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Here’s a real head trip: You may be preventing yourself from achieving your goals— without even realizing it.
Psychologists call this “self-sabotage,” and it can appear in all sorts of sneaky ways, like stopping you from getting a promotion or hindering your efforts to take your business to the next level.
“Self-sabotage is when we get in our own way, despite our best intentions,” explains Dr. Judy Ho, a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist and author of Stop Self-Sabotage. “And a lot of times, these processes are kind of subconscious to people.”
But here’s some reassuring news. Now that you know self-sabotage is a thing, you will be better equipped to identify where it’s wreaking havoc in your life and how to stop it in its sabotaging tracks.
In a recent interview on the Write About Now Podcast, Dr. Ho pointed to several signs that you may be self-sabotaging.
You procrastinate
We all procrastinate, putting off til tomorrow what could be done right now. There are many reasons for this — fear of failure, perfectionism, depression, TikTok. But you may not realize that procrastination is also a form of self-sabotage.
“Procrastination over time wears on our self-esteem and belief that we can achieve what we set out to do,” says Dr. Ho.
She says that some people are so stubborn about their procrastination that they’ll defend it to her, arguing that when they procrastinate, they put pressure on themselves to create better things.
“But at some point, you run out of time, so even if you have the most unique ideas, you just can’t execute them,” Dr. Ho says.
You try to do everything yourself
Our culture emphasizes being self-reliant and not depending on others for help. But you can’t do everything yourself.
Dr. Ho says that while there’s value in nurturing independence, it can also be a trap that keeps you from achieving some of your goals in relationships and business.
“Human connection is a universal need. We are social beings; without that, we can’t mentally or physically thrive,” she says. “When people say, ‘I’m a loner.’ Most of the time, they say that because they’re trying to avoid getting hurt or disappointed in some way, but denying yourself of that universal human need is also a form of self-sabotage.”
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You fear success
We all want to achieve a certain level of success, but we also do things to prevent it from happening.
This seems counterintuitive. Why would we do this? Dr. Ho says that evolution is partly to blame. “Your body and mind are always trying to protect you from harm. This is a big part of survival,” she explains. Like our ancestors who feared a sabertooth tiger, you might fear a promotion will make your life too difficult to handle.
“So you blow up your mind with all these fears and all the bad things that can happen and catastrophize rather than allow yourself to enjoy the fruits of your labor or think about the positives.”
Psychologists call this the “approach-avoidance phenomenon,” which means that once you get closer to reaching a goal, you start to see all the downsides of reaching that goal and do things to avoid it.
