4 Ways We Self-Sabotage & 3 Ways to Improve the Relationship We Have With Ourselves

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1:16Details at lowes.com slash terms. Subject to change. There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which is fantastic. I mean, we all want to be more present and self-aware, more patient, less judgmental. We discuss all these themes on the podcast, but it's hard to actually be mindful in your day-to-day life. That's where Calm comes in. I've been working with Calm for a few years now with the goal of making mindfulness fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to help you build positive habits, shift your self-talk, reframe your negative thoughts, and generally feel better in your daily life.

1:52So many incredible options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world, along with renowned meditation teachers. You can also check out my 7-minute daily series to help you live more mindfully each and every day. Right now, listeners of On Purpose get 40 % off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com forward slash j. That's c-a-l-m dot com forward slash j-a-y. For 40 % off, calm your mind, change your life. Procrastination can be a form of self-sabotage and a source of self-undoing. For example, it shows up regularly in people who are working one job, but harbor a secret, unfulfilled fantasy of doing something else.

2:37Maybe their dream is to become a performer or a writer, or maybe they've always wanted to learn to play the piano or run a full marathon or hike. They spend hours, days, weeks and years dreaming about this future self and imagining how fulfilling and rich their lives will become once they finally make their move. Someday, they think. But if you're a procrastinator, it never happens. And the excuses they come up with to explain why very likely have nothing to do with the real reason, which in nine cases out of 10 can be traced back to experiences they had and the patterning that was imprinted in their early childhood the number one health and wellness podcast hey everyone welcome back to on purpose i'm so grateful that you're here spending your next few minutes with me whether you're on a walk whether you're walking your dog whether you're cooking whether you're driving whether you're cleaning whatever you're up to thanks for tuning in with me right now and i'm so glad that we're living at a time where mental health has taken center stage and where more of us than ever before are familiar with the ideas and concepts around mental health I believe that On Purpose has been a significant part of doing that because of you.

4:08You've helped spread On Purpose, spread this message so that so many people feel seen, feel heard, feel understood. And I couldn't thank you enough for all the reviews, for sharing the episodes with friends, the cutdowns on TikTok and Instagram. It's amazing. Keep them coming. Today's episode is about the four ways we self-sabotage ourselves and the three ways we can overcome those instincts and impulses that run counter to our own success and happiness. While we may not be familiar with self-sabotage, most of us know what sabotage means. We've all seen films or television shows where one person sabotages another, whether it's a co-worker who steals a colleague's report or a bridesmaid who sabotages her friend's wedding by drinking too much and causing a scene.

5:05Outside of the movies though, it's surprisingly common at work as well. For example, you and your team may be engaged in a collaborative project but a colleague decides to withhold important information and his behavior ends up compromising everything you've ever worked for. That's sabotage. But in this episode, we're going to be focusing on the kind of sabotage that's aimed at ourselves. I define acts of self-sabotage as behaviors where we get in our own way. We trip ourselves up. We do or say things or act in ways that run counter to our own stated goals and our own success. Behaviors where we're our worst enemy.

5:52and not even aware we are either. In fact, self-sabotage can even be framed as acting in a passive-aggressive way around ourselves because somewhere inside our own brains, we don't want what we tell ourselves we want. Think about this for a second. There's this beautiful statement by Muhammad Ali. He said, it's not the mountain you're climbing, it's the pebble in your shoe. Right, this idea of what's tripping you up, what's getting caught in your shoe. I'm sure you're thinking about that recently as well like what's blocking you and sometimes we'll blame someone externally sometimes we'll find someone else to take the responsibility we'll shift accountability but what is that?

6:36it's self-sabotage and some of you may even have become more familiar with this idea and you're thinking to yourself Jay I keep doing this I keep getting in my own way but now I feel guilty about it now I feel shameful about it and now I feel bad about it. And that's not the point of this episode. The point of this episode is not to make you feel worse about it. It's to help you deal with it and feel better about it. So what do I mean when I say passive aggressive? When we use that term about other people, it's usually in the context of, say, a friend making a joking remark, except she delivers that remark in a tone of voice that's not especially friendly or well-meaning, right?

7:17It's like when your partner's mad at you, but they want to try and pass it off as it's not that serious, but really it is that serious. Like maybe they're angry at you, but they can't admit it. Or more like they're not even aware of their own anger. And instead of acknowledging, it sneaks out indirectly or passively in a way that communicates what they're feeling, but it's not honest enough, right? It's like it's coming out in a way where it's like, I hope you know what I mean, but I'm not going to have the courage enough to say it. Or let's imagine that you and your partner just ended the night out with a big argument.

7:56Most couples take a certain amount of time to cool off before sitting down and doing the repair work necessary to ensure their relationship is back on good footing. But if your partner is passive aggressive, he or she will go out of their way to avoid resolving the argument. They might give you the silent treatment or stomp around the house and make a lot of noise to communicate that they're angry or their feelings have been hurt. What they won't do is tell you, which means you have to read in between the lines and be the grown-up. You now all of a sudden have to become a mind reader. You have to be that person who understands what's not being said and you kind of feel a bit of pressure for it.

8:39What's really interesting is that self-sabotage acts in a similar way. but with an important difference. When a friend acts in a passive-aggressive manner, they're refusing or unable to acknowledge their feelings. And as I said, sometimes they have no idea what those feelings are in the first place. This is why I often frame acts of self-sabotage as passive-aggressive behavior that we show not to another person, but to ourselves. Buried deep in our brain are feelings that for whatever reason we don't want to let out into the open Feelings that usually go back to our childhoods, our relationship with our parents or our siblings And the attachments we developed or weren't able to develop with family members and friends Years afterwards we're still re-enacting these models and dynamics in our behavior at work And with our friends and in our relationships the problem being that most of the time we're the last people to know about it another way to define self-sabotage is behavior that runs counter to or even contradicts what we tell ourselves we want let me give you an example on the morning you're scheduled to deliver an important presentation at work you don't hear your alarm clock ring and you oversleep instead of getting up early and rehearsing your presentation, as you've been planning to do all week, you roll out of bed in a panic, take a crazed two-minute shower, and show up at work an hour late.

10:12By now, what's left of our nervous system is in tatters. When the time comes for you to deliver the presentation, you don't do as good as a job as you hoped. Your voice is unsteady, the slides in your deck are out of order, and you leave the room convinced you're going to be fired. Now, we all have days that don't go the way we want them to. But it's not irrelevant to the topic of self-sabotage to wonder what's really going on with you. The answer could be any number of things. Maybe you hate your job or your boss and have been thinking about quitting for weeks, except you fear what your parents might say.

10:48So in this case, by showing up late and being unprepared, you've set up your boss to be disappointed in you and possibly lay you off. In essence, what is going on is that since you can't acknowledge your own ambivalence at work, you end up blowing up your own career. Can you relate to that? Maybe not exactly like that, but I hope that resonates. Here's another example. Imagine you're in a relationship that from every category you can check off is ideal. The two of you get along fantastically well. You have the same taste in food and music and film and TV shows. Your families get along, they have things in common, and you feel you could spend the rest of your life with this person.

11:31At least that's what you tell yourself. So why, even though you feel you've found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, have you begun acting so cold and withdrawn to the point where your partner becomes so frustrated they decide to break things off with you. Maybe, just maybe, the truth of the matter is that you fear intimacy and you don't know it. Maybe you were burned before or multiple times before and your detachment and indifference is nothing more than a defense mechanism. Maybe without being aware of if you learned from your parents' relationship or somewhere else that people close to you can't be trusted.

12:13So out comes an act of self-sabotage, in this case, emotional withdrawal. And from that point on, you tell yourself that you're terrible at relationships and how it's never your fault, but always the fault of the other person. That's self-sabotage. You're probably wondering what's going on in the brain that leads to self-sabotage. Well, remember that the brain has one mission, which is to keep us alive and in balance. In that guise, it's focused on steering us away from threats while simultaneously motivating us with the promise of future rewards. Self-sabotage typically comes about when these two desires get confused and blurry.

12:53Think of it as an ongoing war between dopamine and other brain regions that include the hypothalamus, amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. To use our early example, let's imagine that on the surface at least, you tell yourself you want to excel at work. There's no reason not to believe you either. You're eager to show your boss and your colleagues what you can do. And in response, your brain floods your system with dopamine. But other areas of your brain have something to say too. Hearing you want to excel at work stresses your brain out, puts it on edge, makes it fearful. The hypothalamus kicks off this stress response by sending a message to the pituitary gland, which in turn stimulates the adrenal glands, which release cortisol, the stress hormone.

13:39Your breathing, heart rate and blood pressure all shoot up. More and more blood sugar is pumped into your bloodstream to give you energy for what's ahead. Basically, what's happening is that the reward and threat centers of your brain are at war with each other. They're being given contradictory messages, but the problem is you can't admit it. Remember that the brain is always acting in our own best interest. Its mission at the end of every day is to protect us. The reward-seeking part of your brain may be saying, I want to succeed at work. But the regions of the brain that predict potential threats respond by saying, do I really?

14:19Then why do I feel so angry? Why am I holding back? In its chemical way, our brains are like friends through thick and thin who know us better than we know ourselves. Here's another example. You might be someone who has always wanted to follow their passion but keep putting it off. This is because your brain is busy predicting how you would feel if you pursued that dream but came up short. In other words, your brain is trying to protect you from emotions it knows are painful for you to feel. Future embarrassment, future disappointment, future pain. This is the essence of self-sabotage. The brain knowing things we don't or that we don't want to admit to ourselves, which in turn obliges us to act cross-purposes with ourselves.

15:08Self-sabotage isn't a cause or a source of anything. It's a symptom of a feeling or a dynamic that we're usually not aware of. When we act in a self-sabotaging way, we almost never do it consciously. Otherwise, we would probably stop ourselves. Unless we've been seeing a therapist for a long time, rarely do we have access to the original feeling or model that leads us to act in ways that run counter to our own interests and ambitions. Self-sabotage has many faces, but here are the top four ways we do it. So you can use this as a checklist to understand. The first way is chronic lateness. Here I'm not talking about those times when we're stuck in traffic or when we realize the clock in our car doesn't match the time on our phones and we arrive 20 minutes later for a doctor's appointment or a meeting with a friend.

16:01I'm talking about the habit of lateness. Lateness that happens so often and predictably that it's your middle name. The trait most closely associated with you. If someone tells you that lunch starts at one o 'clock sharp, you don't show up till 1.15, 1.30 or even later. You always have a good reason too. Your car was low on gas You couldn't find your keys The dog needed to be let out A phone call came in that you had to take Whatever the reason, it's always something Now, most of us who are late apologize for holding everyone else up And after that, things are fine It's no big deal You might even be someone with a genuinely flaky relationship with time and scheduling Someone who has trouble predicting how long it takes to get somewhere or get something done But consider what your chronic lateness communicates to your friends and work colleagues.

16:54It reduces the trust they have in you. It means you can't be trusted to keep your word or be relied upon. Those are the real-world effects your chronic lateness has on other people. But considering that this episode is about self-sabotage, what are some of the underlying reasons that drive the behavior of someone who's never on time? You could be someone who secretly believes the rules that apply to other people don't apply to you Maybe you're on the outs with your friends But don't have the heart, the time or the patience to find another friend group Maybe you're secretly a diva who knows that by always showing up late You can make a grand entrance with everyone's eyes on you And everyone whispering about that you're finally here Whatever the unconscious motive is, it ends up doing you far more damage than good Parking shouldn't slow you down.

17:44ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer. on my birthday at the age of 45. Found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone. And from there, life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and the risk increases with age.

18:29Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. And the only thing I could think about was, who's going to take care of my family? You have to go out there and build your support system. You got to build your team. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered and start listening.

19:02Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play? Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially? Step up like a boss and save the day? Or see what life's like under the tree of life? Did you? If you could. Would you? When we come through, it's true magic. Because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort A second way we self-sabotage ourselves is procrastination Procrastination, of course, means putting things off until the very last minute Or in some cases, never getting around to them at all Like all the examples of self-sabotage in this episode We've all been guilty at least once in our life The problem is always when we take these acts or behaviors to extremes For example, I'm sure we've all had the experience in high school or college when we put off writing a paper.

20:03We were given a week to complete it and every day we told ourselves we would at least get started. But as the week went on, we never did. At least not until the day before it was due when we stayed up all night writing it and earned a not very good grade from the teacher or the professor. or maybe you were one of those people who always did well anyway. But when it becomes a habit or a routine, procrastination can be a form of self-sabotage and a source of self-undoing. For example, you might be someone who delays paying bills you know are due the first of every month but which you don't get around to addressing in time, which gets you into trouble with creditors and collection agencies.

20:48But where I see procrastination most often is in our own ambitions. It shows up regularly in people who are working one job, but harbor a secret, unfulfilled fantasy of doing something else. Maybe their dream is to become a performer or a writer, or maybe they've always wanted to learn to play the piano or run a full marathon or hike. They spend hours, days, weeks, and years dreaming about this future self and imagining how fulfilling and rich their lives will become once they finally make their move. Someday, they think. But if you're a procrastinator, it never happens, for any number of reasons.

21:32And the excuses they come up with to explain why, very likely have nothing to do with the real reason, which in nine cases out of ten can be traced back to experiences they had and the patterning that was imprinted in their early childhood? The fear of failure, for example, or its close cousin, the fear of success. What would it really mean to pursue and accomplish their dreams or their goals? It might mean doing better than your parents in a way that's shameful to acknowledge. Or maybe your mom or dad had their own dreams they weren't able to pursue. By procrastinating and putting off what you want, you're protecting your parents and maintaining a familiar dynamic within your own family.

22:20It's an act of love that ends up damaging you. I don't have enough time, you think, or I'm too old, or I have responsibilities to your partner and my family. All of these things may be true, but it's not the real reason why you're procrastinating. By now, I hope you've become more aware of the conflict that arises in the brain when we self-sabotage, and of the misalignment that happens when our conscious behavior is at odds with our own unconscious motives. All acts of self-sabotage, remember, can be seen as defense mechanisms. They're the brain's way of protecting us from the stress and fear of confronting more difficult emotions.

23:03The third way we self-sabotage ourselves is by putting ourselves down. It's pretty easy to make fun of people who take themselves too seriously. There's even an argument to be made that the TV show The Office gave rise to a new brand of humor that comes from knowing more about other people than they know about themselves. And make no mistake, self-deprecating humor is a very attractive and humanizing quality to have. It not only shows you have a sense of humor about yourself and your position in the world, it communicates that despite the good things that are happening in your life, you're still the person you always were.

23:44But here I'm referring to the constant habit of denigrating yourself, whether by apologizing too much, showing excessive humility, or never stopping to acknowledge the times you have a win in your column. Putting yourself down shows up in ways both obvious and not so obvious. Studies show that girls and women apologize more than men do, and many girls say I'm sorry almost as a reflex. But as well as showing kindness and consideration, the habit of over-apologizing can risk coming across to others as insecure and self-doubting, while at the same time undermining your own self-esteem. Denigrating yourself is also very common in people who don't know how to receive compliments.

24:32I have a friend who is doing fantastically well in his career, but whenever I would point this out, he would always say something like, I was just lucky, or I was in the right place at the right time. But refusing to take credit for your own accomplishments can end up hurting you. In my friend's case, by refusing to acknowledge and appreciate his own success, he was effectively asking others to buttress and validate his accomplishments. He came across as insecure and unconfident, qualities I knew wouldn't serve him well in the future. As is true in all instances of self-sabotage, the origins of our behavior vary, though it's safe to say they began when we were children.

25:15If you're constantly denigrating yourself, maybe you grew up around a hypercritical parent and putting yourself down is a way of keeping that parent's voice close. Maybe, and this is a theme that keeps coming up with self-sabotage, it stems from lower than usual self-esteem, where a long time ago someone gave us the impression that we weren't good enough, or smart enough, or deserving enough. If you're in the habit of putting yourself down, you might fear that the act of owning your success risks alienating friends who aren't at the same level as you, or possibly you think that unless you put yourself down, someone else will jump in and do it for you.

25:56Studies show that while self-deprecation is linked to improve overall psychological health in most people, as usual, the risk comes from overdoing it and being seen as someone who lacks confidence and proficiency in their work. So the next time you hear yourself saying, I was just lucky or anyone could have done what I did, ask yourself, Are my words serving me, followed by, or are my words protecting me? The fourth and final step of the ways we self-sabotage ourselves is perfectionism. Perfectionism is a personality trait marked by sky-high standards and expectations for yourself and everyone around you.

26:39If you're a perfectionist, you're no doubt averse to making mistakes. And this is often accompanied by fear that unless you act or dress or speak or engage or produce in any way other than what you deem to be perfect, then you're opening up yourself to criticism, unhappiness and feelings of failure. Perfectionism is another common way we self-sabotage ourselves and psych ourselves out of attaining our potential. Perfectionism blocks progress. perfectionism blocks the process perfectionism can block you from unlocking your potential perfectionism has its healthy beneficial sides it can be incredibly motivating for one thing and help you overcome challenges and accomplish what you're after but what can make perfectionism unhealthy and even toxic is its capacity to paralyze us and keep us from going forward since our greatest fear is what might happen if we make a mistake or a bad decision.

27:46Of course, self-sabotaging perfectionists can't admit this and instead believe they have higher standards than other people and a vision no one else shares. If you're a perfectionist, chances are good you revise and rework things constantly until you decide they match your impossible standards of perfection only to discover the next day that the work you considered perfect 24 hours earlier suddenly feels imperfect and in need of more work, which means you have to start all over again. Perfect and perfection are like the proverbial goalposts that refuse to stay put and that keep inching backward depending on what day of the week it is.

28:31Naturally, perfectionism can cause problems at work and in your social and love life. It can also impair both your physical and mental health. Perfectionism goes hand in hand with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and eventually burnout. Since you're convinced that nothing you do, and no one you know is perfect enough to match, never mind exceed, your own high standards, this often leads to erratic friendships and relationships. There's nothing wrong with seeking excellence. The problem comes when we take it to extremes. when our own perfectionism ends up boxing us into a corner. We forget that perfect as a concept is an abstract ideal, one that can change daily.

29:15When you lead your life expected to be graded for everything you do, you're setting yourself up for disappointment, disillusion, and endless frustration. By now, we know that the reasons behind any act of self-sabotage vary, though the culprit is usually a relationship or imprint from long ago. It could be a fixed and internalized belief about ourselves, or an exaggerated need for control. Perfectionists have both these traits in spades, the downside being that their perfectionism leaves them more vulnerable than most people to anxiety, depression, and escapist habits like drinking and drugs. Taking aim and chipping away at our own self-sabotage means beginning to collaborate with our own brains.

30:00And that means delving deep into the root causes of whatever self-sabotaging behavior is creating problems in your daily life or getting in the way of things you hope to accomplish. Here are three ways to get closer to the roots of your own self-sabotaging behavior. Step one in this journey is self-compassion. This can be a tough one for self-saboteurs to accept. By their very definition, procrastinators, perfectionists, chronically late, self-deprecating people are already extremely hard on themselves. Many have grown impatient with their own behavior, and some even believe they're beyond repair.

30:39I'm terrible at love and relationships, they think, or I'm hopeless at work and will never amount to anything. But if you read between the lines, what they're really communicating is that their best behaviors are misaligned with what they really want and they don't know what to do about it. If someone tells you they're beyond fixing or they've given up, most of the time they're doubling down on the original feeling or injury they experienced as children that they're now trying to avoid as adults. This is where self-compassion comes in. Instead of telling yourself that it's too late or you're never going to change or something is wrong with you and unfixable, why not try to picture yourself as a little kid.