Self-sabotage? Let’s get real

As a coach, I work with incredible, funny, smart, irreverent, curious and all-round-excellent women. They come to see me for a whole number of reasons and they tell me all sorts of stuff. When they achieve big things, I cheer! But I’m also not afraid to pull people up, when they’re feeding me baloney.

One of the big ones that I call people on is this: self-sabotage.

[For you folks who have never come across the term, self-sabotage describes unconsciously acting against what you consciously identify as your own best interests].

When I hear someone say I self-sabotage, I call bullshit!

I think the phrase just lends a legitimacy to what is really something else. As long as you’re calling it by another name, you’re never going to get to the bottom of what’s going on. And so, more importantly, you’ll never have to design and choose a different and much more satisfying [but perhaps more challenging] way.

So! Let’s get real, lovely people.

In my professional experience, self-sabotage is really:

• Disinterest: you’re not interested in the goal, even if you think you should be
• Laziness: you’re not actually willing to do what it takes
• Shame: you feel unworthy of the goals you’re striving for
• Fear: you’re scared of something, often of not being good enough
• Comfort: you don’t want to disrupt the status quo – it’s serving you in some way, even though you say otherwise
• Lack: you feel you don’t have what you need (time, knowledge, confidence, support, space, money…) to achieve

If you find yourself declaring self-sabotage, I challenge you to dig deeper, to ask yourself what is really going on. Then consider [perhaps with the help of a professional] what you might be able to do, to remedy the situation.

Tags: choices, goals