©Ten Behaviors of a Self-Saboteur!

Part One of a Series of Discussions

Last week I began a topic on my weekly Clubhouse room called “Are You Hindering Your Success with Self Sabotage? “. My Co-Moderator, Andrala Walker, CEO of Envision Career Success and I realized within the first 20 minutes of our discussion that the potential audience members may actually be “disconnected” from the room title.

“What else would we call it?” was my question to her analogy that some may not identify themselves as self-sabotaging, yet rooms with the words ‘Imposter Syndrome’ filled the clubhouse hallways with hundreds of attendees. If you have not been introduced yet to Clubhouse it is an Audio Social platform for collaboration, networking, and learning from other experts in various fields. There are no images or colorful posts, just the profile pictures of the moderators, their bio and a room title.

“What would you call it if you are hindering, delaying or stalling your own ability to be successful?” I asked. But then we took the conversation a step further and begin to define Self- Sabotage and two distinct meanings were discovered. 1-Behaviors that interrupt or interfere in a long-term goal and 2-Behaviors that were adaptive to one context that is no longer needed. For example, behaviors that were caused by a previous situation like childhood trauma or a toxic relationship, but those situations no longer exists yet the behaviors continue. What do you call a person who partakes in the behaviors of Self-Sabotage? A Self-Saboteur!

You may be thinking ‘I could never be a Self-Saboteur’, but before you make that judgement review the list and see if you can relate to these 10 behaviors, past or present.

1. Procrastination
2. Denial
3. Picking Fights with Others
4. Walking Away (jobs, relationships, responsibilities)
5. Comfort Eating
6. Self-Medicate (drugs, alcohol, sex)
7. Relationship dating with people who are not right for you
8. Difficulty expressing your needs
9. Blaming others
10. Putting yourself down

Maybe you are wondering how these types of behaviors create a sabotaging experience. Let’s take behavior number 4- Walking Away- some people do this in their work environment. If they don’t feel that their contribution to the organization is honored, respected of valued they would rather ‘Walk away’ from that opportunity and seek another. Change is inevitable regardless of ones profession, but when it means learning new skills, following new guidelines or even receiving orders from a new superior, it can be much simpler and less stressful for a person to ‘walk away’. The question becomes “Will walking away from the situation create a better opportunity versus staying and adapting with the power to influence those surroundings?”. Sometimes we just need to be still and see what we can learn in the midst of the discomfort before rushing off discover that we will have to revisit the same lesson in a different dynamic later.

Evan as a business owner, mother, educator, and trainer I can identify with over half of this list at some point in my life. Whether it feels embarrassing or shameful is not the issue, but rather how can we recognize and improve. The first step to understanding the behaviors is in identifying that we express them. Self-Saboteur is not the worst trait a person can have but it can slow down the progression of their success and happiness.

I created Purposeful University LLC to impact the lives of women in their discovery of purpose and destiny fulfillment. This discussion was primarily to enegage that audience, however, to both our surprise, the attendees to the room were all males! Yet our ‘Woman Live Ur Journey’ private Facebook group, of course all women, also strongly identified with the Self- Saboteur syndrome. So there you have it. Self-Saboteur-ism is not a gender specific nor is it uncommon, its simply a name of a behavior in which many of us display at various times without knowing what it was called.

In our next article we will address potential triggers and how to overcome the self sabotaging cycle. You can join the conversation on Clubhouse by following both of us @liveurjourney and @andrala.