I have an embarrassingly long list of things I promise myself to do and then not do it — sometimes even intentionally. I’ve had different labels and often legit reasons/excuses for them. But it never dawned on me, that collectively this is called self-sabotaging. Credit goes to a recent book I read.
Self-sabotage is the behavior and thought patterns that stop you from doing what you want to do. I’ve been on an auto-pilot mode where a situation triggers some internal dialogues resulting in subconscious behaviors and all this happens so fast that I don’t even realize I’m doing it. This makes it so hard to catch in the moment, and it only becomes clear when I look back and try to dissect it. The major ones so far for me are-
- Imposter syndrome – I could as well list this as one of my core behavior traits. The voices in my head tell me that I’m not good/worthy enough. This stops me from pushing forward because if everything is going to be bad or not good enough, why even bother? These negative talks could be the result of how others talk to me, or my own insecurities.
It leads me to procrastinate causing further stress and waste of time. To numb my feelings or feel better, I go on social media which portrays how happy and successful everyone is in their perfect lives. Even though logically I understand that’s not the reality, I can’t resist and compare myself with them. This further exacerbates my feelings of unworthiness and makes me feel worse.
- Intentional avoidance. This one is harder. It’s a conscious choice. Maybe I’m avoiding a task I don’t want to do or putting off a conversation that I know is going to be confrontational and difficult. I’ll do whatever I can to just put it off until I can’t anymore or the issue resolves itself. Even though, I’m well aware of its consequences.
Humans don’t like to experience pain. We’re hardwired to avoid things that cause us discomfort. Often, I would tackle one hard situation in one area of life and fuck the other one up. (For ex. Work vs. relationship). Prior behavior patterns (and their side effects) also play a role in this. For instance, not calling home as they will understand but spending 30 minutes on a random work call as that person needed to speak with someone.
The number of times I’ve been guilty of these two behaviors makes me cringe. This also results in shame, acting out, guilt, resentment, and losing trust in oneself which further puts you right back into this vicious cycle.
I understand that these won’t go away overnight, given the decades of practice. What I’m doing differently this time is
- Acknowledging the problem (in writing).
- Prioritizing upfront things/behaviors I don’t want to fall back into and why. A little scare of what this will lead into, if I don’t change does the magic trick.
- Resisting the urge/choosing to do one thing differently in each of these scenarios. And stacking them up as I go along.
The recent health scares and the amazing books I’ve read (especially the autobiographies) in the last 2 years have given me a richer perspective on the cliche advice – “Don’t take life, health and relationships for granted”.
I’m still trying to answer this eternal question – “What makes a meaningful and happy life for me”? But it definitely doesn’t include doing something that makes me cringe at myself.
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