Self-sabotage: when the enemy is inside you

Self-sabotage or self-boycott is the tendency to place obstacles, limits and complications on oneself along the way to goals or objectives. If you look back, you may find several examples of situations in which, without knowing why or how, you have failed on the path to your goal. One of the possible explanations for this failure is self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage represents the enemy within oneself. Perhaps it protects us to some extent from short-term failure, but also from success. The person who boycotts himself puts obstacles or brakes on himself, and unconsciously, he says “I won’t be able to” when he has to face difficult moments. Below we will see the 4 most frequent types of self-sabotage.

What types of self-sabotage exist?

1. Denying needs to oneself: “I don’t need it, I don’t want it”

The first type of self-sabotage, and one of the most frequent, is denying oneself needs or desires. Self-sabotage is masked under phrases such as: “I don’t care”, “I don’t feel like it”, “I don’t want it” or “I’m not interested”. In this way, the person protects himself from experiencing failure (and accepting that he has to work to improve his abilities) or from experiencing success (and accepting that he can aspire for more and deserves recognition).

In this case, Self-sabotage is carried out when the person denies themselves that they want to achieve a goal or denies themselves a personal need unconsciously.. It is very important to detect when we are not really interested in an objective or goal and when it is the fear of not being up to par that makes us boycott. Because with this differentiation we begin to create a personal shield against self-sabotage.

2. Procrastinate: postpone and postpone…and leave for tomorrow what you can do today

One of the most effective ways to fail, both personally and professionally, is to procrastinate: “I have to do something but I will do it later.” Procrastinating is a toxic habitsince it causes the false perception that “we are doing it” when in reality what we are doing is postponing the completion of a task indefinitely.

Procrastinating works as a shield against the feeling of inadequacy. It is a defense mechanism because it protects us, prevents us from testing ourselves and makes us feel that we are on the path to our goal. When… nothing could be further from the truth.

3. Not being constant: starting the race, but giving up at the first difficulties

Lack of consistency is one of the most frequent masks of self-sabotage. Consistency is a capacity that must be trained every day and little by little. Starting a project and abandoning it along the way ensures failure and is a habit that limits ourselves.

The function of self-sabotage when we leave things halfway is very clear: if you don’t finish the task you won’t have to evaluate whether you have done it well or not. There is a possibility that we do it well and that we do not know how to manage success. In other words, self-sabotage also protects from success people who believe that they do not deserve personal success and therefore boycott themselves.

4. Making excuses when making decisions: “I don’t know what to do”

Making decisions gives us a degree of responsibility, which varies depending on the importance of the decision. Self-sabotage protects us from feeling any degree of responsibility, and thus, it separates us from taking important and powerful positions.

Thus, Avoiding making decisions is another mask behind which self-sabotage hides.. Preventing us from taking charge of our lives, raising our voices and saying clearly what our decision is. Furthermore, this type of self-sabotage keeps us in the role of spectator (and not actor) in our lives. The danger of being spectators of our lives is that this attitude reinforces the idea that we are not good enough to aspire for more.

What are the possible causes of self-sabotage?

Avoidant personality style

Human animals, when faced with a difficulty, have three response options: face, avoid or postpone. That is, we can look for a solution to what happens to us (cope), try to convince ourselves that it does not affect us or bother us and look the other way (avoid) or wait to see what happens or how things develop without a defined period of time (postpone). While it is true that taking time and doing nothing is an effective strategy to find solutions, procrastinating indefinitely is a habit that impoverishes our self-esteem.

If during our stage of adolescence and early youth we choose to avoid repeatedly, what we do is miss out on situations that would allow us to acquire new skills. Whether we avoid facing what happens to us or let the opportunities for growth that come our way pass us by, we develop an avoidant personality pattern.

The avoidant personality pattern is directly related to self-sabotage. Since the habit is to avoid, the person convinces themselves that they “can’t” or that they “are not good at something.” This is because he does not have skills, but not because he does not have the necessary capacity to overcome the situation or grow on a personal level.

A person with an avoidant personality pattern feels that he is not capable of overcoming challenges and highlights this limitation to himself. The main error is that: Not having skills is not the same as not being capable. It is necessary to stop avoiding what makes us doubt our abilities and give ourselves an opportunity to grow as a person. Remember: without challenge there is no growth.

Low self-esteem

Having a low appreciation of our personal characteristics makes us love ourselves little. If we love ourselves little, we tend to distrust our abilities, hence the relationship between self-sabotage and low self-esteem..

A person with low self-esteem does not allow himself the opportunity to grow, nor to push himself a little to get out of his comfort zone. Because, it is engraved deep in his heart that: he does not deserve an opportunity, he will not be able to measure up or he feels that he is not valuable enough to aspire to a goal. For all this, low self-esteem can be one of the causes of self-sabotage.

Hyper-protective family environment

Growing up in a family environment that protects us excessively from the “dangers” of the world, makes us incorporate into our psychological characteristics two messages regarding ourselves and our abilities.. The first message is: “my family loves me, protects me and I am not alone” and the second is “they have to protect me and help me because I cannot do it alone and I am not strong enough.”

In this way, when a family is very protective, it emits these two messages that are inseparable and it is the second of them that favors self-sabotage. Because Excessive family protection makes us depend on others to feel safe and capable of facing challenges.

So, Once we reach adulthood, as at a social level we are required to gain independence from our family, self-sabotage appears as a form of protection.. Family protection is becoming less and less, while sabotage is becoming more and more present.

What are the effects of self-sabotage?

Self-sabotage works like a fish that bites its tail, since I don’t give myself the opportunity, I don’t challenge myself and therefore, I don’t gain in personal development. Thus, I lose the opportunity to gain new capabilities and improve those I already possess. And therefore, I keep thinking that “I can’t”, “I don’t want it” or “I’m not good at it”.

Think that Many of us (if not all) have a “little boycotter” inside and we have to learn to live with it. This little boycotter will always tell us that we are not capable of achieving what we set out to do. He will make us doubt ad infinitum and he will keep us within our comfort zone. Because only in this way does this big little enemy stay calm and comfortable. The trick is to learn to listen to his doubts without getting into his game. Yes, indeed, we are talking about precision work that often requires a good dose of patience.

For all these reasons that we have described, Self-sabotage generates a constant feeling of uncertainty. It is a system that perpetuates itself and therefore it is necessary that we detect its presence and break the vicious circle that feeds it as soon as possible.

To overcome self-sabotage you can work to improve your self-esteem, detect your strengths to expand them, and also identify your weaknesses to improve them. But, above all, let’s give ourselves a chance, this is the main key to overcoming self-sabotage.

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