Why We Self-Sabotage and How to Break Free!

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You don't self sabotagebecause you want to fail.
You self sabotage because itgives you the illusion of control.
It feels safer to control yourown failure than to risk failing
in public.
And if you're ready to breakthat illusion and finally get unstuck,
then this episode is for you.

(00:21):
This is the Unshakable Life Mindset.
Resilience.
Action.
No.
Strive.
Break free from the burnout.
Find your true noise.

(00:44):
This is the Unshakable Life.
Hey friend.
Welcome to the Unshakable life.
Today we're going to talkabout something that I know that
many of you have felt thingsthat I have felt.
And that's the feeling ofbeing stuck.
You know, it's that brilliantidea you had, that clear call from
God and then suddenly you justcan't bring yourself to follow through

(01:07):
on it.
This, my friends, is selfsabotage at its finest.
And if you've ever felt it,we're going to dive into it together
and have a conversationbecause I want you to get on the
other side of it.
So picture this.
Let's give you two names, Alexand Jordan.
And we're going to give you aquick, quick 30 second story on each
because I want you to getconnected to this picture.

(01:27):
So Alex has an inspired ideafor a new project.
And that project is trulygoing to be something special.
It's going to make an impact.
But as the days go on andsuddenly he gets busy, the logos
answers the emails, includingthe old emails.
You know, you've got old emails.
He cleans his desk, but youknow what happens?

(01:47):
He does everything except theactual project.
Is that something you guyshave ever experienced with like Alex?
Well, let's look at Jordan maybe.
You know, Jordan is a team leader.
She knows the tough changesthat has to happen in organization.
She's prayed about it, she'splanned, but when it's time to act,

(02:07):
she freezes.
She just keeps saying, I'llget to it next week.
But whether you're like Jordanor Alex, on the surface this looks
like a procrastination problem.
This looks like what we calllaziness, but it's not.
In truth, this isn'tprocrastination or laziness at all.
It's symptoms of somethingmuch deeper.

(02:29):
So I know you're asking, whydo we do this?
Why do we sabotage ourselvesfrom the very things that we want,
the very things that God hascalled us to?
And you know, as I wasscrolling, I found this quote that
I want to share with you andit says the reason you self sabotage
is because it allows you topredict what is going to happen,

(02:49):
and it gives you the illusionof self control.
It's better to fail on myterms by not starting or allowing
myself to be distracted orwhatever that looks like than it
is to risk failing on theworld's terms, which means trying
and not being able toaccomplish it, trying it and being
rejected, or just keep tryingit and it just doesn't work out.

(03:13):
And this is where we have theproblem, because we're trying to
control, or at least have theillusion of control in this.
But it's not a control issue.
It's a self sabotage, which isthe behavior, but it leads to the
deeper conversation, the self abandonment.
And that's the wound, becausethe wound is producing the behavior.
And just for a context, selfabandonment is when we reject, we

(03:36):
suppress, we ignore a part ofourselves in real time.
And it's based on what we wentthrough as children.
A lot of times we've hadtraumatic issues or traumatic challenges
where people in our lives haveabandoned us.
And because that abandonmenthurts so deeply and has.
Has lasted so long, we neverdealt with it.
We have subconsciously decidedto abandon ourselves so that nobody

(04:01):
else can abandon us.
That if we abandon ourselves,we don't get hurt, you know, basically
by anybody.
But that has created a lot of problems.
It means we have.
It's the ideas, the impact,the word from God, all of these things
that we get, we put on the shelf.
We make excuses for them or weleave them behind saying that wasn't
for us, because we're actuallytrying to conform our life, not consciously,

(04:25):
to the place where we'veabandoned our own heart.
This is the challenge.
And I know you felt this, Ifelt this.
I feel this from time to timebecause it's the times when we plan
our day.
We're like, hey, I'm going towrite, I'm going to record, I'm going
to do a podcast.
And then a friend calls with afavor, and you know the guy, they're
like, hey, I need this quick favor.
And instead of protecting yourtime and energy, you.

(04:47):
You say, sure, no problem.
And you abandon your plans andyou never get back to it because
we have abandoned ourselvesand we don't want to be hurt.
And we don't want theresponsibility of having to steward
the pain of what may happen.
But we also miss out on thestewardship of the joy of what happens
if this touches the personthat meant to change.

(05:09):
It's the.
It's the times when we're inthese meetings, like, here's another
scenario for you it's thetimes when you're in a meeting and
you could be a virtualmeeting, or you can be a meeting
that's inside of your business business.
And you have this great idea.
You know, you've prayed andGod has given you this idea.
And your colleagues rolledtheir eyes.
They believe God like you, butthey rolled their eyes.

(05:29):
So you know what you doinstead of engaging it, you hide
it, you bury it.
And it was stupid anywaybecause it's in those moments, guys,
it's in those moments that weare chasing after the illusion of
control, trying to findcomfort and approval when we should
be pushing out into something impactful.
And we see this in the Bible,actually Genesis 25, you know, you

(05:52):
know the story of Esau and Jacob.
Esau was entitled.
He had this birthright, it was priceless.
And in one day, driven byhunger, he traded the entire future
of his brother to his brotherfor a bowl of stew first.
And forest, that better be agood bowl of stew.
But the fact is he traded hiscalling for comfort.

(06:13):
And when we self abandonourselves, we are really kind of
like Esau.
We're trading our God givenbirthright, our authentic self, our
mission, our calling, ourpurpose for a bowl of stew, or whatever
that stew looks like for you,because it's on.
We're looking for someoneelse's approval because we're trying
to avoid the fear ofrejection, the fear of doing it.

(06:37):
And this is at the root.
The problem isn't that you're lazy.
The problem isn't that youhave neurodivergence.
The problem isn't that you areanything of an imposter.
No, the problem is that we'velearned to be okay with abandoning
ourselves.
So I'm going to give you threewarning signs on how to spot the

(06:57):
fact that you've abandoned yourself.
Because these are things thatI have gone through that I've abandoned
myself.
And I want to encourage youand tell you we're healing from these
things, that you may findyourself constantly fighting with
them.
But the fight becomes lesswhen we lean into God to heal us
from the problems that caused them.
But I'm going to start withnumber one, which is awareness.

(07:21):
But I've got a different namefor it because it's signs.
So what's the first thingwe're going to talk about in our
journey towards awareness ischronic procrastination on what matters.
Now.
This is the easiest, lowesthanging fruit that if you're a chronic
procrastinator.
This is a self sabotaging woobased on the self Abandonment.

(07:41):
It's not based on you avoidedyour taxes like we all avoid on doing
the detail of those things.
So this is perpetuallydelaying the projects that are closest
to your hearts.
This is saying God told me towrite and you decide to do something
else.
This is God told you to startthe podcast and you decided to do
something else.
This is saying that I'll getto it at some point.

(08:03):
But that point is not todaybecause there's a chronic procrastination.
Psychology says actually thatit's out of pure fear.
Fear of discomfort, fear offailure, fear of actually being success.
Because it's safer to put itoff than dealing with the realities
of both the fear and thereality of actually being able to
do what God's called you to do.

(08:24):
Like, so we procrastinate.
We put it in this loop of I'mjust going to keep pushing it off
because that leads into aless, less low hanging fruit that's
often more sneaky.
And number two is the warningsign is perfectionism as a hiding
place.
Because perfectionism lookslike having high standards, but it's

(08:45):
really a clever hiding place.
You know, I read this quotefrom a writer that hit me.
It said, I realized I had beena coward hiding from failure in the
safe space of conception whereeverything is possible and nothing
gets done.
And we have to realize thatperfectionism is nothing more than
self sabotage and fancy clothes.

(09:05):
Perfectionism really comesdown to you're constantly trying
to tweak so that you don'thave to launch, that you're in constant
planning mode because we getthe analysis paralysis of the analysis.
Right.
We're in constant planningmode without ever launching mode.
So this is where we get intothese places that we have the fear

(09:25):
and visibility and we feellike we're moving forward because
we're doing stuff.
We want to be at the highest quality.
We want to be a living in excellence.
But we don't launch anything.
So nobody knows about theexcellence because it's never perfect,
it's never good enough becauseyou can always make that extra tweak.
This is something that you'vebeen dealing with.
I am recovering from this.
There are some challenges with it.

(09:47):
It's because you'll never launch.
There's always more to be done.
You'll never find the happymiddle place because we're.
You're hiding behind the factthat it's not up to the standards
that you've put.
But the problem with that is,is the standard is so high that you'll
never reach it.
That's a Self sabotaging behavior.
Which brings us to the thirdself sabotaging behavior, which if

(10:09):
you're anything like me, thisis something that you've heard me
on other podcasts.
It's people pleasing.
And I am a self proclaimedrecovering people pleaser because
of a lot of things I wentthrough in my life.
And this is, quite frankly,you can't say no.
You can't say no to peopletrying to get you get your yes.
And the more you say yes toeverything that isn't your purpose

(10:31):
or isn't what you have beendesigned to do, the more energy drain
you will have, more derailmentof priorities you will face.
Because this is one of thebiggest classic signs of self abandonment
that leads to self sabotage issacrificing your time and energy
to keep everyone else happyand having nothing left for you,

(10:51):
your joy or what God's givenfor you to do.
And I, and we, and we, we hideit in a sense that we say, oh, I'm
helping people because itmakes us feel good when we're helping
people.
But the reality is, is we'retrying to help so many people.
We're actually running fromdealing with our own problems.
And because we're running fromour own problems and we're disguising

(11:12):
it as being altruistic andwe're helping people, what we're
really doing is we're nevergoing back to God said for you to
do this and in order for youto do this, you need to have boundaries.
I did create a couple episodeson Boundaries and Burnout.
You can check those out onthe, on the podcast.
But we've got no boundaries,we've got none of these things.
So what we're doing is we'resaying God, your stuff isn't that

(11:35):
important.
Everything else is.
And I need to emphasize thefact that the deeper you are in people
pleasing, the less likely youwill to be fulfilling God's purpose
in your life.
Matter of fact, the moreyou're people pleasing, the less
likely you will be able tofind your identity in Christ because
you want to please people somuch that our energy and time is

(11:57):
never dealt, never facing thefact that we need to deal with that
trauma before the holy God sothat we can connect to him.
And I'm going to tell youguys, it's, it's such a self sabotaging
problem.
A lot of people deal with it.
I do, you do.
And if you see yourself in anyof these, take a deep breath.
You're not alone.
I want to encourage you.
We can change it and I'm goingto give you a really quick three

(12:19):
step biblical path to startyou on changing it.
Because this is not somethingyou're going to overcome in a day.
This is not something that youcan take brute force and beat it
out of yourself.
You can't shame yourself outof it.
You have to deal with it.
And we're going to reconnectyou with your why.
So let me give you threesimple things and, and I'll give
it to you first and then we'llgo unpack them for a minute.

(12:41):
It's reconnect, re anchor andre engage.
Now let's unpack it.
Step one is reconnect.
Now this comes back to the awareness.
I am always about theawareness, guys.
Because you can't heal whatyou don't see, right?
The moment you feel that pullto procrastinate or people please
or any of those, just take apause in, in psalms they pause.

(13:02):
It's called salah.
Just take a break, take abreath, take one minute and ask yourself
a direct question.
No jumping around it.
Just real quick, is thisaction moving me towards my calling
or away?
And if you just acknowledgingthis is huge because when you face
guilt, you face shame or youface fear if you just name it.

(13:24):
I'm avoiding this because I'mafraid of this.
Awareness brings it into the light.
And we know the Bible saysthat God is light first John and
that in the light the darknessdoesn't understand it.
So here's the, here's the challenge.
If you keep it on the insideof you, the darkness grabs a hold
of it because it's kept in the dark.
When you speak it out and youjust name it the chat, the thing

(13:45):
comes back to God is nowlight, you know, and, and you're
speaking it into light, you'renot hiding it, you're just acknowledging
it.
And so we're allowing, sayingand it could be simple as God.
I'm afraid of this.
Please take this.
Now I want to come againstthis bad theology of, you know, if
you put, if you just speak itthat you're going to be in this bad
place.

(14:05):
That's bad theology.
Because if you can't hold itin because it's going to affect you
and don't speak it out or it'sgoing to affect you, what do you
do with it?
How do you navigate it?
How do you heal that trauma ifyou can't speak it but you can't
hold it in.
And this is why, friends, Ialways tell you, please do your own
Bible research.
Don't believe every fly bynight theology out there because

(14:29):
quite frankly, when you'renaming that thing, when you're pulling
it out of you and you'resaying, hey, listen, you're just
acknowledging it.
It's not even about naming it,you're just acknowledging it.
It's saying, hey, I'm afraidof Y.
That's why I'm procrastinatingon X.
So God, please help me withthis and take this.
That really has power.
Now the darkness is beingbroken up over it because God is

(14:51):
invited in the process.
Which brings us to step two.
We're going to re anchorourselves through identity.
Once you've named oracknowledged the fear, you can now
counter it with the truth.
Once you acknowledge thedeception that you've believed and
you start applying the truthto it, you start changing that identification.
Now you're no longer, you'reno longer attached to the identity

(15:13):
of the deceit, but you're nowattached to the identity of Christ,
which is the truth, right?
And so when your identity isin Christ, that's everything, guys.
That's the battle.
I mean, haven't you thought itwas really kind of shocking that
the fact that we live in asociety or a culture where there's
this massive identitychallenge, we've lost identity or

(15:34):
been confused in identity.
And when you're confused inidentity, you cannot live out your
purpose.
So when we re engage ouridentity or re anchor ourselves into
identity, what we're doing iswe're saying, I am belonging to Christ.
That is who I am.
So when that imposter syndromestarts speaking to you and it whispers
you're a fraud or what, peoplearen't going to like you when they

(15:56):
find out, you know, whenyou're re identified in Christ or
your identity is strengthenedin Christ and the spirit of God begins
to whisper, your worth is notyour performance, it's in who he
says you are.
He said he'll start whisperingto you that you are a child of God.
It doesn't mean that nothing'sgoing to happen.
Being found out.
What's.
What it is is that you are achild of God.

(16:19):
That identity that you have isin Christ, not in what people think.
And it breaks all of thatanxiety, all of that tension because
we're re identifying and we'reacts just accepting our identity
in Christ.
And so if we believe inEphesians 2, that we are God's masterpiece,
created for a purpose onpurpose, you know, things like that,

(16:42):
then your Father has alreadyapproved of you, your Father in heaven
and you don't need to abandonyourself to earn a validation from
people in this world.
News flash.
People don't care as much aswe think they do.
But here's the deal.
We already get that self ofself evaluation or validation from
God, and that validation isall we need.

(17:03):
So this brings into action,which is the re engagement, which
is step three now.
And as we move into this, weunderstand that it takes action or
movement to break these patterns.
Because self abandonmentcauses paralysis.
We break it with tiny,intentional actions.
So we're going to usesomething called the five minute
rule, right?

(17:23):
You're going to commit fiveminutes to the thing you're avoiding.
If you're writing.
If you're avoiding writing thebook, you're going to write for five
minutes.
Set the timer.
If you're avoiding startingthe podcast, you're going to record
a podcast for five minutes.
You can record on your phone,you were going to record on your
computer.
Don't matter.
Five minutes.
Is there a hard conversationyou've been avoiding?
Spend five minutes and jotdown on a piece of paper all the

(17:46):
things that you really want tobring up the talking points.
These five minutes seem reallysmall, but it's.
But your brain can't rebelfrom over the five minutes.
It's like impossible.
But it's in those five minutes.
We're going to invite God inand say, lord, I'm giving you these
five minutes.
Help me start and help mebuild beyond it.
Now, there was a word thatChuck Pierce gave me in 2008 that

(18:06):
I want to share with you fromthe Bible.
It says, do not despise theday of small beginnings.
Because we have to realizethat small beginnings create big
action.
That the tiny act of reengaging breaks every pattern.
Because I heard it one time,Bishop Tony Miller, he said, big
doors swing on small hinges.
And it's such a beautifulthing because we have the biggest

(18:27):
doors that open up, that swingon the smallest things.
And so your actions, no matterhow small you think they are, are
never small because they willbe something massive and big in your
life.
And so when you catch yourselfslipping, and we will just remember,
come back to this episode orwrite it down.
Reconnect, re anchor and re engage.
Because we're reconnecting our heart.

(18:48):
We're re anchoring in truth,and we're re engaging with small,
faithful action.
Proverbs 26, 24:16 says this.
Though the righteous fallseven times, they rise again.
And I think this is a greatway to kind of end up the conversation
with you and I, because Eachtime you refuse to abandon yourself,
you're rising.
Each time you choose thatsmall, healthy action, you're rising,

(19:11):
you are strengthened to thatunshakable foundation.
So be encouraged.
You can stop sabotaging your calling.
You can stop abandoning yourself.
You can show up as you werecalled beloved, the mighty warrior,
the unshakable Creator.
Because that's who God madeyou to be.
And so, as you're breaking thehabits, allow God to help you break

(19:34):
the wounds and heal it so thatyou can show up in the fullness of
who God has made you to be.
Thank you for spending thistime with me on the Unshakable Life
podcast.
My prayer is that today'sconversation helps you to build resilience,
reclaim peace and step withcourage into your God given calling.
If this episode has encouragedyou, challenged you, or impacted

(19:54):
you in any way, could you dome a favor?
Share it with a friend, leavea review and hit the follow so you
don't miss what's next.
And if you want more tools andencouragement for your journey, head
over to leadwithjim.com you'llfind resources to help you grow as
a healthy, authentic Christianleader, entrepreneur and creator.

(20:15):
And until next time, remember,your foundation is Christ, your calling
is unshakable and your lifecan make eternal impact.
Action no stride.
Break free from the burnout.
Find your true north with your God.
Jim Buron Stepping forwardthis is the Unshakable life.

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Jim Burgoon

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Why We Self-Sabotage and How to Break Free!