September 4, 2025 • 10 mins
Do you ever feel like you’re working so hard, but somehow still not making progress? What if the thing that's holding you back smaller than you think?
Self-sabotage is sneaky. It can show up in tiny, everyday choices that keep you stuck, frustrated, and wondering why your efforts aren’t paying off. In this episode of Inner Work with MaryAnn Walker, I share a real-life lesson that turned into a powerful reminder: sometimes it’s not about making massive changes—it’s about one small tweak that can make all the difference.
Whether you’re a recovering people pleaser, an empath, or a highly sensitive person, you may notice self-sabotage showing up in your relationships, your goals, and even in the way you talk to yourself. The good news? Once you learn how to stop self-sabotaging, you’ll see how one small mindset shift and tiny daily habits can create big and lasting results.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Common self-sabotage patterns and how to recognize them.
- Why people pleasers often minimize their accomplishments (and how to stop).
- How avoiding conflict in relationships can actually create more conflict.
- Practical mindset shifts to break the cycle of self-sabotage.
- Why making tiny changes every day can lead to massive transformation.
Challenge for the Week
Ask yourself: What’s one small tweak I could make today that would have the biggest impact on my life? Maybe it’s speaking up sooner, accepting help instead of refusing it, or finally celebrating your own accomplishments.
Work With Me
If you’re ready to stop sabotaging your goals and start creating the results you really want, I’d love to help. As a life coach for empaths, highly sensitive people, and recovering people pleasers, I specialize in spotting the small shifts that can lead to big breakthroughs. Book your free clarity call today: https://calendly.com/maryannwalkerlife/freeconsult
Don’t Forget to Subscribe
Be sure to follow Inner Work with MaryAnn Walker so you never miss an episode. And if you found this helpful, please leave a review—it helps more helpers, healers, and people pleasers discover tools to stop getting in their own way and live with more confidence, clarity, and ease.
Want to connect on other platforms? I've got you!
Contact me: https://maryannwalker.life/contact-me
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, hello and welcome back.
My name is Marianne Walker.
I'm the life coach for thehelpers, the healers, the
recovering people pleasers, andthis is a very spontaneous
episode because I really waslearning a lesson today on life.
Okay, so today we're gonna betalking about self-sabotage.
What little things might begetting in your way, but this is
how it was showing up for me.
Okay.
So at the time of thisrecording, we're having house
(00:21):
guests arrive this weekend we'regonna have a new friend come
over, an old friend come over,and so I'm working really hard
to get the house looking good.
So as part of getting the houseto look really good, I pulled
out our old, um, shampoo, ourcarpet shampoo.
I was like, okay, this islooking awful.
The house that we live in, wehaven't remodeled the kitchen
yet.
There is carpet in the diningroom.
I know.
(00:42):
Why did anyone ever think thatwas a good idea?
But the carpet was lookingawful, so I was gonna shampoo
the carpet before all the guestsarrived, right?
So I start shampooing, and itwas so frustrating because as I
was pushing it forward andpulling it back, like usually
you can see exactly where themachine cleaned, but for some
reason it was only cleaning aabout a three quarter inch
(01:05):
stripe, half inch to threequarter inch stripe down the
center.
That was the only part that wasgetting cleaned.
I thought, well, this isstrange, so I shampooed the
carpet in this direction.
In that direction.
I shampooed it diagonal, Ishampooed it in all of the
directions.
And so basically it just wentfrom being striped to plaid to a
diagonal plaid.
It still had all these spots ofdirt all over it.
(01:26):
It just wasn't looking good.
And I thought, okay, well maybeit's a problem with the machine.
We probably need a whole newmachine.
We've had this one for years.
And then I looked up how muchwould be for a new machine and
it was about 550 bucks, and Ithought, no, we don't need a new
machine that bad.
I need to figure this out.
So, okay, so maybe it's the partthat's sucking.
(01:47):
It's the sucking.
So it's doing a good jobscrubbing, but we just need it
to suck better.
So I laid it down and I got alittle scrubby straw thingy, you
know those little scrub brushesthat you clean straws with?
And I was cleaning it out inthere, and I got a bunch of gunk
out and I thought, okay, nowit's going to work.
I start cleaning it again.
And same thing, it just was notworking.
(02:07):
I was still just making stripesin the carpet and I was just
really feeling frustrated,thinking, okay, well something's
wrong with this machine.
This is just getting ridiculous.
And then I thought, okay, wellmaybe it's the sprayer.
Maybe it's not the suckingthat's wrong, it's the sprayer.
So, laid it down, helped to findthe teeny tiny sprayer you guys,
it was the smallest sprayer inthe world, but I think it was
(02:28):
the teeny tiny little fansprayer.
That was only spraying in thecenter.
The rest of it was blocked.
So I took a little toothbrushand scrubbed it for about five
seconds, and then I turned themachine on.
And you guys, it was amazing.
It was like a brand new machine.
My carpet looks amazing.
It's all the same color.
It doesn't have stripes, itdoesn't have plaid.
It looks amazing.
(02:48):
But as the carpet was gettingcleaned, I couldn't help but
think, oh my goodness, how manytimes do we blame other things
when something's getting in ourway, when really there's not
anything wrong with the machine.
It's just you're gonna requirelike a tiny little tweak, like
brushing the sprayer for fiveseconds with a toothbrush.
So I want you to think todayabout what ways you might be
getting in your own way, and Ihave a few examples here for
(03:10):
you.
I will start with a personalexample.
I am currently wanting to loseweight, get super fit.
I wanna be super strong, and aspart of that, I'm tracking my
weight.
And admittedly, when I got onthe scale last time and saw that
I was down two pounds, do youwanna know what my first thought
was?
Hooray.
I can go and get those cookies.
That was me getting in my ownway.
(03:31):
That was me self-sabotaging.
And so I want you to thinkabout, okay, where am I
expecting a result, but I am theone getting in my own way.
Um, I also remember growing up,and I love my mom for this, but
this was very entertaining inhindsight thinking on this very
subject, so.
In the early morning hours, shereally wanted us to all be fit
when we were kids.
And so she'd say, Hey, if youwake up early and go with me to
(03:53):
the rec center, after we go tothe rec center, I'll take you
out to breakfast at McDonald's.
And it was the best thing.
But that was also probablysabotaging a bit of health,
right?
That yes, we were developing thehabit of waking up and going to
work out.
But anyway, it was just reallyinteresting thinking about the
ways that we sabotage ourselves.
So I wanted to throw out a fewideas for you since I know you,
I know what your struggles are,and just kind of point out a few
(04:16):
of the ways that you might, infact be getting in your own way
when it comes to creating theresult that you want.
So, for example, maybe you don'twant conflict in your
relationship and so you reallydon't wanna have a big fight,
but because you don't wannafight about it, you don't bring
up anything.
So instead of bringing upsomething when it's just a mild
annoyance, you wait until it isjust this huge and heavy event,
(04:39):
and then you're probablyexploding with your partner and
it creates the very conflictthat you've been wanting to
avoid.
Whereas if you would just makethat tiny tweak of noticing in
the moment.
Oh, you know what?
I kind of wish that this wouldbe happening in that way and
have a discussion beforeemotions are high.
It would be significantly morelikely that you could get that
end result that you're lookingfor, of not having conflict in a
(05:00):
relationship.
Or maybe you really want to haveyour own efforts acknowledged by
other people.
You do a lot.
You do a lot for other people.
You do a lot for the community.
You work really hard at life,and you want your hard work to
be acknowledged.
Everybody wants that right?
But at the same time, wheneveranybody praises you, maybe you
get an award at work, or maybesomebody notices how much weight
(05:21):
you've lost, or maybe you know,somebody's starting to notice
all of the amazing work thatyou've been doing, and you start
to minimize it.
"Well, it's not that big of adeal," or, well,"you know, I
mean, I'm not losing as much asI would've liked.' You are now
minimizing your own efforts andyour own accomplishment.
So while you're hopingdesperately that other people
will praise you.
(05:41):
You are unwilling to celebrateyourself, so of course they're
not going to be celebrating you.
So how might that shift if youwould just allow yourself to be
celebrated and if you looked forways to celebrate yourself?
Maybe you really do want yourneeds to be met in relationship.
You in a friendship, in aromantic relationship, wherever
it is, you're looking to haveyour needs met, but at the same
(06:03):
time, you're unwilling to makerequests.
You want everybody around you tobe a mind reader, so you aren't
actually initiating making thatrequest.
You're not actually saying,well,"hey, actually, I was
wondering if you could help mewith this please?" You're not
making any requests, so ofcourse your needs aren't going
to be met because you're notwilling to acknowledge that you
even have needs.
And how might things really openup for you if you practice not
(06:25):
only expressing a need, but ifyou practiced allowing other
people to help you out?
Because maybe you're not evenjust not making requests, but
when somebody offers to helpyou, you don't wanna be in their
debt.
So you're saying,"oh no, it'sokay.
I can do it myself.' You areminimizing your own needs, but
you're also making itsignificantly less likely that
you can have that balancedreciprocation that you're
(06:46):
looking for, that you can alsoget your needs in relationship.
Maybe you're even also likequitting before you even see the
result.
You just haven't stuck with itfor long enough.
That's kind of like me when Iwant to eat a cookie after I see
I'm two pounds down and I'm,I'll admit it's not just one
cookie.
I want to eat the whole packageof cookies.
It's really kind of a bad thingthat they've made all of the,
(07:06):
uh, girl Scout cookies, justgeneric store brand ones now.
'cause now you don't have towait until, uh, girl Scout
cookie season to get your GirlScout cookies.
But anyway, so maybe you aren'tquite finishing out what it is
that you set out to do.
You are not making it to thefinish line all the way you're
quitting before you've gotthere.
So you're eating the cookie,you're, you're self-sabotaging.
(07:26):
You're making it so that youcan't actually achieve your
goal.
I wanna remind you, it onlytakes one degree of difference
before an ice cube will melt.
So you might see an ice cube ina freezer, and it's so cold,
right?
It's cold, it's gonna stayfrozen.
Nothing is going to change.
But once it is just one degreeabove freezing, that ice cube is
going to melt.
And so sometimes we quit Beforewe see that, we think, well, I
(07:48):
should have had this experienceby now.
The carpet should be cleaned bynow.
You guys, I cannot tell you howmany passes I went over that
carpet trying to get it in everydirection.
I was hitting it from everysingle direction, and it was.
Oh, it was so annoying, soaggravating to see how many
things I needed to tweak alittle bit before I got that
machine to work.
But once I powered through andfound out that one thing that
(08:10):
only honestly required fiveseconds, yeah, it took me
several times of going over thecarpet before I figured out the
problem.
But now I can use that machinethrough the rest of the house
and it's going to workbeautifully.
I have now solved the problem.
And it wasn't a problem with themachine.
It wasn't a problem with thecarpet.
It wasn't that the carpet wastoo old and that the stains
weren't going to come out.
(08:30):
It wasn't that the machine wastoo old and not going to work.
It wasn't that the machinewasn't sucking.
It wasn't that the machinewasn't spraying.
It wasn't that it wasn'tscrubbing, it's just that it was
a little bit covered up on thatspray nozzle.
And that is so often the casewith our own personal
development as well.
We think I need to make thesehuge grand changes.
But really it's just one smalltweak and working on that one
(08:51):
small tweak consistently isgoing to give you that huge
payout.
It's going to be like that icecube melting, and you're going
to see significant results.
So I'm gonna get jump off now soI can go and continue to get
ready for tomorrow's houseguests.
But I want you to really thinkabout what is one small thing
that I could do that would havethe biggest impact right now?
And if you're not quite sure, ifyou need somebody to come and
(09:14):
look at your carpet shampooer,right, or look at your life and
say, you know what?
Have you tried this tiny littletweak, come and work with me?
Because more than likely, changeis easier than you think.
And once you figure out whattiny little change is going to
create the most significantimpact for you, then you're
going to be amazed at theresults that you can get.
All right, well, if you'rehaving fun here, would you
(09:34):
please leave me a review?
It really does help other peopleto find me.
It helps me to grow the podcast,and I would really like to have
more people on here that I couldhelp.
So leave me a review.
Make sure that you'resubscribed.
It will not only help you outbecause then you'll know when
the next episode drops, but itwill also help the algorithms to
know that, hey, this issomething that people want to
listen to, so make sure thatyou're subscribed and please
(09:54):
leave me a review.
I would really appreciate it.
All right, well, I hope you havea great one, and I'll talk to
you soon.
Bye now.
Well, hello and welcome back.
My name is Marianne Walker.
I'm the life coach for thehelpers, the healers, the
recovering people pleasers, andthis is a very spontaneous
episode because I really waslearning a lesson today on life.
Okay, so today we're gonna betalking about self-sabotage.
What little things might begetting in your way, but this is
how it was showing up for me.
Okay.
So at the time of thisrecording, we're having house
(00:21):
guests arrive this weekend we'regonna have a new friend come
over, an old friend come over,and so I'm working really hard
to get the house looking good.
So as part of getting the houseto look really good, I pulled
out our old, um, shampoo, ourcarpet shampoo.
I was like, okay, this islooking awful.
The house that we live in, wehaven't remodeled the kitchen
yet.
There is carpet in the diningroom.
I know.
(00:42):
Why did anyone ever think thatwas a good idea?
But the carpet was lookingawful, so I was gonna shampoo
the carpet before all the guestsarrived, right?
So I start shampooing, and itwas so frustrating because as I
was pushing it forward andpulling it back, like usually
you can see exactly where themachine cleaned, but for some
reason it was only cleaning aabout a three quarter inch
(01:05):
stripe, half inch to threequarter inch stripe down the
center.
That was the only part that wasgetting cleaned.
I thought, well, this isstrange, so I shampooed the
carpet in this direction.
In that direction.
I shampooed it diagonal, Ishampooed it in all of the
directions.
And so basically it just wentfrom being striped to plaid to a
diagonal plaid.
It still had all these spots ofdirt all over it.
(01:26):
It just wasn't looking good.
And I thought, okay, well maybeit's a problem with the machine.
We probably need a whole newmachine.
We've had this one for years.
And then I looked up how muchwould be for a new machine and
it was about 550 bucks, and Ithought, no, we don't need a new
machine that bad.
I need to figure this out.
So, okay, so maybe it's the partthat's sucking.
(01:47):
It's the sucking.
So it's doing a good jobscrubbing, but we just need it
to suck better.
So I laid it down and I got alittle scrubby straw thingy, you
know those little scrub brushesthat you clean straws with?
And I was cleaning it out inthere, and I got a bunch of gunk
out and I thought, okay, nowit's going to work.
I start cleaning it again.
And same thing, it just was notworking.
(02:07):
I was still just making stripesin the carpet and I was just
really feeling frustrated,thinking, okay, well something's
wrong with this machine.
This is just getting ridiculous.
And then I thought, okay, wellmaybe it's the sprayer.
Maybe it's not the suckingthat's wrong, it's the sprayer.
So, laid it down, helped to findthe teeny tiny sprayer you guys,
it was the smallest sprayer inthe world, but I think it was
(02:28):
the teeny tiny little fansprayer.
That was only spraying in thecenter.
The rest of it was blocked.
So I took a little toothbrushand scrubbed it for about five
seconds, and then I turned themachine on.
And you guys, it was amazing.
It was like a brand new machine.
My carpet looks amazing.
It's all the same color.
It doesn't have stripes, itdoesn't have plaid.
It looks amazing.
(02:48):
But as the carpet was gettingcleaned, I couldn't help but
think, oh my goodness, how manytimes do we blame other things
when something's getting in ourway, when really there's not
anything wrong with the machine.
It's just you're gonna requirelike a tiny little tweak, like
brushing the sprayer for fiveseconds with a toothbrush.
So I want you to think todayabout what ways you might be
getting in your own way, and Ihave a few examples here for
(03:10):
you.
I will start with a personalexample.
I am currently wanting to loseweight, get super fit.
I wanna be super strong, and aspart of that, I'm tracking my
weight.
And admittedly, when I got onthe scale last time and saw that
I was down two pounds, do youwanna know what my first thought
was?
Hooray.
I can go and get those cookies.
That was me getting in my ownway.
(03:31):
That was me self-sabotaging.
And so I want you to thinkabout, okay, where am I
expecting a result, but I am theone getting in my own way.
Um, I also remember growing up,and I love my mom for this, but
this was very entertaining inhindsight thinking on this very
subject, so.
In the early morning hours, shereally wanted us to all be fit
when we were kids.
And so she'd say, Hey, if youwake up early and go with me to
(03:53):
the rec center, after we go tothe rec center, I'll take you
out to breakfast at McDonald's.
And it was the best thing.
But that was also probablysabotaging a bit of health,
right?
That yes, we were developing thehabit of waking up and going to
work out.
But anyway, it was just reallyinteresting thinking about the
ways that we sabotage ourselves.
So I wanted to throw out a fewideas for you since I know you,
I know what your struggles are,and just kind of point out a few
(04:16):
of the ways that you might, infact be getting in your own way
when it comes to creating theresult that you want.
So, for example, maybe you don'twant conflict in your
relationship and so you reallydon't wanna have a big fight,
but because you don't wannafight about it, you don't bring
up anything.
So instead of bringing upsomething when it's just a mild
annoyance, you wait until it isjust this huge and heavy event,
(04:39):
and then you're probablyexploding with your partner and
it creates the very conflictthat you've been wanting to
avoid.
Whereas if you would just makethat tiny tweak of noticing in
the moment.
Oh, you know what?
I kind of wish that this wouldbe happening in that way and
have a discussion beforeemotions are high.
It would be significantly morelikely that you could get that
end result that you're lookingfor, of not having conflict in a
(05:00):
relationship.
Or maybe you really want to haveyour own efforts acknowledged by
other people.
You do a lot.
You do a lot for other people.
You do a lot for the community.
You work really hard at life,and you want your hard work to
be acknowledged.
Everybody wants that right?
But at the same time, wheneveranybody praises you, maybe you
get an award at work, or maybesomebody notices how much weight
(05:21):
you've lost, or maybe you know,somebody's starting to notice
all of the amazing work thatyou've been doing, and you start
to minimize it.
"Well, it's not that big of adeal," or, well,"you know, I
mean, I'm not losing as much asI would've liked.' You are now
minimizing your own efforts andyour own accomplishment.
So while you're hopingdesperately that other people
will praise you.
(05:41):
You are unwilling to celebrateyourself, so of course they're
not going to be celebrating you.
So how might that shift if youwould just allow yourself to be
celebrated and if you looked forways to celebrate yourself?
Maybe you really do want yourneeds to be met in relationship.
You in a friendship, in aromantic relationship, wherever
it is, you're looking to haveyour needs met, but at the same
(06:03):
time, you're unwilling to makerequests.
You want everybody around you tobe a mind reader, so you aren't
actually initiating making thatrequest.
You're not actually saying,well,"hey, actually, I was
wondering if you could help mewith this please?" You're not
making any requests, so ofcourse your needs aren't going
to be met because you're notwilling to acknowledge that you
even have needs.
And how might things really openup for you if you practice not
(06:25):
only expressing a need, but ifyou practiced allowing other
people to help you out?
Because maybe you're not evenjust not making requests, but
when somebody offers to helpyou, you don't wanna be in their
debt.
So you're saying,"oh no, it'sokay.
I can do it myself.' You areminimizing your own needs, but
you're also making itsignificantly less likely that
you can have that balancedreciprocation that you're
(06:46):
looking for, that you can alsoget your needs in relationship.
Maybe you're even also likequitting before you even see the
result.
You just haven't stuck with itfor long enough.
That's kind of like me when Iwant to eat a cookie after I see
I'm two pounds down and I'm,I'll admit it's not just one
cookie.
I want to eat the whole packageof cookies.
It's really kind of a bad thingthat they've made all of the,
(07:06):
uh, girl Scout cookies, justgeneric store brand ones now.
'cause now you don't have towait until, uh, girl Scout
cookie season to get your GirlScout cookies.
But anyway, so maybe you aren'tquite finishing out what it is
that you set out to do.
You are not making it to thefinish line all the way you're
quitting before you've gotthere.
So you're eating the cookie,you're, you're self-sabotaging.
(07:26):
You're making it so that youcan't actually achieve your
goal.
I wanna remind you, it onlytakes one degree of difference
before an ice cube will melt.
So you might see an ice cube ina freezer, and it's so cold,
right?
It's cold, it's gonna stayfrozen.
Nothing is going to change.
But once it is just one degreeabove freezing, that ice cube is
going to melt.
And so sometimes we quit Beforewe see that, we think, well, I
(07:48):
should have had this experienceby now.
The carpet should be cleaned bynow.
You guys, I cannot tell you howmany passes I went over that
carpet trying to get it in everydirection.
I was hitting it from everysingle direction, and it was.
Oh, it was so annoying, soaggravating to see how many
things I needed to tweak alittle bit before I got that
machine to work.
But once I powered through andfound out that one thing that
(08:10):
only honestly required fiveseconds, yeah, it took me
several times of going over thecarpet before I figured out the
problem.
But now I can use that machinethrough the rest of the house
and it's going to workbeautifully.
I have now solved the problem.
And it wasn't a problem with themachine.
It wasn't a problem with thecarpet.
It wasn't that the carpet wastoo old and that the stains
weren't going to come out.
(08:30):
It wasn't that the machine wastoo old and not going to work.
It wasn't that the machinewasn't sucking.
It wasn't that the machinewasn't spraying.
It wasn't that it wasn'tscrubbing, it's just that it was
a little bit covered up on thatspray nozzle.
And that is so often the casewith our own personal
development as well.
We think I need to make thesehuge grand changes.
But really it's just one smalltweak and working on that one
(08:51):
small tweak consistently isgoing to give you that huge
payout.
It's going to be like that icecube melting, and you're going
to see significant results.
So I'm gonna get jump off now soI can go and continue to get
ready for tomorrow's houseguests.
But I want you to really thinkabout what is one small thing
that I could do that would havethe biggest impact right now?
And if you're not quite sure, ifyou need somebody to come and
(09:14):
look at your carpet shampooer,right, or look at your life and
say, you know what?
Have you tried this tiny littletweak, come and work with me?
Because more than likely, changeis easier than you think.
And once you figure out whattiny little change is going to
create the most significantimpact for you, then you're
going to be amazed at theresults that you can get.
All right, well, if you'rehaving fun here, would you
(09:34):
please leave me a review?
It really does help other peopleto find me.
It helps me to grow the podcast,and I would really like to have
more people on here that I couldhelp.
So leave me a review.
Make sure that you'resubscribed.
It will not only help you outbecause then you'll know when
the next episode drops, but itwill also help the algorithms to
know that, hey, this issomething that people want to
listen to, so make sure thatyou're subscribed and please
(09:54):
leave me a review.
I would really appreciate it.
All right, well, I hope you havea great one, and I'll talk to
you soon.
Bye now.
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