My Self-Sabotaging Behaviours — It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious

Admitting to my self-sabotaging tendencies has never been easy. It’s like untangling a mystery deep in my mind, one that’s tinged with embarrassment and frustration.

But, despite knowing about these tendencies for a while (errr, a long time), I still find myself grappling with them.

So today I want to open my box of unhelpful behaviours for your scrutiny. Maybe you’ll see yourself here too (and I won’t be so lonely) or perhaps you can offer up some helpful tips.

But if, like me you have a desire to achieve more in your life by setting goals for the things you want to have, do and be, but then you fail to achieve some or all of the things (even though you know you’re capable), then you will probably recognise some of these self-sabotage tactics at work in your life too.

Of course, I don’t have all the answers (if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this) but I hope that by surfacing my own self-sabotage demons that it will help you identify where and how you could be self-sabotaging and then come up with a plan that will help you move forward.

1 Undoing all my previous good work

The most obvious way I self-sabotage is a tendency to undo all the good work I’ve already achieved. I have many examples of this…here are just a few:

• My weight loss/weight gain journey over the last 5+ years • My love-hate relationship with personal fitness and exercise routines • The many stumbling blocks I’ve had to overcome to learn how to manage my personal finances — multiple times

This is how it looks in practice:

I keep to my plans and intentions for weeks, sometimes months, and then, for no apparent reason I just stop.

I stop monitoring and recording my progress and stop doing the things that are helping me make progress. If I stay in this mindset for long enough, then the ground I’ve captured is lost. I start to slide and my progress begins to lessen as I fall back into my old ways.

2 Failing to Align My Actions with My Goals

It’s so easy for me to avoid taking actions on goals by getting on with the busy work instead. Busy work for me looks like household chores, dealing with other peoples’ needs and frittering away time on social media.

Of course none of these are bad in themselves, but when I need to be aligning my actions with my goals, using avoidance techniques like this is a sure way to feel frustrated. But there’s an upside too — I feel smug that I got something done!

Talk about backward thinking, because in the greater plan for my life direction, it was the wrong thing to do.

3 Inconsistent Actions

Start-stop and then start-stop again, repeat often on an irregular basis.

As funny as that sounds, this is a fairly regular pattern of how my self-sabotage looks when it’s actively functioning.

I’m well aware that I’m a great starter. I love new, shiny objects and am always willing to give the next scheme a go. But of course, in order to do that, I have to let go of the scheme I’m currently working with.

This inconsistent action then leads to inconsistent outputs as nothing really gets a good chance of getting fully finished before I’m off and running with the next idea.

I have so many part finished craft projects, it’s a family joke. Books and magazines pile up on my tbr pile…

4 Bad Moods/Good Moods

The secret to success isn’t massive strokes of luck or knowing the right people (although that can and will help), it’s being able to stick with your plans long after the enthusiasm has left.

How often have you not followed through on your plans because you just don’t feel like it?

Yes, me too.

I could be tired, upset, feeling angry or disappointed about something and so my mood tumbles. Or, I’m in a particularly good mood, so working on some of the daily routine tasks that will bring my goals to life feels far too tedious so I avoid it.

Moods can be a huge self-sabotaging factor in goal achievement. Realistically, for most of the time you and I are not going to feel like doing the work. Instead we’d rather chill, meet with friends, eat-out, watch TV, surf the net, indulge our hobbies or do any other instant-gratification activity rather than doing the work the goal requires.

There’s no quick and easy answer to this. We all have mood swings for one reason or another. The trick is to stay aware so that when you just don’t feel like it, acknowledge that it’s ok to feel this way and then just do the work anyway.

5 Too Much Planning

I love planning. The process makes me feel happy and optimistic that this time I will apply myself consistently and I will achieve all these wonderful things I’ve set out for myself.

In fact, I enjoy the planning process so much that I can spend lots of time setting up spreadsheets and tables, downloading ‘helpful’ apps and putting reminder alarms into my phone.

All this is great, until I eventually realise that in my optimism I have given myself far too much to do, particularly as I have a normal, every-day life that needs maintenance too.

Then, of course, the plans get discarded as being too much, too restrictive or too enthusiastic and any one of the other headings above and below then come into play.

6 Not Finishing What I Start (failing to deliver)

It’s easy at the beginning to live off my motivation and enthusiasm to work on my goals. I’m buoyed up for a while with the anticipation of having or achieving something better than I have now, but over time, that enthusiasm will be worn away as I realise the level of commitment that’s needed to see the work out to the end.

Most people give up at this stage because they just feel that it’s too much work. The goal has suddenly become overwhelming and so it’s easier to stop than to push through to the end.

This self-sabotage behaviour is closely linked to some of the earlier ones. I start-stop, I get overwhelmed, I over-plan and take on too much.

Even as I write this, I can see the circular nature of my self-sabotage behaviours!

7 Not Applying Damage Limitation Techniques

This is one of my main self-sabotaging methods!

Have you ever had a day where you take a wrong turn and then your plans all seem to fall to pieces? Examples of this could be eating the cake when you’re trying to cut out sugar, getting distracted when you’re trying to get an important task done or doing email or scrolling because you’re not sure how to do the task and don’t want to ask for help.

But, after dealing with whatever “emergency” or distraction came my way instead of picking up where I left off, I’m thinking, well that’s spoiled the whole day now, so no point trying anymore today.

Consider instead if I’d seen the error, distraction or need for help objectively as a pause in my plans, rather than a stop sign and just carried on from where I’d left off?

The idea of damage limitation is that we can accept that our plans have gone slightly off track, but there’s no need to keep going in that wrong direction!

Ideally I’d get back to my task as soon as possible, rather than giving up on the day with a view to picking it up again tomorrow…because by then, I will have lost a bit more ground.

How I Lessen Self-Sabotage

As I said at the beginning, I don’t have all the answers, at least not yet! But what I have developed that is helping me, is an awareness that when I start to procrastinate or avoid my goals, it’s one (or more) of my self-sabotaging behaviours surfacing.

Developing a self-awareness and being mindful of my self-sabotage ways helps me get back to my planned goal activities quicker.

Or, where the poor behaviour wins out, I at least understand that it’s not that I’m a just a no-hope serial procrastinator and that with compassion and diligence I can work through these issues.