The middle years are filled with so many “ah ha” moments and lately I am finding it more and more difficult to commit to personal growth, and to break patterns of behavior, especially those embedded within my daily routines. For many years of my adult life, I have functioned in survival mode, driven by stress, anxiety and guilt, constantly in a rush and unable to focus on one thing at a time. Part of this is just who I am but none of this is because my life is super stressful, it’s not. It is that overtime, I lost the control and balance between my personal and professional life. My mindset never changed as I transitioned from one to the other, this carried on for years and resulted in me making choices to put myself last every day. As this carried on, I found that I was doing well at work but struggling to be there for the people I care about most at home and neglecting what I needed for myself. I finally hit my breaking point and here we are! This is what got me to this place where I am experiencing an immediate need to find myself and go after what I truly want.
As I am on this journey of reclaiming my power, committing more to self-care routines, and building a solid foundation in which I will spend the second act of my life, I am faced with the hard truth that each and every day I find ways to sabotage my own progress. Despite all the changes that I have made recently I am still finding it challenging to get myself out of this reactive mode that I have been operating under for years. As I am working to unravel this and get to the root cause of this self-sabotage, I am beginning to see that there are just certain patterns of behavior that I have yet to acknowledge and change.
What is Self-Sabotage?
It is my belief that over the course of a person’s life, they will go through a period of time when they engage in self-sabotaging behaviors. Our thoughts and emotions are powerful and no person is immune to self-sabotaging behaviors. Self-Sabotage is behavior that is contradicting to what you are trying to accomplish and can be in the form of both voluntary and involuntary behaviors, decisions and actions.
Some common behaviors include...
1. Procrastination:
Putting it off till later or tomorrow because we are afraid of failure, success and/or change. Before you know it a month has gone by and you haven’t even got started. Often, we make excuses as to why we can’t start and unfortunately either end up rushing, stressed and doing more work than we need to or throwing in the towel and quitting before we even begin. When we are on the brink of a major life change there is often a level of discomfort that we find we are not ready to deal with and this is another reason that we procrastinate in these situations.
2. Overthinking and anxiety in making decisions
Overthinking and anxiety go hand in hand. It is one thing to make sound decisions that keep you moving forward but often times overthinking and anxiety create fear and doubt and cloud our ability to make even simple decisions leaving us stagnant in the process. Perfectionism also plays a role in this. It stems from a fear of making a mistake and our fear of the way that others think about us which can have an impact on how and why we make decisions.
3. Self-Deprivation or Damaging inner voice
Self-deprivation or negative self-talk can stem from experiences in both our adulthood and childhood which usually go hand in hand with a low overall self-esteem. You might also be feeling guilty or embarrassed about being successful or failing. Often times you might be feeling like you don’t deserve things and having low self-worth and confidence in yourself. In many cases the opinions of others, or your perception of what other people think of you, is the driving force of your actions and more times than not, these are incorrect and throw us way off course. This could include having a fear that people will not like or respect you if you change.
4. Avoiding or retreating behaviors
Instead of procrastinating we find ways to avoid moving forward altogether. This can come from a fear of change, fear of not being in control, fear of failure and/or unhealthy coping mechanisms that we have developed overtime. This can also be in the form of making excuses or blaming others or situations for our inability to make progress. Avoidant behaviors can stem from other external factors like work and time restraints. In some cases, we might take on more responsibilities in these areas or take on the problems of others to avoid dealing with our own.
The list is endless and will vary person to person. Sometimes one behavior is more dominant and other times we feel helpless as we battle through multiple behaviors all at once. We often know that we are doing these things but we don’t understand why or how to stop it. It changes our mood and leaves us feeling overwhelmed and agitated and we feel like we are just more of a mess than we actually are. So the question is, what do we do about it? We self-reflect, a lot!
Self-Reflection
So how do we overcome self-sabotage and stay on course? The answer to that question is going to come from you and only you. If you are in fact the reason that you are not progressing towards your goals the first step it to own it and make a plan to change it. Self-reflection is a hard but a necessary practice to incorporate into your life. It is easier to place blame elsewhere and make excuses than it is to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror and deal with your own issues. Self-reflection can help you identify your feelings and understand why you are self-sabotaging but if you make no effort to change then you will not evolve in the process. It will take time and commitment but ultimately allow you to grow to your greatest potential.
Here are some first steps that you can take…
- Be honest with yourself: what is really holding you back? (Write it down!)
- Recognize patterns of behaviors that you often fall back on in similar situations. (Write it down!)
- Re-evaluate what is important to you. (Write it down!)
- Take responsibility for your own toxic behaviors and actions and come up with alternative strategies to avoid falling into similar routines. Stop making excuses! (Write it down!)
- Incorporate self-care and healthy coping mechanisms into your daily routine to strengthen your self-worth and confidence. (Write it down!)
It is important to commit to self-reflection every day. More importantly, it is important to understand that change doesn’t happen overnight, there will be setbacks and challenges ahead. It is an ongoing commitment and self-sabotage is an issue that even the most successful, well-rounded, confident people in the world deal with. Write it down! Keep a journal and set goals to hold yourself accountable. Nobody is going to hold you accountable, this is something that only you can change. If you are making a conscious effort to recognize and are working to overcome self-sabotaging behaviors, then you are heading in the right direction!
Were you honest with yourself today; what or WHO is really holding you back?
Midlife Mama
The Midlife Mama 