Insight: 6 Ways We Sabotage Our Own Success

Do you sometimes get the feeling that you cannot do anything right, you’re stuck to some extent, or not enough opportunities are coming your way?

You could be subconsciously blocking your own progress.  Often we don’t realise when we have limited ourselves, either through mental or physical barriers that we unwittingly erect to protect ourselves. We tend to imagine self-sabotage as a conscious act of rebellion, or a deliberate choice to steer us off course. In reality, sabotage is rarely that loud. It is actually a quiet mechanism designed to keep us ‘safe’ within the boundaries of what we already know.

When we stand on the edge of a major breakthrough, our subconscious doesn’t see a potential masterpiece, it sees a threat to the status quo - to the way things are. We miss the deadline, or ignore the life-changing email, because convincing ourselves that we are not capable, or not up to it, feels safer than the unknown pressure of success.

Yet nobody in life is ever unsuccessful, because each of us succeeds at something, no matter how small it is, according to our own hopes and aspirations. Neither is self-sabotage ever one grand, dramatic gesture. Usually, it’s a series of small events and choices that slowly pull us away from our goals.

They take hold through the following six factors that are listed in order of the magnitude of their effects on our lives.

1. Negative life experiences from school to home

These experiences tend to keep you feeling frustrated and impotent, developing and polishing your feelings of inferiority and hopelessness to perfection. A lifetime of hearing, “You’re no good. You can’t do anything right. You’re useless, you’re stupid,” or “You’re not as good as your brothers/sisters,” without any corresponding praise, would have done nothing for your morale and sense of worth.

Add to that the loss of a key family member or close friend. This could include your parents’s breakup, or even death; moving away from home for the first time, and breaking up with a friend or lover. Often we do not allow ourselves time to grieve, or we blame ourselves for the event, and the consequences soon reveal themselves in other limiting and distressing ways.

2. Too much pressure

This usually comes from parents, and/or peers, to meet their demands and expectations; the dreams they didn’t achieve themselves that they now wish to live through you, regardless of what you desire. This deprives you of the opportunity to develop your own goals, identity, independence, and autonomy: a situation that often leads to procrastination, low morale and self-denial.

3. A Fear of both Failure and Success

With failure, you internalise and interpret any negative result to mean that you are a useless person, instead of seeing yourself as a perfectly capable individual who had an off-day and can always attempt that task again, like attending another interview, or learning a new skill when your job becomes redundant. You also equate yourself with the uselessness of the position, and see yourself as the one being rejected. You then perceive yourself as someone worthless who will never get another job - a perception that determines how you deal with the loss, and the actual outcome.

Yet we tend to stay in our comfort zones because our subconscious often views a big success as a threat to our current identity. In effect, sabotage becomes a misguided act of protection. Sometimes we feel there is an ‘upper limit’ to our success and are even afraid to dream big. When things get too good, we unconsciously pull the internal alarm to get back to a level of stress that feels ‘normal’. In these instances, expanding our capacity for joy is a skill that requires trust in ourselves, and full acceptance of life.

Next time you feel the urge to procrastinate on a big goal, ask yourself: ‘What is the specific responsibility I am trying to avoid by staying small?’

4. Judging or criticising yourself and abilities too harshly

In your search for perfection you never allow room for error or learning, and for being a mere mortal. Instead you mainly listen to your own negative voice that confirms your worst perception and fears, especially when it comes to any appraisal of your efforts and worth.

For example, you want to apply for a promotion or launch a new initiative. You’ve done the research, but you convince yourself you need one more certification, one more expert opinion, or one more round of edits before you’re ready. This allows you to stay in the research phase indefinitely, effectively keeping yourself on the sidelines. Your deep-rooted fear of success encourages you to seek perfection first in whatever you do. Deep down, you might be worried about the higher expectations and visibility that come with the next level. For you, staying in ‘learning mode’ is bound to feel safer than stepping into ‘performing’ mode.

5. Setting unrealistic goals for yourself

Often this is an attempt to seek approval and attain the unreachable in order to prove something to yourself. However as you may not be quite ready for that, such actions mainly encourage you to procrastinate and to lower your achievement rate. They also increase your disappointment and confirm your negative fears.

For example, you have a high-stakes project due, perhaps a business proposal or a creative manuscript. Instead of starting the difficult work of outlining, you spend four hours ‘organising your desk, colour-coding your emails, or researching a software tool you won’t need for another six months.

The effect of this is that you feel busy and productive, but you are actually avoiding the vulnerability of doing the real work. In effect, if you don’t start, then you can’t fail. By running out of time, you give yourself a built-in excuse of blaming the lack of time, instead of the actual situation which might be overwhelming you.

6. Negative evaluations

You assess the outcome of situations as much worse than they really are, in order to confirm your deepest fears about yourself, while deliberately ignoring or downplaying your strengths and achievements. For example, you are likely to dwell unnecessarily on negative events, on your perceived failures and disappointments, instead of using them as learning tools.

But the longer you stay in the same position in regret and self-pity, the harder it is to move forward. As a saying goes, “Often we are so busy staring longingly at the closed door behind us, we fail to see the open one ahead.” That is the classic case for most people who lose their jobs or something they truly desire.

How many of those six factors apply to you at this time?

Limiting the Fear and Sabotage

The very first step and reducing the occasions for self-sabotage is to recognise how all the factors above can stop you achieving your aims. Whatever troubles you emotionally, or doesn’t feel right shouldn’t be accepted or ignored, but faced head-on so that it is not settling in to cause future damage.

Personal growth and success comes through a willingness to accept change in our routine, but we are often hampered by a fear of:

• taking risks;

• creating opportunities;

• the consequences;

• even handling success.
  

Negative thought processes deter us from positive acts simply because of our fear of change. There are many people like this alive today because of a preoccupation with the past and the desire to avoid, or not repeat, any mistakes. In effect, they are caught in a continuous and futile attempt to be perfect, which gradually robs them of the success they seek, as they will not achieve a perfection that does not exist.

Some people’s low opinion of themselves is so deep rooted, and their resistance to change so strong, it would probably take years to show them that they are unique, talented beings who can control their own future to great personal satisfaction.

The important things in life require us to confront our own self-doubt, which is why we often shirk from doing it. However, when you recognise these self-sabotaging patterns, you can apply a lateral thinking shift. Instead of trying to stop being a procrastinator with your projects, give yourself permission to do a ‘bad’ first draft. This lowers the stakes, removes the need for perfection, and allows you to build confidence and competence through action rather than theory.

Moving beyond self-sabotage also requires a commitment to personal honesty. By identifying the specific fears that trigger your ‘brakes’, you can begin to dismantle the entrenched factors that are blocking your path. True self-assurance isn’t an absence of the urge to hide or avoid; it is the ability to recognise that urge and choose to face it anyway.

Time to stop being your most efficient obstacle, and start becoming your own most reliable ally. The path is clear: you need to confidently face any issues from your past, trust your instincts and desires, and gradually allow yourself to succeed.