June 12, 2023 • 43 mins
Sometimes our biggest enemy isn't others, it's ourselves. Self sabotage is a complicated psychological experience whereby we unconsciously undermine our own goals and wellbeing because of an implicit belief that we don't deserve our success, are afraid of failure, or cannot allow ourselves to be happy. From dating people we shouldn't, to procrastination, indecision, doom scrolling and self destructive behaviours, it all comes down to our unconscious beliefs about our self worth. Today we explore the origins and causes of self sabotage, from Freud's ideas of the 'death drive' and 'anti-self', coping mechanisms, to the impact of unresolved emotional trauma and self punishment to understand why it is we self sabotage, and how we can get out of our own way. Listen now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, you
know the deal. Wherever you are in the world, it
is great to have you here back for another episode
because this week we are going to tackle the big
scary beast that is self sabotage. Our twenties are such
(00:48):
a unique time of growth and goal setting and huge moments,
but it can also be very easy for us to
get in our own world. I think sometimes we can
be our biggest enemy because of our tendency to engage
in behavior that actually undermines us, and we consistently sabotage
(01:12):
our efforts in ways that are sometimes not even obvious.
So why do we do that? Why do we find
ourselves acting in a manner that is contradictory to our
goals and which leaves us worse off? I think a
deeper question as well is why can't we let ourselves
(01:33):
be happy and let ourselves succeed? Well, that's what we're
going to explore today. I think self sabotage comes in
many forms, from procrastination to impulse buying, indecision, poor dating choices,
starting conflict, overworking, isolating ourselves, and even more serious habits
(01:56):
like substance abuse. But at their very core, all of
these behaviors stem from the negative beliefs we hold about
ourselves and feeling like we don't deserve the good things
in life, so choosing to sabotage ourselves before they even occur.
(02:16):
And it was Freud who actually was one of the
first people to identify these behaviors, and he believed that
it derived from our unconscious beliefs and what he called
the death drive, whereby all humans innately want to be
free of responsibility and expectation, so they sabotage their efforts
(02:37):
at success, for example, scrolling on TikTok rather than doing
your assignment as a way of ignoring your responsibilities. And
psychology has obviously evolved a lot since then, and now
we tend to think of self sabotage as linked to
ideas around coping mechanisms, negative beliefs, self punishment, fear of success,
(03:04):
and so much more. And I think all of those
aspects of our unconscious thinking and of our self esteem
and self concept are also the things we tend to
start diving into and digging into and uncovering in our twenties,
so they are inextricably linked. I also want to talk
about the many innocent looking behaviors that are encouraged by
(03:28):
society but are actually a form of self sabotage, and
why it is so hard to identify when we are
deliberately handicapping ourselves and getting out of our own way.
So in this episode, we are going to dive into
the fascinating psychology behind self sabotage, from the origins and
(03:51):
the causes of self destructive behaviors to the major science
that you are a self saboteur, the obvious and the
less of why we self sabotage, the links to childhood
to trauma, but also ultimately how we can cultivate healthier
habits and patterns and let go of our negative beliefs
(04:15):
to break the cycle of self sabotage. So if you
are sick of striking yourself down and being your own
worst enemy, this episode is for you. I cannot wait
to get into it. So without further ado, let's go.
(04:36):
Self sabotage, also known as self destructive behavior, is a
pattern of habits and actions and unconscious decisions that are
innately harmful and they undermine our goals and wellbeing or
just all around levels of happiness. At their core, these
(04:56):
behaviors are driven by things like unresis solved, emotional pain,
low self esteem, a sense of unworthiness, and the sense
that we need to almost punish ourselves for something that's
happened in the past. Individuals who engage in these self
(05:16):
destructive behaviors probably like you and I. They may use
them as coping mechanisms to numb or distract themselves from
their underlying psychological distress. It obviously differs from what we
would typically see as sabotage like in the movies or
in like a Shakespeare play, you know, the form of
(05:39):
malicious actions by others to disrupt or hinder us. And
it really zones in on this idea and belief that
we can be our own biggest saboteur when it comes
to not just our major goals, but also our everyday life.
And I think the secret here is that everyone engaged
(06:00):
and these kinds of behaviors every single one of us
will sell sabotage at some point in our lives. And
when we are in our twenties, I think we are
particularly vulnerable because we don't yet have a strong identity.
We can be super confused about our goals and our future,
and we don't really yet have as much of that
(06:22):
hindsight or experience to recognize the correlation between certain habits
and the outcomes that cause us to stress and cause
us to undermine our progress or just our life in general.
The origins of this term or idea that actually they're
somewhat ancient. It is this idea that has been around
(06:45):
for some time and used in one way or another
to describe individuals who acted in a quote unquote unsavory manner.
But it wasn't really given a formal name or really
studied until the late eighteen hundreds. And who do we
have to think for that, Well, of course it was Freud,
(07:07):
the granddaddy of psychology. Self sabotage has a lot to
do with our ego and our unconscious beliefs and our
childhood development. So of course Freud is going to have
his fingers in this in some forum or another, and
he was the one who came up with and kind
of presented this idea of the death drive, which he
(07:31):
believed was innate in humans. And it is essentially this
unconscious psychological urge towards self destruction which he theorized was
actually really cathartic. You know, ruining your life meant being
free from ordinary stresses and responsibilities and kind of claiming
(07:55):
a whole new set of burdens. But for just a second,
we feel really liberated. And he was describing what we
now know as self destructive behaviors or self sabotage, and
they can really occur in any domain of life, you know,
our relationships, our careers, our family, our physical wellbeing, emotional wellbeing,
(08:19):
or just general happiness. You know, where there is room
to grow or succeed, there is room to self sabotage.
I know I've already given some examples, but I want
to give some more here, just to paint kind of
a broader image of what this looks like. It may
be you know, starting fights with your partner even when
(08:41):
you're not mad, lashing out, you know, neglecting your physical needs,
being unconsciously indecisive, ignoring your intuition, maybe making dating choices
you know you shouldn't be doing, or scrolling on your phone,
or impulse by tying anything that actually is counterproductive to
(09:03):
a conscious goal you have, but you physically cannot stop
yourself from doing. It's like this strange kind of alter
ego has taken over your body and is making you
act in a certain way that is a self sabotaging behavior.
And the reason why I stress this almost inability to
(09:24):
stop ourselves is because these behaviors can be conscious or unconscious,
and this kind of depends on our level of self
awareness or I guess denial. This links back to Freud's
initial ideas and conceptualization of self sabotage, whereby he believed
(09:45):
that the reason we create obstacles for ourselves is because
our subconscious mind, also known as the anti self, interrupts
our logical conscious mind, making them at conflict. For example,
you may be wanting to treat your body better and
eat healthier and be more active, but you find yourself
(10:06):
inexplicably always missing your workouts or eating foods. You know
what makes you feel good, drinking juice and soft drink
instead of water, And in those instances, it's because your
logical conscious mind, which is responsible for gold driven behavior,
is being undermined by this anti self, and this anti self,
(10:29):
this unconscious impulse may stem from us just kind of
not believing that we deserve the future we're striving for,
or that we deserve to live in a gentle, non
chaotic environment. And that's one of the deeper I guess
root issues and causes of self sabotage, our internal belief
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system around what we feel we deserve in life, and
these notions of self punishment and a distorted sense of
self worth. I think that's why it's so maladaptive. And
another reason we find it difficult to recognize self destructive
patterns is not just because they are unconscious, but because
(11:15):
sometimes they are so deeply ingrained and part of the
fabric of society that we don't even blink an eye
or take time to examine what they mean for us
on an individual level. Something I've realized is that there
are so many insidious, sometimes invisible behaviors that are actually
(11:35):
really self destructive, and some of them are socially acceptable
and encouraged, so we may not always think about them.
I think of habits like overworking or excessive busyness, but
The biggest one I've been considering a lot recently is
drinking alcohol. I drink alcohol. I love a fun night,
(11:56):
I love a cheeky croctail, a celebratory drink or too.
But I think recently I've become very sober curious, I
would say, and I saw this post the other day
that really solidified this thinking for me, and what it
said was this alcohol is the only drug that causes
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intergenerational trauma that is still socially celebrated and accepted. Alcohol
is a drug. We often do not think about it
on the same level as you know, something like cocaine
or meth. But it is addictive. It impacts our behavior.
It works on our body in a depressant way, much
(12:39):
like things like valium or a benzodiazepine. And I think
it is the best example of a socially accessible behavior
that actually contains an element of self sabotage. And obviously
it exists on a spectrum ranging from you know, straight
up alcoholism to just consuming excessive alcohol in a way
that it's actually inconsistent with our values or plans, you know,
(13:03):
being hungover for work or drinking before you know you
have a big day, or that you want to go
for a run, but society doesn't really seem to have
a problem with that. It doesn't have a problem with
being drunk or hungover, or using alcohol to celebrate or
even subconsciously numb some internal conflict we're having until it
(13:25):
crosses over into an area that is socially unacceptable, and
I really think that line is not all too clear.
I think the consumption of alcohol is a really good
example to use here because it highlights a how self
sabotaging is socially acceptable, but be how these behaviors are
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also in some ways coping mechanisms. So coping mechanisms in
psychology are these psychological and behavioral responses that we use
to manage stress and emotion or challenging situations. And they
can be maladaptive, meaning not appropriate for the situation we're in, unhealthy,
(14:08):
or they can be adaptive. So let's view them in
the context of self sabotage, in which the coping mechanisms
we employ are going to be maladaptive because they are
contrary to our conscious goals. For example, when we feel stressed,
we use alcohol to calm us down, or when we
are depressed we isolate, when we are facing a major
(14:31):
work or study deadline. We doom scroll on social media,
we distract ourselves. All of these things may feel initially
pleasant and useful, but in the long run they are
actually highly detrimental and they will leave us feeling worse off.
And a lot of the research into self destructive behaviors
(14:53):
demonstrates that link to unhealthy coping mechanisms. But I want
to talk now about some of the signs that you
are a self saboteur, that you are your own worst enemy.
As we say, recognizing signs of self sabotage is, of course,
I think an important step in addressing and overcoming these
(15:14):
self defeating behaviors. We've talked a lot about why it
is that they're negative and some of the early and
more current in modern theories around why they exist. But
what do we need to look out for if you
think that you are someone who self sabotages? Number one,
If you always blame others and choose to ignore how
(15:36):
your behavior correlates to an outcome, this demonstrates a lack
of self awareness around the decisions we make and how
they contribute to our overall happiness and satisfaction in life.
It is very easy to bury our head in the
sand when we feel trapped in a cycle of bad
decisions and subsequent consequences. But the truth is that you
(15:58):
are really the captain of your own ship, and blaming
others is just a massive indicator that you may actually
be self sabotaging because it is a lot easier to
attribute our faults and our mistakes to others than to ourselves,
and it's all in an effort to protect our self esteem.
(16:19):
It's also known in psychology as attribution theory. So according
to this theory, we often attribute the causes of events
and outcomes to other people in a way that we
externalize the cause, and we externalize the problem to protect
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our self image, and that is self destructive because it
denies us agency over our lives. It's called this idea
of an external locus of control. We've spoken about it
on the show before. Essentially, what it comes down to
attribution theory externalizing our problems blaming others is that we
never feel like we are actually responsible for our lives,
(17:03):
and that makes it easy to feel like the bad
things are not our fault, but also that the good
things are all due to luck. And it's part of
the self sabotaging kind of cycle, because we can be
acting in a way that is entirely unhelpful and entirely
unuseful and contradictory to our goals, but as long as
(17:23):
we see it as someone else's problem, we are never
going to change. The second biggest sign I would say
is choosing to walk away when things get hard. This
demonstrates that you may unconsciously not believe that your goals
are worth sacrifice, and consequently that you are not worth
(17:45):
the sacrifice. Choosing to stick it out when things get
tough shows a commitment to your growth. You know, as
we always say on this podcast, you can either be
comfortable or you can choose to grow. And when we
shy away from the nitty gritty of life, we are
essentially self sabotaging. And this can be explained by too
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psychological phenomena, firstly learned helplessness and secondly a fear of failure.
This idea of learned helplessness was developed by Martin Selgeman,
and he came to the idea after he witnessed dogs
essentially being tied up and sadly abused, and what he
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found was that these dogs would continue to withstand that
abuse even when they were released and they could run
away or escape, and he drew from that conclusion and
he linked it to the behavior he was observing in humans.
This idea of learned helplessness theory. It suggests that certain
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people may develop a belief that their actions have no
influence or control over challenging situations, or when we repeatedly
encounter difficult or stressful circumstances, we do not see a
positive outcome as possible. They learn to feel helpless. We
(19:10):
learn to disengage from these situations as a coping mechanism,
and it is a huge sign that you are at
the end of the day in a cycle of self
sabotaging and unconsciously you do not believe that you are
worth the effort, You do not believe that you are
worth the hard times, and so you kind of just
(19:32):
walk away when things get tough. The third indicator is
creating problems and conflict in your relationships. This is something
that I've had to identify and unlearn in my own life.
In a lot of my past relationships, I've found that
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when things got really good, when I felt really secure,
there was this part of me that almost felt uncomfortable
with the level of peace and security that I was experiencing.
You know, I know how to operate when things are hard,
I know how to operate when things are rocky, and
I think I find myself inherently more prepared for those
(20:15):
worst case scenarios. So that is where I feel safe.
And what that means is that when things are going
really well in my relationships, it's almost like I don't
know how to be happy, so I would start fights.
I would find something small and I would make it big.
And I really don't feel ashamed to admit that, because
it's definitely something I've worked through and I know it's
(20:37):
actually fairly common, but it's also not frequently discussed, and
that habit both in our romantic relationships and also amongst
family members, amongst colleagues, amongst friends. It's often due to
self destructive tendencies and things like in security, a fear
(20:58):
of intimacy, unresolve emotional issues, and difficulties with control, all
of which are at the root of self sabotaging. Equally,
if you keep finding yourself in relationships with the same
kinds of people, often the repetition of these kinds of
behaviors and the repetition of these choices shows that we
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are not a consciously aware of the decisions we are making,
but there is some part of us that knows we
are going to be let down, knows we are going
to be disappointed, and allows us to be in that situation.
Another big sign is engaging in negative self talk, talking
down to ourselves. I think that that is increasingly a
(21:41):
massive issue in this generation. But also finding that no
matter how committed you are to a goal, you cannot
follow through. And you know, motivation is in everything. Sometimes
the reason we can't sustain our commitment to our goals
is because of this or unconscious element of our ego
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which seeks to sabotage our logical, goal oriented behavior. It
is the easiest thing in the world to give up,
especially when we subconsciously don't believe that we deserve what
we're after. And it's not always your fault. You know,
no one wants to deliberately fail on a conscious level,
But it is these factors such as a fear of failure,
(22:25):
a fear of success, and unconscious behaviors that contribute to
this output and contribute to this pattern. It all comes
back to self sabotage. Obviously, this is just a very
high level list. We could take this down to such
a granular level depending on the nature of your self
(22:47):
destructive behavior. But I think that last point really brings
us to what I really see as most valuable in
this episode. In the most valuable information this episode contain,
which is why do we do this? Why exactly do
we self sabotage? It's such a complicated and nuanced psychological explanation,
(23:12):
but I think that if we don't understand the reasoning
and the origins and the causes, there is no way
that we can address the habit. So I'm so excited
to get into that right after this break. Undermining our
own success and our future is a habit we need
(23:35):
to break early, and our twenties are a great time
for that. But I think the first step to conquering
these tendencies is to understand the origins of self sabotage.
You know, if you don't know the cause of a problem,
you cannot treat it. It's like any disease. You can't
just treat people for everything hoping you will address the
(23:57):
main problem. And the same case and be said for
self destructive behaviors. So I want to discuss some of
the various psychological explanations that are rooted in the underlying emotional, cognitive,
and behavioral processes that create these habits. Obviously, individual experiences
(24:19):
will all vary, but I would say that these reasons
are the most common. We can't talk about self destructive
behaviors without talking about our childhood. What we witness and
experience as children has in innate, and I would say,
very core impact on how we behave and what we
(24:39):
believe as adults, particularly if we were raised in an
environment of abuse or neglect or of chaos, wherein our
caregivers were inconsistent or didn't meet our primary physical and
emotional needs. Back in nineteen ninety one, the this group
(25:00):
of researchers, they decided to investigate this correlation, and they
found that clinical reports suggested that many adults who engage
in self sabotaging had childhood histories of trauma and a
disrupted attachment style. They also concluded that childhood trauma from
(25:20):
significant abuse to bullying or a divorce, or low school performance,
childhood illness, and emotional neglect, they all contributed to the
initiation of self destructive behavior, but the lack of a
secure attachment helped maintain it. So if you were bullied
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as a child and you internalized that you deserved to
be rejected and you deserved to be outcast, but then
you also didn't have a parent who was willing to
stand up for you, the chances of developing self sabotaging
behaviors later on in life is much high. And there
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are also some deeper reasons that are due to this
unresolved emotional issue, and this unresolved cause of low self esteem,
unresolved emotional trauma. It injures our core beliefs and identity,
and the reason behind that is because you feel like
you are the one to blame and it makes you
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feel guilt. We can believe that we are responsible for
a lot of what we have experienced because no one
has never told us differently, And there's foster's negative core
beliefs such as that I am unlovable, that I don't
deserve good things, that I am unworthy, and sadly, we
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act accordingly in the only way we kind of know how,
which is to confirm those beliefs. This also links to
low self esteem. In a study conducted in two thousand
and five. I think it actually was the same group
of researchers, although I might be wrong, but they undertook
a longitudinal study, which is a type of research in
(27:06):
which they followed the same group of participants for a
period of time to study the impact of a single variable.
In this case, it was childhood abuse and neglect, and
they study the impact of that on long term outcomes.
And what they were exploring was the stability of self
esteem over time and its association with childhood experiences. The
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findings indicated that individuals who experienced childhood abuse or trauma
or neglect were more likely to have lower self esteem.
And when we have lower self esteem, this results in
a lack of belief in ourselves and a continuation of
a series of self fulfilling prophecies. We have never experienced
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what it feels like to feel secure and loved and
at peace, because we have only survived in chaos and uncertainty,
and because of our subconscious need for familiarity, we continue
to act in a way that sustains that environment and experience,
resulting in self sabotage. It's all very I think, unconscious,
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and it often occurs even without our voluntary recognition. And
it also explains why if you have perhaps stated someone
who was like really unkind to you or really injured
your self esteem, you have been conditioned and you might
learn once again that you are not worthy, and so
for your brain to feel comfortable in an understanding, it
(28:41):
continues to self sabotage you. And ultimately all that does is,
like I said, set up a self fulfilling prophecy that
matches what these people have continuously told you about yourself.
I think it's also important to talk about this in
the sense of a coping mechanism. I know we spoke
about that before, but we can use some of these
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behaviors as a crutch. For example, say we don't believe
in our abilities or we have a fear of failure. Well,
you are never going to have to fail or completely
trust in your own skills if you never give yourself
an opportunity to succeed. So, in this way, self destructive
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tendencies protect us from feeling uncomfortable or from injuring our
self esteem. Procrastination, I think, is a great example of this.
If you never start, if you never try, you can
always blame this for your reason for failing. Because if
you actually tried and you failed, that would hurt so
much more. It's a crutch. It's something that you rely
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on to protect yourself and make yourself feel better. I
think about that in the sense of alcohol as well,
and the use of social media, or keeping yourself really busy,
keep yourself distracted from your problems. I think in this
sense though, with procrastination and with a lot of these things,
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it kind of all comes down to this dual fear
of failure but also fear of success. This fear of
success involves being afraid of actually meeting your potential, being
afraid of achievement because you don't want to be admired.
You don't want to have those responsibilities. You don't want
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to be in the spotlight and feel like you are
going to fail. So you avoid what would be a
novel and an uncertain situation by unconsciously ensuring that you
will never get to the point where you have to
be seen as successful, where you do actually put yourself
in a place where you are happy, because you're afraid
(30:51):
of losing that once you achieve it. I think, on
the other hand, what comes into play here is a
fear of failure or even rejection, and what that means
is that we may handicap ourselves to the point where
we never have to be in a situation where it
is even possible for us to succeed. You know, you
(31:12):
can begin to see here how complicated this interaction is,
but also how every person's individual profile and experiences and
history will mean that they act very differently. There have
also been some suggestions in psychology that self sabotage is
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a form of punishment, and if we look at this,
especially in the context of emotional trauma or low self
esteem and feeling like we are not good enough because
of what others have told us, we can see why
individuals who carry unresolved guilt or shame from past experiences
(31:54):
may engage in self sabotage as a way to punish
themselves for their personid wrongdoings or for the behavior that
they accepted from others. They may believe that they deserve
to suffer or they deserve to face negative consequences, leading
them to self sabotage their own efforts or opportunities because
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they don't really know what it would be like to
challenge that belief and see what's on the other side.
Thinking back to some of the signs of these behaviors.
We spoke a bit about learned helplessness, and I think
that this is very much an output of that. I
want to give one final reason here around why we
self sabotage that I think is most crucial for people
(32:43):
in their twenties. Self sabotage can often stem from an
unconscious conflict between what we think we want in our
life and what we actually want. So psychodynamic theories such
as psch you analysis it proposes that self sabotage may
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actually arise from an unresolved conflict or unconscious desires that
sabotage our own success or our happiness because we actually
want something else. We may have been told that we
need to desire and want one thing, such as success
(33:25):
and admiration and accolades, but actually at our core, we
really don't want those things. We want a happy and
quiet and peaceful life. And because we haven't yet been
able to actually recognize that, because we are consciously pursuing
what we think society wants from us, we silently sabotage
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our goals in an effort to actually achieve the outcome
that we really want. Or when we think about this
in the sense of a romantic connection or a relationship.
Maybe deep down you know that this person is not
right for you. You know that you do not want
to be with this person, so subconsciously you undermine the relationship,
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You start conflict, You sabotage it in hope that they
will leave you and your problem will be resolved. None
of this is obviously pleasant or desirable or ideal, especially
in our twenties, when we want to achieve our goals.
We want to be happy in our relationships. We want
to be making the right decisions and be fulfilled, and
(34:30):
as we said before, we want to have agency over
our decisions. So how do we stop? How do we
break the cycle of being our own worst enemy? I
think it starts with self awareness, And yes, I know
that is very broad, but let me explain a bit further.
These habits and actions which contradict our conscious goals are
(34:53):
very much internal, and they have an unconscious basis, but
they also show up very tangibly. So it's about being
able to recognize those cues from your environment and from
what's happening in your life that the way you are
acting is perhaps not efficient or productive. Pay attention to
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those patterns of self sabotage and identify the triggers, the thoughts,
and the emotions that precede these behaviors. I think becoming
aware of the underlying reasons behind you know, behind why
you self sabotage is the first step in addressing them. So,
for example, if you find that you only ever engage
(35:39):
in indecisiveness, or you distract yourself, or you isolate when
you are feeling really overwhelmed, it may be because of
these unconscious beliefs about your capabilities and that maybe you
don't deserve good things, you don't deserve to work hard,
or you don't deserve to properly rest. All of it
I think comes from beliefs that we have about ourselves
(36:01):
and what we deserve, and by addressing those, we addressed
the behavior that stems from that. I think also part
of that is challenging negative beliefs. Examining and challenging those
things that you hold about yourself, those ideas that you
have about yourself, such as feeling unworthy or fearing success,
(36:23):
is really valuable here. You want to replace those negative beliefs,
which are the origins of self sabotage, with more positive
and realistic ones. And a main way that we do
this is through cognitive behavior therapy CBT. We talk about
this all the time. Essentially, the basis of this method
or this practice is by challenging our cognitions such as
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I do not deserve happiness, we change our behavior. So
it's about looking at what are those thoughts and challenging them.
What is the evidence for our unworthiness? What is the
evidence for needing to feel guilty about good things happening?
What is the evidence around this idea that we can't
(37:06):
be happy? When you look at the evidence for those
and you manage them in an objective rather than a
subjective manner, you get to change your behavioral outputs. The
other thing is to build healthy coping strategies. You want
to replace those self destructive behaviors with healthier ones. Engaging
in activities that promote self care, that promote reducing your
(37:28):
stress and improving your emotional wellbeing, like exercise, like mindfulness, journaling,
or engaging in hobbies you enjoy will break the habit
of going to what you believe is most convenient, which
is the behaviors that actually undermine your success. And I
think the final element of this is around accountability. Often
(37:52):
we do not consciously realize when something is a problem,
but there are people in our lives who who do so.
Reaching out to your family, your friends, or a therapist
even who can provide support and guidance and accountability is
so valuable here. I think you really need people who
(38:15):
are going to be honest with you and like, trust me,
tough love is such a blessing sometimes. I remember when
I was maybe like nineteen or twenty, I kept dating
these awful people who were all the same. They were
like a copy and paste version of each other. And
one of my friends was like, Gemma, just in case
(38:36):
you don't see it, Literally, every single one of these
men is exactly the same, and you are just putting
yourself in the same situation again and again. And it
was self sabotage. I didn't think I deserved real, deep love,
and I was reinforcing that implicit belief I had about
myself by dating people who I knew would never challenge that,
(39:00):
and who I knew would confirm what I thought was
intrinsic and innate about myself. It was a bit of
a rude awakening, I will say, but I think we
all need people in our lives who aren't afraid to
be honest and keep us accountable in a compassionate manner.
I think there is a difference between someone being like,
(39:21):
oh my god, you always make such stupid decisions. That's
just like entirely unhelpful. There's a difference between that and
someone being like, Hey, I just want to flag this
with you, that you said that drinking makes you feel uncomfortable,
and that drinking is taking away from your goals, and
that you would much rather spend that time focused on
yourself or in bed or meditating or doing something non
(39:44):
alcohol related. And I can see that you're not really
following that goal that you had for yourself. I think
that's really valuable having people who love you enough and
care about you enough to actually remember what you want
from your life, remember your goals, and who will tell
you when you are perhaps self sabotaging. So I think
(40:06):
those are some of the main strategies that I've adopted
and that I think we should all adopt if we
come to recognize that our pattern of decisions and our
habits are actually not entirely aligned to the lifestyle and
the life we want to lead. I will say it
one final time. This is entirely normal. Self sabotage is,
(40:29):
I think something a lot of us have to come
to recognize. I would really encourage you to look at
your life and try and identify what behaviors don't really
align with your higher self or your long term goals,
or the kind of the life that you want, or
(40:50):
what you want from your emotional wellbeing or your mental state.
Is there something that you are doing, perhaps unconsciously, that
is not how hopeful I think when we take time
to reflect and to sit with our decisions and think
about them consciously, often it's like a Pandora's box. We
suddenly reveal so many like dark habits and like unconscious
(41:15):
behaviors that we didn't even realize we were performing as
an act of self sabotage. So I really hope that
this has been useful and that you have learnt something.
I always say this. I know I sound like a
broken record, but like I really needed to like investigate this.
I was talking to my friends around self sabotage in
(41:36):
our own lives, and I was like, holy shit, Like
there has been a lot of things I've been doing recently,
a lot of negative self talk, a lot of behaviors,
a lot of actions that are actually really contradictory with
the life I want to want to lead. So I
really hope that maybe that's something that you are looking
out for now as well. Obviously it's okay to face
set backs, it's okay to be indecisive and to sometimes
(41:59):
have those parts of you that you don't love, but
being conscious of them is such a step in the
right direction. If there is someone who you think needs
to hear this, send it to them, obviously, with compassion,
like my friend did for me. You never know who
will help out. And if you found this episode helpful,
please feel free to leave a five star review on
(42:20):
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now, if you,
of course feel called to do so. It really makes
my day, helps the show grow and reach new people,
And it's just a small thing I think you can
do to I don't know, maybe make me feel encouraged,
Maybe just share on the love, share on some of
the positive things in life. And as always, if you
(42:43):
have an episode suggestion, or if you just want to
be in touch, if you want to be part of
the community, see what episodes are coming out, See some
video clips from these episodes. Please follow me at that
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next week with another episode, so I will see you
then
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, you
know the deal. Wherever you are in the world, it
is great to have you here back for another episode
because this week we are going to tackle the big
scary beast that is self sabotage. Our twenties are such
(00:48):
a unique time of growth and goal setting and huge moments,
but it can also be very easy for us to
get in our own world. I think sometimes we can
be our biggest enemy because of our tendency to engage
in behavior that actually undermines us, and we consistently sabotage
(01:12):
our efforts in ways that are sometimes not even obvious.
So why do we do that? Why do we find
ourselves acting in a manner that is contradictory to our
goals and which leaves us worse off? I think a
deeper question as well is why can't we let ourselves
(01:33):
be happy and let ourselves succeed? Well, that's what we're
going to explore today. I think self sabotage comes in
many forms, from procrastination to impulse buying, indecision, poor dating choices,
starting conflict, overworking, isolating ourselves, and even more serious habits
(01:56):
like substance abuse. But at their very core, all of
these behaviors stem from the negative beliefs we hold about
ourselves and feeling like we don't deserve the good things
in life, so choosing to sabotage ourselves before they even occur.
(02:16):
And it was Freud who actually was one of the
first people to identify these behaviors, and he believed that
it derived from our unconscious beliefs and what he called
the death drive, whereby all humans innately want to be
free of responsibility and expectation, so they sabotage their efforts
(02:37):
at success, for example, scrolling on TikTok rather than doing
your assignment as a way of ignoring your responsibilities. And
psychology has obviously evolved a lot since then, and now
we tend to think of self sabotage as linked to
ideas around coping mechanisms, negative beliefs, self punishment, fear of success,
(03:04):
and so much more. And I think all of those
aspects of our unconscious thinking and of our self esteem
and self concept are also the things we tend to
start diving into and digging into and uncovering in our twenties,
so they are inextricably linked. I also want to talk
about the many innocent looking behaviors that are encouraged by
(03:28):
society but are actually a form of self sabotage, and
why it is so hard to identify when we are
deliberately handicapping ourselves and getting out of our own way.
So in this episode, we are going to dive into
the fascinating psychology behind self sabotage, from the origins and
(03:51):
the causes of self destructive behaviors to the major science
that you are a self saboteur, the obvious and the
less of why we self sabotage, the links to childhood
to trauma, but also ultimately how we can cultivate healthier
habits and patterns and let go of our negative beliefs
(04:15):
to break the cycle of self sabotage. So if you
are sick of striking yourself down and being your own
worst enemy, this episode is for you. I cannot wait
to get into it. So without further ado, let's go.
(04:36):
Self sabotage, also known as self destructive behavior, is a
pattern of habits and actions and unconscious decisions that are
innately harmful and they undermine our goals and wellbeing or
just all around levels of happiness. At their core, these
(04:56):
behaviors are driven by things like unresis solved, emotional pain,
low self esteem, a sense of unworthiness, and the sense
that we need to almost punish ourselves for something that's
happened in the past. Individuals who engage in these self
(05:16):
destructive behaviors probably like you and I. They may use
them as coping mechanisms to numb or distract themselves from
their underlying psychological distress. It obviously differs from what we
would typically see as sabotage like in the movies or
in like a Shakespeare play, you know, the form of
(05:39):
malicious actions by others to disrupt or hinder us. And
it really zones in on this idea and belief that
we can be our own biggest saboteur when it comes
to not just our major goals, but also our everyday life.
And I think the secret here is that everyone engaged
(06:00):
and these kinds of behaviors every single one of us
will sell sabotage at some point in our lives. And
when we are in our twenties, I think we are
particularly vulnerable because we don't yet have a strong identity.
We can be super confused about our goals and our future,
and we don't really yet have as much of that
(06:22):
hindsight or experience to recognize the correlation between certain habits
and the outcomes that cause us to stress and cause
us to undermine our progress or just our life in general.
The origins of this term or idea that actually they're
somewhat ancient. It is this idea that has been around
(06:45):
for some time and used in one way or another
to describe individuals who acted in a quote unquote unsavory manner.
But it wasn't really given a formal name or really
studied until the late eighteen hundreds. And who do we
have to think for that, Well, of course it was Freud,
(07:07):
the granddaddy of psychology. Self sabotage has a lot to
do with our ego and our unconscious beliefs and our
childhood development. So of course Freud is going to have
his fingers in this in some forum or another, and
he was the one who came up with and kind
of presented this idea of the death drive, which he
(07:31):
believed was innate in humans. And it is essentially this
unconscious psychological urge towards self destruction which he theorized was
actually really cathartic. You know, ruining your life meant being
free from ordinary stresses and responsibilities and kind of claiming
(07:55):
a whole new set of burdens. But for just a second,
we feel really liberated. And he was describing what we
now know as self destructive behaviors or self sabotage, and
they can really occur in any domain of life, you know,
our relationships, our careers, our family, our physical wellbeing, emotional wellbeing,
(08:19):
or just general happiness. You know, where there is room
to grow or succeed, there is room to self sabotage.
I know I've already given some examples, but I want
to give some more here, just to paint kind of
a broader image of what this looks like. It may
be you know, starting fights with your partner even when
(08:41):
you're not mad, lashing out, you know, neglecting your physical needs,
being unconsciously indecisive, ignoring your intuition, maybe making dating choices
you know you shouldn't be doing, or scrolling on your phone,
or impulse by tying anything that actually is counterproductive to
(09:03):
a conscious goal you have, but you physically cannot stop
yourself from doing. It's like this strange kind of alter
ego has taken over your body and is making you
act in a certain way that is a self sabotaging behavior.
And the reason why I stress this almost inability to
(09:24):
stop ourselves is because these behaviors can be conscious or unconscious,
and this kind of depends on our level of self
awareness or I guess denial. This links back to Freud's
initial ideas and conceptualization of self sabotage, whereby he believed
(09:45):
that the reason we create obstacles for ourselves is because
our subconscious mind, also known as the anti self, interrupts
our logical conscious mind, making them at conflict. For example,
you may be wanting to treat your body better and
eat healthier and be more active, but you find yourself
(10:06):
inexplicably always missing your workouts or eating foods. You know
what makes you feel good, drinking juice and soft drink
instead of water, And in those instances, it's because your
logical conscious mind, which is responsible for gold driven behavior,
is being undermined by this anti self, and this anti self,
(10:29):
this unconscious impulse may stem from us just kind of
not believing that we deserve the future we're striving for,
or that we deserve to live in a gentle, non
chaotic environment. And that's one of the deeper I guess
root issues and causes of self sabotage, our internal belief
(10:51):
system around what we feel we deserve in life, and
these notions of self punishment and a distorted sense of
self worth. I think that's why it's so maladaptive. And
another reason we find it difficult to recognize self destructive
patterns is not just because they are unconscious, but because
(11:15):
sometimes they are so deeply ingrained and part of the
fabric of society that we don't even blink an eye
or take time to examine what they mean for us
on an individual level. Something I've realized is that there
are so many insidious, sometimes invisible behaviors that are actually
(11:35):
really self destructive, and some of them are socially acceptable
and encouraged, so we may not always think about them.
I think of habits like overworking or excessive busyness, but
The biggest one I've been considering a lot recently is
drinking alcohol. I drink alcohol. I love a fun night,
(11:56):
I love a cheeky croctail, a celebratory drink or too.
But I think recently I've become very sober curious, I
would say, and I saw this post the other day
that really solidified this thinking for me, and what it
said was this alcohol is the only drug that causes
(12:18):
intergenerational trauma that is still socially celebrated and accepted. Alcohol
is a drug. We often do not think about it
on the same level as you know, something like cocaine
or meth. But it is addictive. It impacts our behavior.
It works on our body in a depressant way, much
(12:39):
like things like valium or a benzodiazepine. And I think
it is the best example of a socially accessible behavior
that actually contains an element of self sabotage. And obviously
it exists on a spectrum ranging from you know, straight
up alcoholism to just consuming excessive alcohol in a way
that it's actually inconsistent with our values or plans, you know,
(13:03):
being hungover for work or drinking before you know you
have a big day, or that you want to go
for a run, but society doesn't really seem to have
a problem with that. It doesn't have a problem with
being drunk or hungover, or using alcohol to celebrate or
even subconsciously numb some internal conflict we're having until it
(13:25):
crosses over into an area that is socially unacceptable, and
I really think that line is not all too clear.
I think the consumption of alcohol is a really good
example to use here because it highlights a how self
sabotaging is socially acceptable, but be how these behaviors are
(13:47):
also in some ways coping mechanisms. So coping mechanisms in
psychology are these psychological and behavioral responses that we use
to manage stress and emotion or challenging situations. And they
can be maladaptive, meaning not appropriate for the situation we're in, unhealthy,
(14:08):
or they can be adaptive. So let's view them in
the context of self sabotage, in which the coping mechanisms
we employ are going to be maladaptive because they are
contrary to our conscious goals. For example, when we feel stressed,
we use alcohol to calm us down, or when we
are depressed we isolate, when we are facing a major
(14:31):
work or study deadline. We doom scroll on social media,
we distract ourselves. All of these things may feel initially
pleasant and useful, but in the long run they are
actually highly detrimental and they will leave us feeling worse off.
And a lot of the research into self destructive behaviors
(14:53):
demonstrates that link to unhealthy coping mechanisms. But I want
to talk now about some of the signs that you
are a self saboteur, that you are your own worst enemy.
As we say, recognizing signs of self sabotage is, of course,
I think an important step in addressing and overcoming these
(15:14):
self defeating behaviors. We've talked a lot about why it
is that they're negative and some of the early and
more current in modern theories around why they exist. But
what do we need to look out for if you
think that you are someone who self sabotages? Number one,
If you always blame others and choose to ignore how
(15:36):
your behavior correlates to an outcome, this demonstrates a lack
of self awareness around the decisions we make and how
they contribute to our overall happiness and satisfaction in life.
It is very easy to bury our head in the
sand when we feel trapped in a cycle of bad
decisions and subsequent consequences. But the truth is that you
(15:58):
are really the captain of your own ship, and blaming
others is just a massive indicator that you may actually
be self sabotaging because it is a lot easier to
attribute our faults and our mistakes to others than to ourselves,
and it's all in an effort to protect our self esteem.
(16:19):
It's also known in psychology as attribution theory. So according
to this theory, we often attribute the causes of events
and outcomes to other people in a way that we
externalize the cause, and we externalize the problem to protect
(16:40):
our self image, and that is self destructive because it
denies us agency over our lives. It's called this idea
of an external locus of control. We've spoken about it
on the show before. Essentially, what it comes down to
attribution theory externalizing our problems blaming others is that we
never feel like we are actually responsible for our lives,
(17:03):
and that makes it easy to feel like the bad
things are not our fault, but also that the good
things are all due to luck. And it's part of
the self sabotaging kind of cycle, because we can be
acting in a way that is entirely unhelpful and entirely
unuseful and contradictory to our goals, but as long as
(17:23):
we see it as someone else's problem, we are never
going to change. The second biggest sign I would say
is choosing to walk away when things get hard. This
demonstrates that you may unconsciously not believe that your goals
are worth sacrifice, and consequently that you are not worth
(17:45):
the sacrifice. Choosing to stick it out when things get
tough shows a commitment to your growth. You know, as
we always say on this podcast, you can either be
comfortable or you can choose to grow. And when we
shy away from the nitty gritty of life, we are
essentially self sabotaging. And this can be explained by too
(18:07):
psychological phenomena, firstly learned helplessness and secondly a fear of failure.
This idea of learned helplessness was developed by Martin Selgeman,
and he came to the idea after he witnessed dogs
essentially being tied up and sadly abused, and what he
(18:30):
found was that these dogs would continue to withstand that
abuse even when they were released and they could run
away or escape, and he drew from that conclusion and
he linked it to the behavior he was observing in humans.
This idea of learned helplessness theory. It suggests that certain
(18:50):
people may develop a belief that their actions have no
influence or control over challenging situations, or when we repeatedly
encounter difficult or stressful circumstances, we do not see a
positive outcome as possible. They learn to feel helpless. We
(19:10):
learn to disengage from these situations as a coping mechanism,
and it is a huge sign that you are at
the end of the day in a cycle of self
sabotaging and unconsciously you do not believe that you are
worth the effort, You do not believe that you are
worth the hard times, and so you kind of just
(19:32):
walk away when things get tough. The third indicator is
creating problems and conflict in your relationships. This is something
that I've had to identify and unlearn in my own life.
In a lot of my past relationships, I've found that
(19:52):
when things got really good, when I felt really secure,
there was this part of me that almost felt uncomfortable
with the level of peace and security that I was experiencing.
You know, I know how to operate when things are hard,
I know how to operate when things are rocky, and
I think I find myself inherently more prepared for those
(20:15):
worst case scenarios. So that is where I feel safe.
And what that means is that when things are going
really well in my relationships, it's almost like I don't
know how to be happy, so I would start fights.
I would find something small and I would make it big.
And I really don't feel ashamed to admit that, because
it's definitely something I've worked through and I know it's
(20:37):
actually fairly common, but it's also not frequently discussed, and
that habit both in our romantic relationships and also amongst
family members, amongst colleagues, amongst friends. It's often due to
self destructive tendencies and things like in security, a fear
(20:58):
of intimacy, unresolve emotional issues, and difficulties with control, all
of which are at the root of self sabotaging. Equally,
if you keep finding yourself in relationships with the same
kinds of people, often the repetition of these kinds of
behaviors and the repetition of these choices shows that we
(21:19):
are not a consciously aware of the decisions we are making,
but there is some part of us that knows we
are going to be let down, knows we are going
to be disappointed, and allows us to be in that situation.
Another big sign is engaging in negative self talk, talking
down to ourselves. I think that that is increasingly a
(21:41):
massive issue in this generation. But also finding that no
matter how committed you are to a goal, you cannot
follow through. And you know, motivation is in everything. Sometimes
the reason we can't sustain our commitment to our goals
is because of this or unconscious element of our ego
(22:03):
which seeks to sabotage our logical, goal oriented behavior. It
is the easiest thing in the world to give up,
especially when we subconsciously don't believe that we deserve what
we're after. And it's not always your fault. You know,
no one wants to deliberately fail on a conscious level,
But it is these factors such as a fear of failure,
(22:25):
a fear of success, and unconscious behaviors that contribute to
this output and contribute to this pattern. It all comes
back to self sabotage. Obviously, this is just a very
high level list. We could take this down to such
a granular level depending on the nature of your self
(22:47):
destructive behavior. But I think that last point really brings
us to what I really see as most valuable in
this episode. In the most valuable information this episode contain,
which is why do we do this? Why exactly do
we self sabotage? It's such a complicated and nuanced psychological explanation,
(23:12):
but I think that if we don't understand the reasoning
and the origins and the causes, there is no way
that we can address the habit. So I'm so excited
to get into that right after this break. Undermining our
own success and our future is a habit we need
(23:35):
to break early, and our twenties are a great time
for that. But I think the first step to conquering
these tendencies is to understand the origins of self sabotage.
You know, if you don't know the cause of a problem,
you cannot treat it. It's like any disease. You can't
just treat people for everything hoping you will address the
(23:57):
main problem. And the same case and be said for
self destructive behaviors. So I want to discuss some of
the various psychological explanations that are rooted in the underlying emotional, cognitive,
and behavioral processes that create these habits. Obviously, individual experiences
(24:19):
will all vary, but I would say that these reasons
are the most common. We can't talk about self destructive
behaviors without talking about our childhood. What we witness and
experience as children has in innate, and I would say,
very core impact on how we behave and what we
(24:39):
believe as adults, particularly if we were raised in an
environment of abuse or neglect or of chaos, wherein our
caregivers were inconsistent or didn't meet our primary physical and
emotional needs. Back in nineteen ninety one, the this group
(25:00):
of researchers, they decided to investigate this correlation, and they
found that clinical reports suggested that many adults who engage
in self sabotaging had childhood histories of trauma and a
disrupted attachment style. They also concluded that childhood trauma from
(25:20):
significant abuse to bullying or a divorce, or low school performance,
childhood illness, and emotional neglect, they all contributed to the
initiation of self destructive behavior, but the lack of a
secure attachment helped maintain it. So if you were bullied
(25:40):
as a child and you internalized that you deserved to
be rejected and you deserved to be outcast, but then
you also didn't have a parent who was willing to
stand up for you, the chances of developing self sabotaging
behaviors later on in life is much high. And there
(26:00):
are also some deeper reasons that are due to this
unresolved emotional issue, and this unresolved cause of low self esteem,
unresolved emotional trauma. It injures our core beliefs and identity,
and the reason behind that is because you feel like
you are the one to blame and it makes you
(26:21):
feel guilt. We can believe that we are responsible for
a lot of what we have experienced because no one
has never told us differently, And there's foster's negative core
beliefs such as that I am unlovable, that I don't
deserve good things, that I am unworthy, and sadly, we
(26:44):
act accordingly in the only way we kind of know how,
which is to confirm those beliefs. This also links to
low self esteem. In a study conducted in two thousand
and five. I think it actually was the same group
of researchers, although I might be wrong, but they undertook
a longitudinal study, which is a type of research in
(27:06):
which they followed the same group of participants for a
period of time to study the impact of a single variable.
In this case, it was childhood abuse and neglect, and
they study the impact of that on long term outcomes.
And what they were exploring was the stability of self
esteem over time and its association with childhood experiences. The
(27:30):
findings indicated that individuals who experienced childhood abuse or trauma
or neglect were more likely to have lower self esteem.
And when we have lower self esteem, this results in
a lack of belief in ourselves and a continuation of
a series of self fulfilling prophecies. We have never experienced
(27:54):
what it feels like to feel secure and loved and
at peace, because we have only survived in chaos and uncertainty,
and because of our subconscious need for familiarity, we continue
to act in a way that sustains that environment and experience,
resulting in self sabotage. It's all very I think, unconscious,
(28:18):
and it often occurs even without our voluntary recognition. And
it also explains why if you have perhaps stated someone
who was like really unkind to you or really injured
your self esteem, you have been conditioned and you might
learn once again that you are not worthy, and so
for your brain to feel comfortable in an understanding, it
(28:41):
continues to self sabotage you. And ultimately all that does is,
like I said, set up a self fulfilling prophecy that
matches what these people have continuously told you about yourself.
I think it's also important to talk about this in
the sense of a coping mechanism. I know we spoke
about that before, but we can use some of these
(29:04):
behaviors as a crutch. For example, say we don't believe
in our abilities or we have a fear of failure. Well,
you are never going to have to fail or completely
trust in your own skills if you never give yourself
an opportunity to succeed. So, in this way, self destructive
(29:24):
tendencies protect us from feeling uncomfortable or from injuring our
self esteem. Procrastination, I think, is a great example of this.
If you never start, if you never try, you can
always blame this for your reason for failing. Because if
you actually tried and you failed, that would hurt so
much more. It's a crutch. It's something that you rely
(29:46):
on to protect yourself and make yourself feel better. I
think about that in the sense of alcohol as well,
and the use of social media, or keeping yourself really busy,
keep yourself distracted from your problems. I think in this
sense though, with procrastination and with a lot of these things,
(30:08):
it kind of all comes down to this dual fear
of failure but also fear of success. This fear of
success involves being afraid of actually meeting your potential, being
afraid of achievement because you don't want to be admired.
You don't want to have those responsibilities. You don't want
(30:30):
to be in the spotlight and feel like you are
going to fail. So you avoid what would be a
novel and an uncertain situation by unconsciously ensuring that you
will never get to the point where you have to
be seen as successful, where you do actually put yourself
in a place where you are happy, because you're afraid
(30:51):
of losing that once you achieve it. I think, on
the other hand, what comes into play here is a
fear of failure or even rejection, and what that means
is that we may handicap ourselves to the point where
we never have to be in a situation where it
is even possible for us to succeed. You know, you
(31:12):
can begin to see here how complicated this interaction is,
but also how every person's individual profile and experiences and
history will mean that they act very differently. There have
also been some suggestions in psychology that self sabotage is
(31:32):
a form of punishment, and if we look at this,
especially in the context of emotional trauma or low self
esteem and feeling like we are not good enough because
of what others have told us, we can see why
individuals who carry unresolved guilt or shame from past experiences
(31:54):
may engage in self sabotage as a way to punish
themselves for their personid wrongdoings or for the behavior that
they accepted from others. They may believe that they deserve
to suffer or they deserve to face negative consequences, leading
them to self sabotage their own efforts or opportunities because
(32:18):
they don't really know what it would be like to
challenge that belief and see what's on the other side.
Thinking back to some of the signs of these behaviors.
We spoke a bit about learned helplessness, and I think
that this is very much an output of that. I
want to give one final reason here around why we
self sabotage that I think is most crucial for people
(32:43):
in their twenties. Self sabotage can often stem from an
unconscious conflict between what we think we want in our
life and what we actually want. So psychodynamic theories such
as psch you analysis it proposes that self sabotage may
(33:04):
actually arise from an unresolved conflict or unconscious desires that
sabotage our own success or our happiness because we actually
want something else. We may have been told that we
need to desire and want one thing, such as success
(33:25):
and admiration and accolades, but actually at our core, we
really don't want those things. We want a happy and
quiet and peaceful life. And because we haven't yet been
able to actually recognize that, because we are consciously pursuing
what we think society wants from us, we silently sabotage
(33:47):
our goals in an effort to actually achieve the outcome
that we really want. Or when we think about this
in the sense of a romantic connection or a relationship.
Maybe deep down you know that this person is not
right for you. You know that you do not want
to be with this person, so subconsciously you undermine the relationship,
(34:09):
You start conflict, You sabotage it in hope that they
will leave you and your problem will be resolved. None
of this is obviously pleasant or desirable or ideal, especially
in our twenties, when we want to achieve our goals.
We want to be happy in our relationships. We want
to be making the right decisions and be fulfilled, and
(34:30):
as we said before, we want to have agency over
our decisions. So how do we stop? How do we
break the cycle of being our own worst enemy? I
think it starts with self awareness, And yes, I know
that is very broad, but let me explain a bit further.
These habits and actions which contradict our conscious goals are
(34:53):
very much internal, and they have an unconscious basis, but
they also show up very tangibly. So it's about being
able to recognize those cues from your environment and from
what's happening in your life that the way you are
acting is perhaps not efficient or productive. Pay attention to
(35:16):
those patterns of self sabotage and identify the triggers, the thoughts,
and the emotions that precede these behaviors. I think becoming
aware of the underlying reasons behind you know, behind why
you self sabotage is the first step in addressing them. So,
for example, if you find that you only ever engage
(35:39):
in indecisiveness, or you distract yourself, or you isolate when
you are feeling really overwhelmed, it may be because of
these unconscious beliefs about your capabilities and that maybe you
don't deserve good things, you don't deserve to work hard,
or you don't deserve to properly rest. All of it
I think comes from beliefs that we have about ourselves
(36:01):
and what we deserve, and by addressing those, we addressed
the behavior that stems from that. I think also part
of that is challenging negative beliefs. Examining and challenging those
things that you hold about yourself, those ideas that you
have about yourself, such as feeling unworthy or fearing success,
(36:23):
is really valuable here. You want to replace those negative beliefs,
which are the origins of self sabotage, with more positive
and realistic ones. And a main way that we do
this is through cognitive behavior therapy CBT. We talk about
this all the time. Essentially, the basis of this method
or this practice is by challenging our cognitions such as
(36:46):
I do not deserve happiness, we change our behavior. So
it's about looking at what are those thoughts and challenging them.
What is the evidence for our unworthiness? What is the
evidence for needing to feel guilty about good things happening?
What is the evidence around this idea that we can't
(37:06):
be happy? When you look at the evidence for those
and you manage them in an objective rather than a
subjective manner, you get to change your behavioral outputs. The
other thing is to build healthy coping strategies. You want
to replace those self destructive behaviors with healthier ones. Engaging
in activities that promote self care, that promote reducing your
(37:28):
stress and improving your emotional wellbeing, like exercise, like mindfulness, journaling,
or engaging in hobbies you enjoy will break the habit
of going to what you believe is most convenient, which
is the behaviors that actually undermine your success. And I
think the final element of this is around accountability. Often
(37:52):
we do not consciously realize when something is a problem,
but there are people in our lives who who do so.
Reaching out to your family, your friends, or a therapist
even who can provide support and guidance and accountability is
so valuable here. I think you really need people who
(38:15):
are going to be honest with you and like, trust me,
tough love is such a blessing sometimes. I remember when
I was maybe like nineteen or twenty, I kept dating
these awful people who were all the same. They were
like a copy and paste version of each other. And
one of my friends was like, Gemma, just in case
(38:36):
you don't see it, Literally, every single one of these
men is exactly the same, and you are just putting
yourself in the same situation again and again. And it
was self sabotage. I didn't think I deserved real, deep love,
and I was reinforcing that implicit belief I had about
myself by dating people who I knew would never challenge that,
(39:00):
and who I knew would confirm what I thought was
intrinsic and innate about myself. It was a bit of
a rude awakening, I will say, but I think we
all need people in our lives who aren't afraid to
be honest and keep us accountable in a compassionate manner.
I think there is a difference between someone being like,
(39:21):
oh my god, you always make such stupid decisions. That's
just like entirely unhelpful. There's a difference between that and
someone being like, Hey, I just want to flag this
with you, that you said that drinking makes you feel uncomfortable,
and that drinking is taking away from your goals, and
that you would much rather spend that time focused on
yourself or in bed or meditating or doing something non
(39:44):
alcohol related. And I can see that you're not really
following that goal that you had for yourself. I think
that's really valuable having people who love you enough and
care about you enough to actually remember what you want
from your life, remember your goals, and who will tell
you when you are perhaps self sabotaging. So I think
(40:06):
those are some of the main strategies that I've adopted
and that I think we should all adopt if we
come to recognize that our pattern of decisions and our
habits are actually not entirely aligned to the lifestyle and
the life we want to lead. I will say it
one final time. This is entirely normal. Self sabotage is,
(40:29):
I think something a lot of us have to come
to recognize. I would really encourage you to look at
your life and try and identify what behaviors don't really
align with your higher self or your long term goals,
or the kind of the life that you want, or
(40:50):
what you want from your emotional wellbeing or your mental state.
Is there something that you are doing, perhaps unconsciously, that
is not how hopeful I think when we take time
to reflect and to sit with our decisions and think
about them consciously, often it's like a Pandora's box. We
suddenly reveal so many like dark habits and like unconscious
(41:15):
behaviors that we didn't even realize we were performing as
an act of self sabotage. So I really hope that
this has been useful and that you have learnt something.
I always say this. I know I sound like a
broken record, but like I really needed to like investigate this.
I was talking to my friends around self sabotage in
(41:36):
our own lives, and I was like, holy shit, Like
there has been a lot of things I've been doing recently,
a lot of negative self talk, a lot of behaviors,
a lot of actions that are actually really contradictory with
the life I want to want to lead. So I
really hope that maybe that's something that you are looking
out for now as well. Obviously it's okay to face
set backs, it's okay to be indecisive and to sometimes
(41:59):
have those parts of you that you don't love, but
being conscious of them is such a step in the
right direction. If there is someone who you think needs
to hear this, send it to them, obviously, with compassion,
like my friend did for me. You never know who
will help out. And if you found this episode helpful,
please feel free to leave a five star review on
(42:20):
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now, if you,
of course feel called to do so. It really makes
my day, helps the show grow and reach new people,
And it's just a small thing I think you can
do to I don't know, maybe make me feel encouraged,
Maybe just share on the love, share on some of
the positive things in life. And as always, if you
(42:43):
have an episode suggestion, or if you just want to
be in touch, if you want to be part of
the community, see what episodes are coming out, See some
video clips from these episodes. Please follow me at that
Psychology Podcast on Instagram. I'd love to see you over
the Come and say hi, and we will be back
next week with another episode, so I will see you
then
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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