Krishna Dharajiya Self-sabotage is a behavior where you yourself act like your own enemy by killing your dreams. In other words, you passively interfere in success of your own desires and goals.
What is Self Sabotage?
Self-sabotage is when you deeply want something and then you yourself raise situations to make sure it doesn’t happen..! This is an act of “Self Dishonesty”.
You know that something is a better option for you and want it genuinely. But then with some back-end fear, you runaway from accomplishing it. In self sabotage behavior, you become killer of your own dreams..!
For example, You acknowledge that your partner is genuine person taking care of you and You Love Them Back Too. But suddenly you create situations where you can stay away from them and avoid. (and at the same time you are dying to be with them..!)
Types of Self Sabotage
Self-sabotaging behaviors can be of two types below, depending upon its root of cause.
Conscious
You are aware of the resultant harm in conscious self sabotage. But you feel that suffering is better than doing self efforts for desires to fulfill.
Subconscious
You are unaware of the resultant harm in this situation due to injured reasoning ability. Due to constant past failures, you develop a habit of resistance in action. As a result you dwell into an under confident attitude and start making decisions that harm your own goals.
Causes of Self Sabotage
The reasons behind someone to self-sabotage depends on life experiences they had. Every individual has had a different past, parenting, childhood, upbringing methods, social conditioning and initial serious relationships : all have an effect on how we react in present.
Frankly speaking, there are limitless reasons for all to fall into self-sabotage traps. But below are the two major reasons of its origin.
1) Various Fears
This fear appears in four types:
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Fear of Abandonment
In this fear, you are anxious that those who love you will leave when you are in most vulnerable times.
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Fear of Identity
In this fear, you are worried that you will lose your identity. There is an internal clash that constantly happens within you.
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Fear of Being Judged
Here, you fear that your decision making ability will be judged. You fear that people may judge you for being too open hearted or over ambitious.
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Fear of Intimacy
This is one of the ‘main reasons’ why people sabotage their relationships : the fear of intimacy. You are afraid of intimacy when you are emotionally or physically close with other people. Fear of intimacy generally comes from broken trust issues faced in childhood.
2) Childhood Trauma
Fear of intimacy typically originates from childhood trauma (physical, emotional or sexual) given by abusive parents or caregivers.
This makes you believe from the depth of your heart that “people who are close cannot be trusted.”
As the near and dear ones broke your trust in early childhood, you develop a sense of fear that the people who love you will ultimately break your trust.
Being a child, you can not separate yourself from caregivers and elders due to dependency. So you keep on suffering the abusive situation along with developing a trauma bond and intimacy issues at subconscious level.
As a result, when you grow adult, you tend to leave your genuine and lovely relationships with a fear of repetition of past traumas. (even when the partner is not abusive but is too caring and loving…!)
Symptoms of Self-Sabotage Behavior
It is important to learn how to stop self-sabotage before it ends up in too severe personal damage. And for that you need to recognize the sabotaging patterns first.
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Procrastination
You make excuses in completing commitments. Delaying your actions with “made-up” logic is your normal habit. You have many fabricated reasons as to why you are waiting for the “right time”. Ultimately nothing is achieved and you end up frustrated.
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High Guilt/Shame
Regretful thinking dominates your thoughts. Your inner voice is constantly contrasting, and you keep blaming yourself for past mistakes.
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Low Self Esteem
You lack belief in self. There is a feeling inside you as if you are not worthy of doing anything. You tell yourself you can’t take action until it is the right time or believe you need to perfect your skills before you move forward. Your self confidence is low all the time.
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Self Punishment
You keep on pushing yourself against the good. You feel that by the time you shall achieve perfectionism and accomplish the task but that never happens. So you isolate and undermine yourself with negative self talks. This way you hinder your own desires to fulfill and kill your own dreams.
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Nobody Loves Me
You develop a sense of low self worth. Being sensitive to judgement of others, you feel victimized always. You dwell into a state of self hatred. You feel others are selfish and nobody has time for me. Only others can make me happy is what you believe.
Why Do One Sabotage Themselves?
Due to childhood traumas, you develop self-restrictive behaviors that ultimately become habits. Sometimes, without even realizing of these habits, you allow your brain to interfere your mental state and start undermining your wish for happiness and success.
Your subconscious trains itself to see self-sabotage as a way to prevent pain and stay protected. (even on the cost of destruction of self dreams). You show sense of avoidance in everything you do and accept it as part of your life.
If you allow your self-sabotaging mindset to control you, over time your inner voice becomes dead and you split into miserable two selves.
Whenever you try to step out of our comfort zone or do anything that challenges your childhood trauma, your subconscious starts to work on holding you back. This will refrain you from living life to fullest potential and you may have regrets at the moment of death of not being lived honestly.
How to Stop Self-Sabotage
**1 – Awareness
The first step to break the chain of self-sabotage is getting awareness of these habits. Honestly acknowledge your mind set.
Consciously recognize which self-restrictive behaviors and thought patterns are holding you back. Once you know them, then start to take action to manage the negative influence they have on your personal life.
**2 – Face Your Fears
We procrastinate because we are afraid. Face the fear of failure. You cannot live positive and happy life if you are always fearful.
Nobody can make you feel inferior unless you allow them.
**3 – Be Honest with Self
Ask yourself if you really want to dwell in self-sabotaging behavior and loose your chance of living a satisfactory and happy life. Hopefully, the answer will be NO…!
Note down all the fears, negative feelings and random thoughts that come up as to why you shouldn’t achieve your goals or dreams in life. Keep going until there are no more negative thoughts left.
**4 – Never Compare Yourself with Others
We fear that our inner critic is right. We believe that we don’t deserve happiness. There is a disbelief in us that we aren’t tough or bright enough, or we just don’t have it in us to be successful in life.
Remember, you are good in your own way. Build your own path and do not be afraid to walk on it alone if you feel you are right.
**5 – Learning from Mistakes is a Deed of Brave
Prepare, prepare, prepare..! Through every preparation you feel more confident. As your confidence grows, it’s natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.
Its only through diving inside, you gain the necessary understanding and insight to begin the process of change and personal transformation.
**6 – Yes – You Can Do It
You must do all that you think you cannot ! Your self-sabotage behaviors and beliefs are rooted in your feelings of self-worth.
Figure out what is causing you to self-sabotage. That will help you to focus on the changes needed to stop these behaviors. You will gain confidence and courage by each experience when you start to challenge your fears.
**7 – Everybody is Perfect in Their Own Ways
Nobody is perfect, remember. There is no need to feel low if someone sees you imperfect. A fish cannot take birds place to fly. Embrace your uniqueness.
Practice self reflection. It gives you space to dig deep within yourself to gain more insight into your underlying emotions and desires that you can uplift for better.
**8 – Change Inner Dialogues to Positive
To live a positive and fulfilling life, your internal dialogue also needs to be positive always. Learn how to stop self-sabotage and negative thoughts by focusing on sending more positive and encouraging thoughts to your inner self.
Practice affirmations and gratitude. Appreciate others and act kind. These actions will lead to positive mindset.
Takeaway
Once you identify why you exhibit self-sabotage behaviors, you can then take action to learn how to stop self-sabotage and rise above it. Your inner self-critic no longer will hold you back with its negative impact.
Your inner positive voice will encourage and support you to grab new opportunities and chase your dreams. That is what living a positive life is all about.
“Don’t wait until everything is just right…Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.” - Hansen.
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Love & Light
Krishna
