Gloria helps you understand how you set up those blocks that stop you from making progress and how coaching can help you get what you want from life
What exactly does that expression mean? In its more simplistic definition it’s about not creating road blocks or problems to undo or that interferes with positive or long standing goals you set for yourself. In my profession this type of behaviour is described as self sabotage.
The most common forms of self sabotaging behaviours are deferring your intentions or procrastinating, any form of self medicating such as abusing drugs, alcohol and other forms of harmful behaviours which may offer temporary comfort but in the long term cause more long term harm. All these behaviours are potentially self destructive and serve to impact the mind and body negatively.
Self sabotaging can and ultimately hurts our best laid out plans. There are so many ways we sabotage ourselves but the ones that wreak the most havoc are the ones mentioned above. Partly because they tend to be subtle and tend to go unnoticed for what they are. We tend to rationalise or make excuses and give reasons for the behaviours. Another very powerful self saboteur is interpersonal conflict. Engaging in this tends to keep you in a perpetual state of anger and anxiety and occupies your mind negatively. Thereby making it difficult to move forward with other positive plans and you can make excuses or blame someone else for your failures.
In my experience from clients and personal experience I think procrastination is the king of all self sabotaging behaviours. It’s a really vicious, sneaky, deadly thing procrastination! We have so many ways to fool ourselves for the choices we make from minute to minute. Where did the day go? I will get started when this or that is in place. I need to be in the right state of mind before I start this or that project. This or that person made me so upset now I can’t do my work. If only I had this or that I then I would be able to start this or that and so on. While there may be some truth in all of these statements, most times it’s just how we block the transition from our intentions to actions.
Some people engage in self sabotaging behaviour more than others. When you repeatedly find yourself engaging in this behaviour it is a coping mechanism, a misguided way to protect you from your own negative feelings. In an attempt to run or hide from these intense negative feelings we end up causing even more damaging and painful results, impacting on our self esteem and self worth.
There are many other emotional and psychological behaviours that have similar results of self sabotage. Fear of failure, fear of taking risks, fear of making mistakes, limiting believes, emotions and attitudes; unhelpful thoughts focussed on what’s not working or wishful dreams, constantly comparing yourself to others, having unrealistic expectations, inability to think flexibly, about problems, inability to think critically or practically; inability to think about the consequences of your behaviour, worrying constantly, inability to think carefully before making decisions, inability to plan ahead, inability to say no to others, always complaining about people, life, circumstances or perceived bad luck!
With procrastination it creates a gap as mentioned above between intention and action and it is within this gap that most of us get stuck and where we tend to operate from. The action of sabotaging is in not closing that gap. The cycle is setting out intentions, some even quite grand but still viable. Then when the time comes to implement the plans we set up blocks, deflections, we come up with excuses, deliberations all to justify unhelpful, unnecessary and perhaps even harmful delays that will certainly impact negatively on our goals. It’s a vicious cycle because what ends up happening is we don’t accomplish our goals so we are then full of self recrimination and self loathing which takes us back to the place we were trying to get out of emotionally.
There are many theories as to why we self sabotage as humans and most likely if you are engaged in this behaviour repeatedly some will apply to you. The most common one has to do with our self worth, how we feel about ourselves. This might have arisen from how we were treated as children and this carried on into adulthood. It could have developed from being in abusive relationships that created a distorted view of ourselves.
The formula for breaking this painful, harmful process involves some basic actions. There will be different things that will work for different people. You must know who you are and be self aware.
First and foremost you must be able to identify what self sabotaging behaviour that you employ in your life (most people know of one or two immediately).
Try to come up with a healthier replacement behaviour. You may have to think on this for awhile or even consult with people you trust and who know you.
We must learn from our mistakes and what has not worked in our lives, Change is hard but so worth it. Wanting change but continuing old habits is said to be the ultimate definition of madness!
We need to ask new, better and relevant questions. We need to think bigger and bolder
We need to have focussed solutions and adjust expectations that are not helpful
It is vital to create time in your life for self reflection, time to think about your feelings, thoughts, decisions, behaviour and actions. If you really take the time to think and reflect you will be rewarded with a lot of information that will help you going forward.
