Are you Sabotaging Your Success?

By - karengray
06.03.18 08:31 PM

What Is Self-Sabotage?

Behavior is self-sabotaging when it creates problems that interfere with your long-standing goals. Self-sabotage can be something that you do, like procrastinate overeat, or self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. It can also manifest in the ways that you act, such as low self esteem and low self-confidence. These behaviors and actions may seem helpful in the moment, but they ultimately undermine us, especially when we engage in them repeatedly.


People aren't always aware of their own self-sabotage, since we rarely see ourselves clearly. Often, if you have self-sabotaging behaviors, you may find yourself wondering why things can’t seem to go your way. You may have asked yourself “Why can’t I get a good job?” or “Why isn’t my business making more money?”


These behaviors and feelings are usually a result of self-limiting thoughts. There are a number of different motivational methods that focus on “what you put out to the universe” and the belief that your thoughts, feelings, and actions have a direct effect on what happens to you and around you. Studies are showing that, in large part, this is true.


Imagine this scenario…


You walk into the break room at work and one of your coworkers is there, visibly angry. Think about how you react and engage with them. You are likely to keep your distance, to keep your voice low and calm, and to keep yourself between your coworker and the door. All of your actions are subconscious, and you may not even be aware of them, but they are a direct result of what your coworker is “putting out.”


Now imagine another scenario…


You decide to check out a small neighborhood shop, and the owner is sitting behind the counter. His posture is slouched, and his head is down. He doesn’t look up when you come to the counter, and his voice is flat and detached. He looks depressed, and your friendly greeting is met with a heavy sigh. You may ask if everything is okay, and he may answer you by complaining that business is bad. Again, think about how you react, without even being aware of it. You may feel pretty uncomfortable, and you may want to hurry out of the shop. You decide that you would be happy to never come back.


One more…


You go into the local coffee shop for your regular morning cup. The person behind the counter greets you with a warm smile and a friendly hello. They move quickly to get your order, and make eye contact when they hand it to you. You find yourself smiling as you leave. No wonder this is your favorite coffee shop!


How we think about ourselves affects how we act. And how we act affects how other people feel about us.


Are You Sabotaging Yourself?

Self-sabotage is often the result of not feeling like we are worthy of success, that we are not worth loving, or that we don’t deserve good things. These feelings are rooted in self-protective programming in our subconscious minds that took place when we were much younger. The subconscious mind holds onto that programming and keep using it throughout our lives. Essentially, those perceptions of the world that we create as children become the definition of how we relate to the world as adults. Let’s look at some examples of what self-sabotage looks like, and what the subconscious mind learns from previous experiences.


When we underestimate our potential to accomplish something, it is easy to believe that whatever success we experience has nothing to do with your capabilities, and that any success that happens to us is just a fluke.


In the case of those who undervalue themselves, it may be that they were told, or led to believe, that they didn’t have what it takes to succeed. Perhaps as a child things were said or done that created the feeling of not being as smart, talented, or “qualified” as someone else. In this case, while growing up the subconscious mind received messages of being inadequate, incompetent, inferior, unable to measure up, and unable to do anything right.


Self-sabotagers have a habit ofconstantly finding fault with themselves and their work. Sometimes they are able to find fault in even the most simplest and inconsequential actions, like making a sandwich. These limiting beliefs only validate the mistaken belief that they are a bad person.


If a child or adolescent had someone in their life berate them or routinely question their integrity or intentions, that child was likely programmed to believe that they cannot perform in an acceptable way. Often the feeling becomes “no matter what I do it isn’t right or good enough.”

When someone in a position of authority over us tells us something, we tend to believe them. As children and young adults, we are even more likely to believe what they say. These negative experiences can manifest as a feeling of not being likeable, lovable, wanted, honorable, or worthy of respect.” People who heard this prompting as children and young adults grow up with the subconscious programming that they are irresponsible, deserving of blame, a mistake, shameful, lazy, guilty, selfish, shameful, contemptible, or terrible.

So many of usfeel that we are undeserving, and so we wrongly believe that we have little to no right to ask for what we want or need.


People with this aspect of self-limiting behaviors find self-assertion difficult. They deprive themselves of things they would enjoy, or even that would contribute to their well being and welfare? They may even reject others’ attempts to offer them what they need or desire because they do not feel worthy enough or deserving enough to accept their gifts, or assistance.


When an adult feels that they are not deserving of even the most basic needs, this can be the result of someone in their childhood reacting negatively to them whenever they made their needs known. It’s possible that they were given the message that they were ungrateful for what they did have. This treatment may have resulted in self-defeating beliefs that they don’t deserve love, respect, authority, help, happiness, to succeed, or to be forgiven. They learn instead that they deserve criticism, pain, punishment, bad things, abandonment, to fail, and to be miserable.


Another self-sabotaging trait is seeing yourself as an outsider or outcast, and believing that you don’t, or can’t, fit in with others.


This feeling of alienation may have come from being criticized or made fun of for being different, or in some way peculiar. Those children may have felt, or been lead to believe that their physical characteristics may have set them apart negatively from others. Today, they may still feel like they don’t quite fit in. In this case, their environment may have led them to think of themselves as abnormal, or some sort of misfit. The subconscious mind has learned to act on the perception that they are different, or not normal, all alone, lost, don't belong, or have been left behind.


Another belief and behavior set that prevents people from being as successful as they would like to be is perceiving yourself, and maybe the whole world, as untrustworthy. The result of this faulty thinking is the belief that they should be suspicious of themselves, and everyone else.


When authority figures show children and young adults that they do not trust them  whether or not their lack of faith warranted, it creates an environment of self-doubt. This is further compounded by people’s tendency to believe that everyone is a lot like themselves. So, when someone grows up believing that they cannot be trusted, they also grow up believing that no one else can be trusted either.


It may have been that behaving in untrustworthy ways was the only way to get basic needs met. As a result, these people hold the beliefs that they have no credibility and cannot. They believe that they cannot trust themselves, their perceptions of others, their judgement, their authority, or that of anyone else. They feel that is is not safe to tell the truth.


Having the tendency to devalue or belittle yourself, or feeling that you are less worthwhile than others is another way of sabotaging your success.


In this case, there may have been a time in the past when someone disregarded your needs, or made light of them, giving you the message that your needs didn’t matter. You may have found yourself buying in to their thinking, and you may have begun to discount the legitimacy of your needs as well.


People with this mindset tend to put their needs aside for the needs of others in an effort to earn their love and acceptance. In the past, you may have been encouraged to believe that you are not worthwhile or worthy, not important, or not significant. Your subconscious developed the negative beliefs that you don’t matter or don’t count.


Another self-defeating behavior is viewing yourself as more responsible for other people’s welfare than your own.


This behavior and belief is often seen in adults whose parents suffered from mental illness, or who were the children of alcoholics or addicts. Their parents gave them the message that they were selfish for making their own needs a priority over the parent’s needs, and that selfishness made them unacceptable. These children were often held responsible for catering to their parent’s needs. Often they were given the responsibility of raising themselves, and even their younger siblings.


These children might have been taught, through conditional approval, that it was virtuous to sacrifice themselves for others, and even that it was expected that they deny their own needs to meet the needs of others. The result is an adult who feels that their needs are unimportant or unacceptable. They develop the belief that is not okay to stand up for themselves, or sto stand up to others. The often feel that they have to please others, can’t disappoint others, can’t set limits on others, and that they have to take responsibility for others. In a large sense, they feel that they can’t depend on others, and have no right to be their own person.


Self-sabotaging behaviors can come in the form of perceiving yourself as weak or defenseless, and living your life as if you are a helpless victim, or by being excessively dependent on others.


Sometimes, even unknowingly, parents can instill their children with their own childhood fears and insecurities. Those parents are overprotective, and give their children the impression that they are frail or fragile and cannot fend for themselves. Those children grow up and have problems with anxiety. They see the world as menacing and dangerous, and to protect themselves, they avoid taking risks. The children of those overprotective parents end up carrying around self-limiting beliefs that they are weak, helpless, powerless, defenseless, vulnerable, fearful, not safe, trapped, in danger, a victim, or not in control. They may mistakenly believe that they can’t make their own decisions, or that they cannot cope with stress.


Another aspect of this is seeing feelings only as something that adds to vulnerability. When this happens, people do not allow the healthy expression of emotions.


Stuffing away emotions is often the result of being criticized or even made fun of for crying, getting angry, or showing fear and even love. It can also result from having feelings ignored, creating the sense of being alone and isolated. Perhaps there was shame or even punishment for displaying emotions that were considered unacceptable as the girl or boy you were expected to be. As a result of this disapproval, neglect, or censure, the subconscious mind may have adopted the following beliefs that it is best to keep feelings to oneself, and that it is inappropriate, or even bad to let yourself “open up.” As adults, the belief may be that it isn’t safe to have or show feelings. The subconscious has learned that feelings are stupid, foolish, weak, wrong, silly, shameful, not to be trusted, and can’t be taken seriously.


Changing Beliefs

The key to seeing yourself today in a genuinely better way is to eliminate the beliefs that no longer serve you. Think about buying a sweater for the cold winter months. During the winter, the sweater does a great job of keeping you warm and protecting you from the cold. Eventually, the seasons begin to change, and the temperatures rise. By the end of spring, you have put away your sweater. You do not need it now.


Or imagine training wheels on a bicycle. They offer a sense of stability and safety when you are learning to ride a bike, but at some point as you grow, you no longer need the training wheels, and they become more of a burden or an inconvenience to you as you try to ride your bike.


Those limiting and self-sabotaging beliefs are a lot like the sweater and the training wheels. You needed them for a while, and your subconscious mind used them to keep you safe, protected, and to help you learn. But unlike the sweater and training wheels, the subconscious mind doesn’t let go of things so easily. And for good reason!


You see, those behaviors become programs, or habits, and habits are hard to break on purpose. It helps to understand habits better. Habits are things that we do without thinking about them, so logically, breathing is a habit, and so is digesting food, and so is driving a car, and walking. Imagine if all of a sudden you forgot how to breathe, or drive a car! The way that we think about things and react to them is a habit too, and just as difficult to change, because those habits keep up safe and protected too.


Your subconscious mind believes that it knows better than you what you need, and it is usually right. You don’t know when your blood pressure or heart rate needs to be adjusted. It knows when there is danger before you become consciously aware of it, and you start reacting before you know that you need to. You depend on your reactions and your subconscious mind to keep you alive and well.


The trouble with your subconscious mind is that is has no eyes, and it has no concept of time. It just runs along doing the same thing that it has always done, until something significant enough happens that makes a change necessary. For adults though, the system runs so smoothly that the subconscious mind doesn’t see much need for change in our day to day lives. This means that the subconscious mind does not see that these beliefs and behaviors are no longer needed, or that they are causing us harm.


The Role of Hypnosis

Humans have powerful survival instincts. It registers deep inside children that disappointing or disobeying parents could seriously threaten their attachment to the child, and in turn threaten the child’s existence. To avoid expressions of parental disapproval and the sting that would have greatly distressed the child and overwhelmed their limited coping resources, they would have felt compelled to generate what could be called “emotional survival programs.” That is, strategically modifying behavior to the best of your ability to optimize your chances of being accepted by your parents, however conditionally. If the parents had their own unresolved issues, it is possible that they were incapable of loving unless the child behaved in certain constricted ways.


"Old programming" is one way to think about decisions you made as a child to better adapt to a conditionally accepting family. After all, when you’re highly dependent on others for comfort, guidance, and support, it is essential to feel securely bonded to them. When we are young we have no choice but to rely on authority figures to take care of us and keep us out of harm’s way.


If there is any “magic” in hypnosis, it is in the ability to empower and enable change from the inside out. During hypnosis, you can be guided to use all the aspects of your mind at once, allowing you to resolve issues from the past by using advanced hypnotic techniques. In hypnosis, the client is in a state of hyper-suggestibility, meaning that the subconscious mind is open and ready to accept new suggestions. This allows the hypnotist to lead the client in letting go of the limiting beliefs and “programs” that aren’t needed or working for them anymore, and install new beliefs that increase self confidence and self esteem, and allows the client to stop self-sabotaging and accept success.


Finally, please be aware that I’m not at all interested in “parent-bashing.” I truly believe that all parents are doing and have done the best they can, just like all of us are doing the best we can do at any given moment.∎


Karen Gray is a Certified Hypnotist, a Registered Nurse, and the owner of Green Mountain Hypnosis in Lebanon, New Hampshire. For more information on how you can use hypnosis to change your life, you can visit www.greenmountainhypnosis.com, contact Karen at karengray@greenmountainhypnosis.com, or call (802) 566-0464.

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