Episode 1224: Self-Sabotage What It Is and What to do About It

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,224 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Rob Cook: I'm Rob

[00:00:07] Cook. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to focus on what is really important while achieving success is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:31] Scott Maderer: And then can making a commitment to that and finding somebody to help hold you accountable to that. And how can you learn more in that area? What will you do if you succeed? And why do you think it's hard and why have you not succeeded in the past and what are you going to do differently? Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:59] If you [00:01:00] truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true. In the inspired stewardship podcast who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:20] in today's episode about investing in others, through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about what self sabotage is and where it comes from. I also talk with you about what it looks like. Actually do self sabotage. And I also share some practical tips on how you can stop it. You've heard me talk about developing your talent and one of the best ways to do that is through books.

[00:01:43] But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's [00:02:00] over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via.

[00:02:10] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books. The same way you're listening to this podcast. Humans have always set resolutions, made goals, attempted to do something and wanted to do it. And yet we've also had a long history of sabotaging ourselves. Think about it.

[00:02:35] You've got. All sorts of resolutions and goals and things that you want to accomplish. And yet you end up sabotaging yourself a lot. At first glance, it might seem self sabotage is a minor thing, or is it that big of a deal, but in terms of over and over again, chronically, if you do this consistently, it leads to [00:03:00] really destructive outcomes in your personal and professional life.

[00:03:05] And it's actually. Pro Valent. It occurs all over the place. Even very famous people often have gone through stages where they self sabotage themselves. People like Abraham Lincoln, Fred Rogers, Michaelangelo, Kennedy, Washington, all sorts of people. That we think of as very successful have actually discovered periods of their life, at least where they underwent very extreme self sabotage and kept themselves from achieving what they really could achieve.

[00:03:38] Now, the reason those people all became famous is because at some period, they overcame that self sabotage behavior and became successful. Or what we would determine is success. What they would also determine for themselves to be successful. So what is self sabotage? Self sabotage? [00:04:00] The quote textbook psychological definition is when we destroy ourselves physically, mentally, or emotionally, or deliberately hinder our own success and wellbeing by undermining personal goals and values.

[00:04:14] in other words, it's a way we behave consciously or unconsciously that takes us away from achieving what we at least state is. Our ultimate goal. Self sabotage is when you're on a diet and you're doing well and you're succeeding and you're losing. And then you decide to eat cake, despite the fact that you have a goal of eating healthy and losing weight, because it's undermining our actual stated goal.

[00:04:49] It's undermining whether or not we really wanted to do it. And again, it can occur at a conscious level. We can say, I choose to eat this cake, or it can just occur at an [00:05:00] unconscious level where you're doing it without even really thinking about. For instance, if you have a fear of failure or even a fear of success, maybe you procrastinate and wait until the last possible moment to work on an important project, because unconsciously now you're avoiding success.

[00:05:20] You're avoiding being able to do well on this. So it sets you up in a way you're setting yourself up to not be at your best. And you may even do that without even really thinking about it. Keep in mind too, that there's an element to this that involves cognitive dissonance. This idea of I have a stated goal, and then I'm not behaving in a way that's an alignment with that goal.

[00:05:44] And that's an uncomfortable internal feeling. And so usually we get rid of that discomfort either by reframing our goal or changing our behavior. So often we do it by reframing our goal. We decide it's not so important [00:06:00] to us after. and that's when we give up on the diet or give up on the behavior and we end up sabotaging ourselves, it really comes usually from either success.

[00:06:13] Fear or failure, fear. It comes from the idea of imposter syndrome of not feeling good enough. It comes from an internal mindset that is counter protective. It includes negativity. It includes disorganization. It includes inde decisiveness. It includes negative self talk. It comes from all of these things.

[00:06:38] perfectionism is a form of this imposter syndrome is also connected to self sabotage these feelings of I'm not good enough. I'm not able to do this or conversely, the feeling of I have to be perfect in everything I do. These are all ways self sabotage shows up. [00:07:00] Oftentimes it includes destructive behavior as.

[00:07:02] But regardless of what form it takes it. All of these things showing up in your life in one form or another, or some of them keep in mind, you may self sabotage in one way and not in another. You may self sabotage in one area of your life and not in another. We self sabotage around relationships around our spiritual growth around our career, around finance in all of these areas, we can show up and self sabotage in one place and not, and others.

[00:07:36] How do you think about this? What do you, what models do we use? One is the approach avoidance conflict model. This is the idea that self sabotage behavior is a biological response that helped us survive it. This is when that internal voice shows up because it's trying to protect you from a threat.

[00:07:56] We've talked about this before, in terms of imposter syndrome, [00:08:00] that often is a form of self sabotage. You also can think about it from a model. Per perspective. If you've seen the people around you, especially important people like your parents or your family do this, then we model that same sort of behavior.

[00:08:17] We also can come at it when we've had a history of rejection or neglect. Again, it's an adaptive behavior in that sense, because it helps protect us. All of these things, trauma in, in other behaviors, all of these can inflect and encourage and cause more. Of the self sabotaging behavior. So what do you do about it?

[00:08:42] If you have self sabotage, what do you do about it? If you are doing these sorts of behaviors? Many of them are things that we've talked about before. Many of them include things like journal. many of them include things like [00:09:00] doing and practicing positive self talk, doing processes to identify where those negative thoughts are coming from and learn to answer them with truths.

[00:09:12] It there's ways of looking at what we do and asking good questions. What is self sabotage to you? How does it show up in your. How do you think self sabotage impacts you? And then when you do self sabotage, can you identify patterns to it? Do you tend to do it in certain areas or around certain areas or in certain ways, and then generating, brainstorming, what can you do differently?

[00:09:42] What could you do that? Isn't what you've always done. And then can making a commitment to that and finding somebody to help hold you accountable to. and how can you learn more in that area? What will you do if you succeed and [00:10:00] why do you think it's hard and why have you not succeeded in the past? And what are you going to do differently?

[00:10:07] These are all things that not only can you do internally, but you can actually work with somebody else on how to do this as. And it's helpful sometimes to have an accountability partner or thought partner in this area, because oftentimes these are habits and behaviors that we've ingrained in ourselves over decades and changing them is not easy, but it is possible.

[00:10:32] Thanks for listening.

[00:10:34] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent [00:11:00] and sign.

[00:11:01] For our five week series on the stewardship of talent, or if you're in the us, you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4, 4, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.