How can you Stop Self Sabotaging Yourself?
You got drunk again last night, hit the snooze button too many times this morning, and now you will be late to work, again. You hope your boss doesn’t notice but, you know he will. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?
You can remember as a child your dad would come home late from work smelling like alcohol. Oh well, I guess it runs in the family. There is nothing you can do about it.
Your mom always ate too much and got as big as a house now your sister is like that too. That is the family trait she gets to carry.
Some people are born rich, some are born good-looking, and some don’t have anything going for them except for a crappy job.
Why are you doing this to yourself?
We create problems in our lives or self-sabotage when we allow the way we conduct our everyday life to interfere with our long-term goals. We drag our feet; we take medication with other drugs or alcohol, we eat too much, we cut ourselves. These acts seem to help us at the time, but over the long run they harm us and keep us from growing as we repeat them over and over.
All of us have a little voice in our head that criticizes everything that we do or say.
When we were babies and small children, our parents and caregivers gave us the voice in our head, and it formed our experiences. It was the voice that said we needed to be careful, don’t touch the hot stove and all the other things that were told to us good and bad. Our parents and caregivers did the best that they could. They had their problems and viewed themselves as failures, weak, and had self-sabotaging attitudes towards themselves. They probably felt insecure about their looks, or maybe they were not comfortable about being out in social situations.
We take their voice, and it stays with us throughout life, and we allow it to define us as an adult. When we were young, we were called lazy, useless or ineffective. We continue to wear that badge proudly as an adult. Then this turns into self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors that tell us “Why bother? You’ll never change anyway.”
Similarly, children can internalize negative thoughts that their parents or early caretakers have toward themselves. If we grew up with a self-hating parent, who often viewed themselves as weak or a failure, we might grow up with similar self-sabotaging attitudes toward ourselves. For instance, if our parent felt critical of their appearance, we may take on similar insecurities without realizing it. We may feel easily self-conscious and less sure of ourselves in social or public situations.
As author Elizabeth Gilbert put it, “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.”
Where Self Sabotaging Thoughts Come From
Our inner voices are critical of us and encourage us to act out and become defensive in all areas of our lives. This mostly affects our close relationships. They are often what holds us back from getting what we want, and we become fearful that we will be hurt just as we were when we were children. We may even choose a partner who plays into this scenario so that we can recreate and maintain the identity we have held onto our whole life and keep the memories alive.
If we can slow down and get to know ourselves, it can help us to avoid self-sabotaging. We can get to know our inner critic and understand that it no longer serves us. Understanding our past free’s us from it so we can be successful for our future. Once we familiarize ourselves with our defenses, we can differentiate from self-sabotaging behaviors and live a more liberated life, in which we are more powerful and much more in control of our destiny.
Be kind to yourself. ALWAYS! You are worthy!
If you are interested here is a subliminal program that deals with self sabotage.
Disclaimer: We do not want our words to hurt you are call you names, this article is just a description of how a self sabotaged person might think.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this article are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), is intended or should be inferred. No person or entity associated with this article received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement.