Are You Self-Sabotaging Yourself?

Do you feel like that you block yourself at times and don’t know why? Do you feel that you are holding yourself back from achieving your full potential and living the life that you want? Is the voice within your head causing you to experience negative emotions? If you answered ‘Yes’ to any of the above questions this is known as Self-Sabotage and can lead to feeling stressed, anxious, frustrated, restless or miserable. These are feelings that don’t serve us any purpose and result from our own thoughts that become a pattern and are activated when we are triggered if this is by another person or situation. These triggers result from childhood experiences and limit our growth potential as adults if we are unaware of them and don’t understand why we react in the way we do.

I recently done a Positive Intelligence course on self-saboteurs and found the course to be very insightful. There were nine saboteurs in total which I will list each one below and will discuss two saboteurs in detail that relate to me. My main saboteurs would be the pleaser and hyper rationalist. This has been a new discovery for me as it would have affected my relationships with people in my teenage years and early 20s. I reflected on these saboteurs and come to understand them more and how they have played a negative part in my life.

The hyper rationalist would judge and label other people in a negative way that they don't have the same rational mindset as you and not care for their needs and emotions. A hyper rationalist can come across as cold, distant and intellectually arrogant.

The pleaser goes out of their way to help others and support them. A pleaser expects to be liked, recognised and accepted for all their efforts in helping that person. A pleaser will let the person know that in their eyes they are selfish and ungrateful for not acknowledging their help and not making the same effort in the relationship as you.

Relationships in the past would have been the weakest part of my life. I have given too much time, energy and investment to people who never truly cared about me and the relationship.

My own high expectations of other people have led me to feel disappointed and annoyed with them. This was my problem. The problem was never the other person. I just didn't accept them for who they were. The only person that you can change is yourself and never the other person. I was self-sabotaging myself by letting my own ego get the better of me and having my own rules in my place for the relationship.

By acknowledging and accepting that I must change my own outlook and views on relationships this has led me to do more work on myself internally. I went deeper with my own feelings to understand them and to reconnect with myself. My relationship with myself has improved over the years and I am in a good space. I had to do this self-reflection work to clarify the kind of relationships I wanted to have and to manage my saboteurs so the mistakes of the past don’t happen again.

The other seven self-saboteurs on the course that can affect an individual are:

1. Avoider – Avoiding difficult conversations and situations. Procrastinates and downplays the importance of real problems

2. Controller – The need to take control and charge of the situation. Control others through competition, challenge them and engage in conflict instead of using assertive communication and softer emotions. 

3. Hyper-Achiever – Seeks constant performance and achievement for respect and validation from others. Not contend with what they currently have and always striving for more.

4. Hyper-Vigilant – Chronic anxiety about what could go wrong and dangers that may arise. Always anxious and find it difficult to trust themselves and others.

5. Restless – Always busy and searching for excitement in next activity. Avoids unpleasant feelings, easily gets distracted and seeks new stimulation.

6. Stickler – Perfectionism and takes organisation too far. Highly sensitive to criticism and opinionated.

7. Victim – Acts in emotional and temperamental way to gain attention and affection. Focuses on painful internal feelings.

I found this to be an interesting area self-sabotage and how it can hold a person back. If you are curious to know what your saboteurs are you can do a self-sabotage test on the Positive Intelligence website. The more aware you are and understand yourself, you will be able to choose your response when the saboteur triggers arise and as a result are in control of your own actions and decisions.