantic relationships or healthy friendships often suffer from self-sabotage. They have a difficult time processing emotional vulnerability or heartbreak.
Oftentimes, the only thing that stands in our way of a great relationship is ourselves. In fact, some studies describe this as self-sabotaging conduct, a behavior that causes problems in your daily life and hinders your long-term goals.
In relationships, self-sabotage occurs when you intentionally try to ruin or break up your own relationship, whether knowingly or unknowingly. For some, this is such a rooted habit that it can be difficult even to identify, much less stop it.
Low self-esteem
Women who have poor self-esteem are more likely to self-sabotage. They often seek out self-embarrassing circumstances and failure because they do not like themselves. The mental dialogue goes something like this: "you're a failure," "you are not deserving of this," "you are insufficient," or "nobody will ever like you."
When this happens, you lose confidence, feel uncertain, and a small voice in your head tells you that you're doomed, that there's no use in feeling positive.
The majority of us are our own worst enemy. If you could hear the small voices of even half of the women you meet daily, you'd find out something as revealing as it is frightening. Many women have self-deprecating thought habits in which they continuously condemn themselves.
SEE ALSO: 3 Ways To End Self-Sabotaging Behaviors
Procrastination
Who doesn't procrastinate from time to time? We all procrastinate from time to time. We frequently postpone our workouts to watch an episode of Netflix or reschedule appointments for no apparent reason. Procrastination is a prevalent form of self-defeating behavior.
Almost everyone has had the experience of putting off what should be done today till tomorrow. Most times, it's not because we are lazy; it's because we overthink things. High achieving women may procrastinate by focusing on tasks they believe they can perform well, but this usually slows them down, affecting their productivity and ability to meet deadlines. Thus, they end up sabotaging themselves.
Overcoming self-sabotage: Ways to Stop Doing It
If you want to cease self-sabotaging, you need understand your flaws and get proactive in re-creating the life you want for yourself. Here are some things you can do to overcome self-sabotage:
Recognize the reasons for your self-sabotage
You should not try to be tough on yourself when trying to overcome self-sabotage because doing so is another form of self-sabotage. First of all, you should understand and recognize why you behave the way you do. Compassion for yourself is essential for overcoming this behavior. When you realize the purpose self-sabotage serves for you, you may devise a creative approach to eliminate it.
Replace self-sabotaging behaviors with healthy ones
When you understand why you sabotage yourself, you can identify other behaviors to replace the damaging ones. You can see the behaviors of people who are experiencing a similar situation as you. Next, do some research to learn how other people conquered their behaviors. Experiment with different healthy behaviors and stick to the ones that are most comfortable for you.
SEE ALSO: How Self-Doubt Can Sabotage Your Career
Eliminate negative thoughts
Negative self-talk and low self-esteem are frequently fuels for self-sabotage, leading to emotions of inadequacy and unworthiness, which then drive repeated cycles of self-sabotaging activities. Thus, it's quite important to always be positive in every situation. Yes, negative things happen, but one of the best ways to avoid self-sabotaging yourself is to be positive about everything.
Think positively and talk positively. When negative things happen to you, try to be optimistic. You may be disappointed with how things turned out, but you need to move on. Don't allow the disappointing result reinforce your feelings of worthlessness and give you reasons to think negatively.
Develop self-discipline and willpower
Self-saboteurs quit easily due to a lack of self-confidence. If you find yourself leaving in the middle of a project, identify this and remind yourself that successful people persevere in the face of difficulty. Successful people have faith in their talents, overcome obstacles, and refuse to give up on their dreams.
Every time you persevere to complete a task, your willpower grows stronger. If you start something, complete it. One of the most obvious signs of a self-saboteur is that she never completes anything. She becomes sidetracked, bored, or even forget about the projects she has started. Such person move from project to project, inspired at first but becoming bored as time goes on. This has a negative impact on self-esteem.
If this is an issue for you, you can mitigate it by completing each project you work on before starting another. This will go a long way toward restoring your self-esteem and self-discipline. A excellent suggestion would be to list all of the reasons why you should complete the job.
Similarly, self-saboteurs always feel that success belongs to others and not to them, but they seek it nonetheless. If this is your issue, the best approach to break yourself of that mindset is to start with little assignments that you know you can do successfully. As your self-discipline and self-confidence grow, gradually take on larger projects.
Anticipate and plan for obstacles
Expect difficulties as you work to eliminate self-sabotage and re-establish a healthier lifestyle. When the circumstances are favorable, it is easier for individuals to accept good intentions and new behaviors. What happens, however, when your plan fails? While having alternative behaviors to combat self-sabotage is beneficial, you should also have contingency plans.
Boost your tolerance
Finally, you should boost your tolerance level to the old habits. Sometimes it could be emotionally draining to let go of self-sabotaging. Learn to tolerate emotional discomfort too. When you reach your limit, you may begin to unintentionally destroy what is happening in order to return to what is comfortable and familiar. Some women experience this literally, as bodily stress, pains, aches or headaches. Others experience it emotionally as guilt or resistance.
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