Do you find yourself going great guns with your training and nutrition, and just as you see results, you self-sabotage? You have no idea why, and you just can’t stop yourself, but your sabotage, then beat yourself up about it, and feel as guilty as all hell. Does this sound familiar? You are certainly not alone. This is all too common. To understand how to combat self-sabotage, you need to first ascertain why you do it.

 

The first reason you might be doing it is because your values or goals have changed, which have caused you to shift your stage, in the ‘5 Step Change Process’.

There are 5 steps to change. Where exactly you sit in this process will dictate your behaviour and ultimately your results.

1. Pre-Contemplation Phase

This is the phase where you are happy with where you are at and feel absolutely no need to change.

2. Contemplation Phase

You identify that you are no longer quite happy with where you are at and start thinking about changing. At this point however, you are not quite sure what you want to achieve, where to start with changing, or what you need to do.

3. Preparation Phase

You start to identify what you want to achieve and start researching what you will need to do in order to make that change. At this point however, you are not quite ready to commit to anything.

4. Action Phase

You have set your goals, done your research and are now ready to make a commitment to a strategy and take action. Nothing stands in your way at this stage.

5. Maintenance Phase

You continue to repeat the action you require in order to achieve or maintain the goal you have set. The goal is in your highest values, so the ongoing action is not-negotiable.

 

Self-Sabotage can happen if you have been sitting at stage 4 or 5 and your values or goals change. This will then trigger you to fall back into one of the previous phases, most commonly phase 1. For example, let’s say you lost your job and had to look for another one. Suddenly, job hunting takes over as your highest priority, so training takes a back seat. You will subconsciously stop training or reduce your training to start job hunting. Though you may still want to achieve your goals, you realise that priorities have changed.

 

The second reason you might self-sabotage, is because the benefits of staying the same, outweigh the benefits of changing. Another way to look at it, is when the sacrifice is no longer worth it for you.

Your behaviour is in line with whatever gives you the highest benefits. You will be happy to sacrifice things if the end result is worth it. I will share examples of what I mean, as it is easier to understand with actual examples.

 

Example 1:

You want to be able to feel better in your clothes, so you go on a diet to lose some weight. This means you need to start meal prepping and change some of your lifestyle habits to accommodate this new goal.

How you feel in your clothes is important to you, so you start off doing a great job, drop a few kilos and start feeling more confident in your clothes.

Then you go out with your friends for dinner and drinks on Friday night, and you eat steak and veggies and drink a glass of mineral water, whilst your friends eat pasta and pizza and drink a few beers. They start to nag you about ‘a little bit won’t kill you’ and how ‘you’re no fun anymore!’. You stand your ground until you go home.

By the time you get home you are so upset about feeling left out and teased, you eat everything in the pantry. This is often called ‘emotional eating’. It actually isn’t that at all. It is self-sabotage. You are subconsciously eating in a way that will help you stay the person your friends knew and were comfortable with so you can fit in again. Suddenly, staying the same as you were, has greater benefits to changing.

If you change, you feel better in your clothes, but the dynamics with your friends changes. If you stay the same, you don’t feel comfortable in your clothes, but you keep the dynamics with your friends the same.

Now that you identify this, you need to decide, what is more important/beneficial to you? And when you do, your behaviour will move in line with that.

 

Example 2:

You want to lose some weight so you start eating better and join a gym to start exercising. This means you need to start taking time out for yourself to help you achieve your goal of weight loss.

Losing weight is important to you because you want to improve your health, look and feel better in your clothes and you want to move better.

Eating better means you spend time preparing food, cooking fresher meals rather than processed foods or take out. Exercise means you need to take time out to get it done.

That time you are now sacrificing in both instances means you have less time for your partner and/or kids. They start complaining that you don’t have time for them, or that you are pre-occupied, or they start complaining about the food because they prefer the food they used to eat.

You don’t want to upset your family, so you start to cook your meals separately to them, chewing up even more of your time. Just as you start seeing results, you start sneaking in more and more processed meals and take out, and start making excuses why not to exercise, so you can spend more time with your family, and to avoid spending hours in the kitchen. Self-sabotage occurs again because staying the same has greater benefits to changing.

If you change you drop weight which also brings all the other benefits, but it upsets your family. If you stay the same, it makes your family happy, but you are risking your health, you won’t look and feel better and you won’t move better.

Now that you identify this, you need to decide, what is more important/beneficial to you? And when you do, your behaviour will move in line with that.

 

Strategies to combat self-sabotage:

Now that we have looked at a couple of examples, hopefully you understand what I mean by the benefits of staying the same outweigh the benefits of change. Let’s now explore some strategies for combating self-sabotage.

 

• Sets goals using the S.M.A.R.T. principle:
  • S – Specific – Be specific about what you are trying to achieve. Rather than saying ‘lose weight’, stipulate exactly how much weight you want to lose.
  • M – Measurable – Rather than saying ‘feel better’, stipulate ways that you can measure or identify that feeling. For example, ‘wake up feeling energized rather than struggling to get out of bed’.
  • A – Attractive – Establishing your ‘why’ helps make your goals more attractive. It’s not attractive simply wanting to lose 5 kilos. But if you think about that dress you want to fit into, for example, makes it more attractive and therefore more motivating.
  • R – Realistic – Set realistic goals. Setting a goal of losing 5kg per week is not very realistic. Losing half a kilo a week is much more realistic.
  • T – Timely – Set a timely deadline in which to achieve your goal. This gives you something very specific to work with, rather than having things open ended. Open ended goals are achieved ‘one day’ which may or may not arrive.

 

• Whenever you set goals, you need to also establish ‘why’ you want to achieve that goal. Notice in both my examples I stated the goal was to lose weight, and then proceeded to give reasons as to why this goal was important.

 

• Write your goal and your ‘why’ down and keep it somewhere you can refer to it every single day. This will help you stay motivated and disciplined.

 

• Whenever you start struggling refer back to your goal and your ‘why’.

 

• Communicate with your loved ones about what you are trying to achieve and why. Ask them for their support. This will help reduce your friends taunting you when you go out. It will also help your family support you and compromise to help you achieve it.

 

• Find a way to achieve the benefit without the damage. For example, if we go back to the first example, if you want to keep the dynamics the same with your friends, opt for going out for coffee rather than dinner.

 

• To help with the ‘benefits’ side of goals, use the Decision Balance board:
  • Divide a piece of paper into four quadrants.
    • In the top left, write the title ‘Benefits of staying the same’. These are your barriers for change.
    • In the top right, write the title ‘Reasons for change’. These are your motivators.
    • In the bottom left, write the title ‘Concerns about staying the same’. These are also motivators.
    • In the bottom right, write the title ‘Concerns about change’. These are also barriers.
  • Once you have set your quadrant up, proceed to write down all the things you can think of, that fit into each quarter.
  • Look at all of your motivators and determine if they outweigh the barriers for you. In other words, are the motivators going to motivate you enough to overcome the barriers?
    • If so, then you are ready for change.
    • If not, no matter how hard you try, you will continue to self-sabotage yourself.
  • If you determine that you are ready to change, then beside every barrier, you need to come up with at least 2 strategies you can use to overcome those barriers if and when they arise.
  • Implement the strategies when those barriers arise.
• Look for triggers that set off your self-sabotage, then identify strategies to cope with these triggers without the self-sabotage.

 

• Focus on improvement rather than perfection. It will help stop you punish yourself with self-sabotage if you have a hiccup.

 

• Think about the impact your self-sabotage has on others. Usually when you self-sabotage you then feel guilty, become moody and grumpy. That is a common reaction. You then take these emotions out on the people closest to you.

 

• Persevere! There is no such thing as a magic potion or quick fix. Try different things until you find what works for you. As the sayings go:
  • ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’
  • ‘Practice makes perfect.’
  • ‘The only time you fail is when you stop trying.’

 

I hope you have found some tools in amongst all this to help you move forward with self-sabotage. If you are still struggling, you can always contact us for help through Mindset Coaching.

 

• Coach Terri