Self sabatoge is something that has had me thinking a lot over the last week or so. There are a lot of different names this beast goes by.. things such as standing in your own way, being your own worst enemy, self defeating and so on. I’ve been in this weird ass cycle of “hell yeah I’m awesome” and “shut the hell up, sit the hell down, and don’t draw attention to yourself.” This actually came up last week when I was doing a little gratitude exercise. It was something about negative self speak and I had to write three things down and then cross them out and write positive things. Umm.. the negative things came a whole heck of a lot quicker than the positive ones. Which is weird right? Because a positive is the opposite of a negative, so it should have been easy. For me that wasn’t the case and I legitimately struggled. Thus, the explanation for this post!
What is self sabatoge?
Self sabatoge is a behavior or a set of behaviors that cause problems for you in every day life. Some examples of this include doing things like..
- Procrastinating
- Speaking negatively to yourself
- Imposter syndrome
- Eating disorders and addiction issues
- Being an individualist – never asking for help
Now there might be different things for you, such as, lashing out in anger, projecting and playing the blame game. Those listed above are the top 5 for me (hello comfort food)… That last one is a major one for me. I wait until the very last minute and I never want help from anyone. I took to the interwebs and Pinterest to find out more about this!
Why do we do this?
A big fat why is what I was looking for! The main goal was actually trying to find out how to get this to stop because quite honestly I’m over feeling like junk. All of the self care in the world wasn’t helping anything. I started attributing it to pregnancy hormones, but that was a cop out, this cycle was happening before I got pregnant and has been happening for as long as I can remember! There are several reasons as to why people self sabatoge.
- Poor self worth – you feel unworthy of success or anything that you have worked for. An example of this is you feel bad for your accomplishments.
- Imposter syndrome – you view yourself as a fake, even when you have worked hard for your accomplishments. You feel like if you draw attention to yourself people will realize you are a fake.
- Familiarity – this is another reason people partake in self sabatoge. It’s because they are used to being treated badly, misused, overlooked or even exploited. It is very easy to place yourself back in these situations, even more so if this has been the norm for you. It might even feel comforting in a weird messed up way.
Again, these are things that I have noticed about myself. I honestly don’t have an answer as to why I have poor self worth or what the heck even started the imposter syndrome thing. Even as I’m typing this out every fiber of my being is screaming not to, because it’s hard. Familiarity is something I really related to because my childhood wasn’t the most stellar and it’s very easy to slip back into being a “yes man” and doing whatever people want to keep them happy, no matter how many boundaries i’ve set. I always ruin them myself.
How To Change This Path
There are ways to change these behaviors. It takes a lot of work, but if your willing the results will be amazing… Or so I hope. I am ready and willing to do the work to be able to feel good talking to others about what I have accomplished in my life, without feeling like I’m bragging or being a dick by even bringing it up. More importantly, I want to break this cycle! Here is a list of a few things to start on that have already helped me:
- First you must recognize a pattern
- Identify the root of the problem
- Find an inner positive voice
- Set goals and make plans
- Make small meaningful changes.
I have recognized a pattern, I’m working on the root of the problem, which right now is mostly I don’t feel very deserving of the things I have done. I have found an inner positive voice by reading a daily book filled with positivity. I have a cool app that sends me positive affirmations annnnd when I start feeling a bad thought creep into my head I consciously chose another better thought!
I’ve also made it a goal to talk about positive accomplishments that have happened, because I worked my ass off. For starters, not many people know that I have a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice. I finished in the top 5% of my class, and also finished in half the time by taking 20 credits per term, and not taking a term off. I did this while working and raising the girls. Jacob did help with the girls when he was able to, we weren’t living together at that time so a lot of the daily stuff depended solely on me. Another thing that even less people know is that I have won two Soroptimist awards (one locally and then one for the entire western region)because of the struggles I have overcome and my willingness to try and do better.
Those are the two things I rarely ever talk about. I’m not ashamed of them, there were a lot of people that were proud of me for graduating and for even applying for the grant/award! I just never talked about them because I felt I was bragging about myself, after all I believed I wasn’t that special, so tackling those two things must not have been that awesome, especially since there are so many other hardworking people out there and even more people that have endured hardships or a crappy childhood and came out on top. Thinking about them now though, I know. I know that while there are others out there who work hard and who have suffered, no one’s story is exactly like mine. I hope if you are finding yourself in the same spot as I me that this post brought you some guidance! Don’t forget to subscribe down below!
