Most of us have done it. Sometimes, frustratingly often.

We have a great plan for eating nourishing food or doing the work to build a business or completing a course or stopping a habit (shopping, substance use, gambling, etc.) that is getting in the way of living the life we want to live.

We come up with a strategy that seems solid and that makes sense to us. Maybe we even get off to a great start.

But then it happens.

We do something completely counter to our goals.

It throws us off track.

We feel bad. We’re disappointed in ourselves—again.

Best-case scenario, it stops there, and we pick back up where we got off track.

Worst-case scenario, we’re completely derailed. We either give up entirely, or it takes days, weeks or months before we try again.

Self-sabotage is usually based in our brain’s efforts to protect us, at a subconscious level, from something that sets off alarm bells—even if we can’t consciously hear them.

Why Do We Do It?

According to PositivePsychology.com, there are seven common reasons that we self-sabotage. These include:

1.      Fear of failure: Consciously or not, we worry that we won’t succeed. Throwing a wrench into the plan resolves that fear. If we don’t really try, we don’t really fail, since the plan never had a fair chance.

2.      Low self-esteem: We have to value ourselves enough to hold ourselves accountable and follow through with our goals. Otherwise, the nagging doubt that we are worthy of success may cause us to sabotage our efforts. We may have internalized a message that we are not important enough to prioritize or that doing so is selfish.

3.      Negative core beliefs: Often related to low self-esteem, we may hold beliefs, again, often internalized through life experiences, that we don’t deserve to take care of ourselves or that there is something fundamentally wrong or bad about ourselves. We then do something to make sure that we don’t achieve the undeserved success.

4.      Fear of success: Success of any kind may be accompanied by new responsibilities, whether to ourselves or others. Worry that we can’t handle new responsibilities may keep us in a cycle of actions to ensure that we don’t succeed.

5.      Impulsivity & poor emotional regulation: These things get in our way when we don’t pause before reacting to circumstances in our lives. When we act without thinking, those actions are unlikely to be our best choices. If we can train ourselves to pause, we can stop our impulses in time to remember what we really want and what will help us get there.

6.      Perfectionism: If we have a little slip or don’t follow our plan to a T, we may convince ourselves that we might as well just give up and go all the way with whatever behavior has gotten in the way because we’ve already messed up.

7.      Fear of judgment: No one can judge us if we don’t put ourselves out there. This can get in the way even if we haven’t gone public with a goal. We worry about what people will think about us either for trying to improve an aspect of our lives or for not improving in the “right” way.

Can you relate to any of these?

I can.

Low self-esteem and negative core beliefs have undoubtedly contributed to my willingness to accept or stay in jobs that, while rewarding, paid much less than I should have been paid for the quality (and quantity) of my work and for my education. I sabotaged myself plenty of times because, on some level, I believed that being paid well for my work made me shallow or less “good” in some way. I still have to fight those limiting beliefs in my own business.

In the past, fear of success kept me from putting real effort into growing my coaching practice. “What if I get too busy for the time I have available?”

I don’t consider myself an impulsive person, but impulsivity leads to self-sabotage when I am stressed and don’t take time to pause. I may convince myself in the moment that I “deserve” more chocolate or another piece of bread because someone else ate what I had planned for my lunch or because I there’s no peace and quiet for me to think.

Perfectionism tells me that I might as well just stay up and look at social media a little longer because I’ve already missed my goal bedtime, due to everything that had to fit into the day, including cooking dinner for the family and cleaning up the kitchen. Since I missed it, I’ll just try again tomorrow.

These scenarios don’t make logical sense, but they are real, and they do lead to self-sabotage.

It takes intentional work to counteract our tendencies toward sabotaging our efforts.

Self-Compassion Is the First Step

My favorite way to gently squelch self-sabotage is strengths-focused self-compassion.

Remember, our brains are trying to protect us, counterproductive as it ends up being.

“Having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness.” — Kristin Neff

Even though it is easy to become frustrated with ourselves, we’ll get farther with compassion. Recognize and honor what our brains are trying to do.

There are often very good reasons that we have adopted the disruptive behaviors that prevent us from accomplishing our important wellness goals.

For instance, maybe perfectionism became a way of life because we grew up in a demanding household, and we learned that we were more likely to find approval and acceptance from family members if we did everything we could to avoid mistakes.

This habit then follows us into adulthood. The risk of messing up feels too big, so we may avoid taking chances on ourselves. Or we allow ourselves to be stalled if a situation isn’t “perfect.” If it can’t be perfect, we might as well just give up.

Awareness is power, though, so it’s not enough just to tell ourselves it’s okay. We also need to commit to making progress and to recognizing that we have the power to do so.

Our Personal Strengths Empower Us to Do Better

One way to do this is to identify our strengths and then to decide to apply them to the self-sabotage snags we encounter.

There are a variety of ways to identify strengths.

We can use a tool like CliftonStrengths or Via Institute on Character Strengths Survey. You can take Via for free, where Clifton generally requires buying a book or purchasing and access code. I’ve gone through both surveys multiple times over the years, and I find value in both. Clifton focuses more on talents that we possess and can develop, where Via emphasizes innate and cultivated character strengths. Both are important.

Currently, I think my favorite way—especially in reference to battling self-sabotage—is simply to think about what I consider personal strong points that I really value in myself and about how I can apply those strengths to resist the tendency to self-sabotage. Having completed the Clifton and Via surveys aids me in this process.

On a recent bike ride, I thought about my most frustrating self-sabotage scenarios and about the strengths I possess that I could put to better use in eliminating them. The strengths that came to mind included Compassion (which overlaps with my core values), Organization, Discipline, Intellection (my top Clifton strength) and Input Synthesis (an adaptation of one of my core Clifton strengths).

Okay, so it happened. I messed up. I sabotaged my progress toward my goals. Now what?

First, I have to forgive myself and hold myself with compassion, recognizing that, probably for one of the above reasons, my brain tried to protect me. Messing up doesn’t make me a weak person or reflect poorly on my character. It means that my brain identified a perceived risk and went to work behind the scenes to manage the risk.

Next, I think about the strengths I am choosing to cultivate and figure out how those can help me counter self-sabotage. If I’m staying up even later because I’ve already missed my target bedtime (Perfectionism), I can call on Compassion and Discipline to help me. Compassion reminds me that I’ll feel better in the morning if I get better sleep. When I remember that discipline is a strength of mine, I recognize that a disciplined person would put down the phone and go to bed. So what if I am 10 minutes late for my bedtime? That’s better than being 30 minutes late.

How can you hold yourself with compassion the next time you realize that you have sabotaged your progress toward your goals?

What strengths do you possess that you can put to work in doing better next time?

I would love to know if you take (or have taken) Clifton or Via surveys. Let me know what you learn and how you can use these strengths to ward off self-sabotage.

In Priority Wellness Academy, which is enrolling until August 15, we’ll delve even deeper into the causes of and fixes for self-sabotage, including a fascinating and enlightening discussion about our inner saboteurs. Be sure to schedule your assessment by clicking the above link and start prioritizing your wellness. Self-sabotage is just one of the critical mindset issues we’ll address.