5 tips to get you out of your own way
"Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn't happen." ~ Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
A talkative mouse, a rat, and a small shrew were trapped in a flood, desperately clinging to the side of a lily pad - and sinking fast! A helpful owl came to their rescue, first telling the rat to clamp its teeth onto its talons as the owl flew to safety and then returning for the shrew, who received similar instructions. Finally, as the tides rose ever higher, the owl came back for our talkative mouse.
"You are rescued and will live!" said the owl. "But I've noticed you talk a lot. Promise me you'll keep your mouth closed around my legs and on no account open it, or you'll fall to your fate!"
"Of course!" said the mouse, who proceeded to clamp his mouth onto his feathered rescuer's landing gear.
They took off and flew across the floods. The owl was about to land on some high ground, but the mouse decided he wanted to alight some other place to get dry.
"Not there..." shouted the mouse, but those were the last words he ever spoke as he fell into the swirling waters below.
We can all laugh at such a silly tale because we never behave in such self-destructive ways, do we? Of course we do - although perhaps not as obviously - but why?
The main reasons for self-sabotaging behaviour
Okay, the mouse's behaviour came from ignorance and heedlessness; he just didn't think. But we mess things up for ourselves in other ways, too - and for other reasons, which include:
- The familiarity of 'failure'. Maybe we're so used to situations not working out or to being around 'dysfunctional people' that it feels easier to 'put a spanner in the works' by behaving in some way that either worsens or destroys something promising - a kind of 'better the devil you know'.
- An unconscious need to be in control. If we feel something is bound to fail because it's 'too good to last', we might engineer its failure somehow so as to maintain a sense that we are still in control (because we caused it to fail).
- Feeling unworthy. Low self-esteem may drive people to feel they 'don't deserve' success or happiness. (See "7 Steps to Self-Belief".)
- Bad habits such as excessive drinking, smoking, or uncontrolled anger.
- Need for excitement. It might be an otherwise perfect sunny afternoon and seemingly out of the blue, Joe picks a fight, goes into a silent mood, or drags up some unrelated contentious issue from the past. Suddenly, the afternoon turns into a battleground. The desire for 'excitement' can take different forms, not all of them constructive.
But surely if people know they are doing this, they wouldn't do it!
So is sabotaging ourselves an unconscious affliction?
People seldom mean to sabotage themselves. It's not generally a conscious decision to spoil things - and that's a problem. We can be left with the feeling: "Why did I do that?!" Many of our emotional drivers remain unconscious, which is why chronic self-saboteurs will often use conscious justification (or what seem like excuses) to explain why they had to:
- Yell at their professor and get kicked off the course.
- Break off contact with a friend who was about to offer them a great job.
- End a promising relationship.
Early learning - or should I say mis-learning - can create the habit of self-sabotage and 'things going right' may seem like a scary and foreign country. If you feel you are prone to this sort of behaviour, then these tips may well help you (as long as you let them).
1) Observe yourself
Forget justifying why you did (or didn't do) this or that; just watch yourself. The adage "don't listen to what people say, but watch what they do" to see what they're really like can be applied to yourself equally well. Imagine you're someone else whose behaviour you're watching. Ask yourself: "What did I do there?" and "What was driving it?" Was it fear, spite, the need to be in control (even if that control is related to making things fail), the need for excitement through conflict, or the desire for attention through sympathy?
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