Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about mindfulness these days, which
Speaker 1: is fantastic. I mean, we all want to be more
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Speaker 1: your Mind, Change life. Procrastination can be a form of
Speaker 1: self sabotage and a source of self undoing. For example,
Speaker 1: it shows up regularly in people who are working one
Speaker 1: job but harbor a secret, unfulfilled fantasy of doing something else.
Speaker 1: Maybe their dream is to become a performer or a writer,
Speaker 1: or maybe they've always wanted to learn to play the piano,
Speaker 1: or run a full marathon or hike. They spend hours, days, weeks,
Speaker 1: and years dreaming about this future self and imagining how
Speaker 1: fulfilling and rich their lives will become once they finally
Speaker 1: make their move someday, they think. But if you're a procrastinator,
Speaker 1: it never happens, and the excuses they come up with
Speaker 1: to explain why very likely have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the real reason, which, in nine cases out of ten,
Speaker 1: can be traced back to experiences they had and the
Speaker 1: patterning that was in printed in their early childhood. The
Speaker 1: number one health and wellness podcast Jay Sety Jay Setty, Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so grateful that you're
Speaker 1: here spending your next few minutes with me, whether you're
Speaker 1: on a walk, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're cooking,
Speaker 1: whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning, whatever you're up to.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in with me right now. And I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that we're living at a time where mental
Speaker 1: health has taken center stage and where more of us
Speaker 1: than ever before are familiar with the ideas and concepts
Speaker 1: around mental health. I believe that on Purpose has been
Speaker 1: a significant part of doing that because of you. You've
Speaker 1: helped spread on purpose, spread this message so that so
Speaker 1: many people feel seen, feel heard, feel understood. And I
Speaker 1: couldn't thank you enough for all of use, for sharing
Speaker 1: the episodes with friends, the cutdowns on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, keep them coming. Today's episode is about the
Speaker 1: four ways we self sabotage ourselves and the three ways
Speaker 1: we can overcome those instincts and impulses that run counter
Speaker 1: to our own success and happiness. While we may not
Speaker 1: be familiar with self sabotage, most of us know what
Speaker 1: sabotage means. We've all seen films or television shows where
Speaker 1: one person sabotage is another, whether it's a coworker who
Speaker 1: steals a colleague's report or a bride'smaid who sabotage is
Speaker 1: a friend's wedding by drinking too much and causing a scene.
Speaker 1: Outside of the movies, though it's surprisingly common at work
Speaker 1: as well. For example, you and your team may be
Speaker 1: engaged in a collaborative project, but a colleague decides to
Speaker 1: withhold important information and his behavior ends up compromising everything
Speaker 1: you've ever worked for. That's sabotage. But in this episode
Speaker 1: we're going to be focusing on the kind of sabotage
Speaker 1: that's aimed at ourselves. I define acts of self sabotage
Speaker 1: as behaviors where we get in our own way, we
Speaker 1: trip ourselves up, We do or say things or act
Speaker 1: in ways that run counter to our own stated goals
Speaker 1: and our own success. Behaviors where we're our worst enemy
Speaker 1: and not even aware we are either. In fact, self
Speaker 1: sabotage can even be framed as acting in a passive
Speaker 1: aggressive way around ourselves because somewhere inside our own brains
Speaker 1: we don't want what we tell ourselves we want. Think
Speaker 1: about this for a second. There's this beautiful statement by
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali. He said, it's not the mountain you're climbing,
Speaker 1: it's the pebble in your shoe. Right, this idea of
Speaker 1: what's tripping you up, what's getting caught in your shoe.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you all thinking about that recently as well,
Speaker 1: like what's blocking you? And sometimes we'll blame someone externally,
Speaker 1: sometimes we'll find someone else to take the responsibility will
Speaker 1: shift accountability. But what is that? It's self sabotage. And
Speaker 1: some of you may even have become more familiar with
Speaker 1: this idea and you're thinking to yourself, Jack, I keep
Speaker 1: doing this, I keep getting in my own way, but
Speaker 1: now I feel guilty about it, and now I feel
Speaker 1: shameful about it, and now I feel bad about it.
Speaker 1: And that's not the point of this episode. The point
Speaker 1: of this episode is not to make you feel worse
Speaker 1: about it. It's to help you deal with it and
Speaker 1: feel better about it. So what do I mean when
Speaker 1: I say passive aggressive? When we use that term about
Speaker 1: other people, it's usually in the context of, say, a
Speaker 1: friend making a joking remark, except she delivers that remark
Speaker 1: in a tone of voice that's not especially friendly or
Speaker 1: well meaning. Right, It's like when your partner's mad at you,
Speaker 1: but they want to try and pass it off as
Speaker 1: it's not that serious, but really it is that serious,
Speaker 1: Like maybe they're angry at you but they can't admit it,
Speaker 1: or more like they're not even aware of their own anger,
Speaker 1: and instead of acknowledging it, sneaks out indirectly or passively
Speaker 1: in a way that communicates what they're feeling, but it's
Speaker 1: not honest enough right. It's like it's coming out in
Speaker 1: a way where it's like, I hope you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, but I'm not gonna have the courage enough
Speaker 1: to say it. Or let's imagine that you and your
Speaker 1: partner just ended the night out with a big argument.
Speaker 1: Most couples take a certain amount of time to cool
Speaker 1: off before sitting down and doing the repair work necessary
Speaker 1: to ensure their relationship is back on good footing. But
Speaker 1: if your partner is passive aggressive, he or she will
Speaker 1: go out of their way to avoid resolving the argument.
Speaker 1: They might give you the silent treatment or stomp around
Speaker 1: the house and make a lot of noise to communicate
Speaker 1: that they're angry or their feelings have been hurt. What
Speaker 1: they won't do is tell you, which means you have
Speaker 1: to read in between the lines and be the grown
Speaker 1: up you now all of a sudden, I have to
Speaker 1: become a mind reader. You have to be that person
Speaker 1: who understands what's not being said, and you kind of
Speaker 1: feel a bit of pressure for it. What's really interesting
Speaker 1: is that self sabotage acts in a similar way, but
Speaker 1: with an important difference. When a friend acts in a
Speaker 1: passive aggressive manner, they're refusing or unable to acknowledge their feelings,
Speaker 1: and as I said, sometimes they have no idea what
Speaker 1: those feelings are in the first place. This is why
Speaker 1: I often frame acts of self sabotage as passive aggressive
Speaker 1: behavior that we show not to another person but to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Buried deep in our brain are feelings that, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: we don't want to let out into the open. Feelings
Speaker 1: that usually go back to our childhoods, our relationship with
Speaker 1: our parents or our siblings, and the attachments we developed
Speaker 1: or weren't able to develop with family members and friends.
Speaker 1: Years afterwards, we're still re enacting these models and dynamics
Speaker 1: in our behavior at work and with our friends and
Speaker 1: in our relationships, the problem being that most of the
Speaker 1: time with the last people to know about it. Another
Speaker 1: way to define self sabotage is behavior that runs counter
Speaker 1: to or even contradicts what we tell ourselves we want.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example. On the morning you're
Speaker 1: scheduled to deliver an important presentation at work, you don't
Speaker 1: hear your alarm clock ring, and you oversleep. Instead of
Speaker 1: getting up early and rehearsing your presentation, as you've been
Speaker 1: planning to do all week. You roll out of bed
Speaker 1: in a panic, take a craze two minute shower, and
Speaker 1: show up at work an hour late. By now, what's
Speaker 1: left of our nervous system is in tatters. When the
Speaker 1: time comes for you to deliver the presentation, you don't
Speaker 1: do as good as a job as you hoped. Your
Speaker 1: voice is unsteady, the slides in your deck are out
Speaker 1: of order, and you leave the room convinced you're going
Speaker 1: to be fired. Now, we all have days that don't
Speaker 1: go the way we want them to, but it's not
Speaker 1: irrelevant to the topic of self sabotage to wonder what's
Speaker 1: really going on with you. The answer could be any
Speaker 1: number of things. Maybe you hate your job or your
Speaker 1: boss and have been thinking about quitting for weeks, except
Speaker 1: you fear what your parents might say. So in this case,
Speaker 1: by showing up late and being unprepared, you've set up
Speaker 1: your boss to be disappointed in you and possibly lay
Speaker 1: you off. In essence, what is going on is that,
Speaker 1: since you can't acknowledge your own ambivalence at work, you
Speaker 1: end up blowing up your own career. Can you relate
Speaker 1: to that like maybe not exactly like that, but I
Speaker 1: hope that resonates. Here's another example. Imagine you're in a
Speaker 1: relationship that from every category you can check off, is ideal.
Speaker 1: The two of you get along fantastically well. You have
Speaker 1: the same tastes in food and music and film and
Speaker 1: TV shows, your families get along, they have things in common,
Speaker 1: and you feel you could spend the rest of your
Speaker 1: life with this person. At least that's what you tell yourself.
Speaker 1: So why, even though you feel you've found the person
Speaker 1: you want to spend the rest of your life with,
Speaker 1: have you begun acting so cold and withdrawn to the
Speaker 1: point where your partner becomes so frustrated they decide to
Speaker 1: break things off with you. Maybe, just maybe, the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is that you fear intimacy and you
Speaker 1: don't know it. Maybe you were burned before or multiple
Speaker 1: times before, and your detachment and indifference is nothing more
Speaker 1: than a defense mechanism, maybe without being aware of if
Speaker 1: you learn from your parents' relationship or somewhere else that
Speaker 1: people close to you can't be trusted, so outcomes an
Speaker 1: act of self sabotage, in this case, emotional withdrawal, and
Speaker 1: from that point on and you tell yourself that you're
Speaker 1: terrible at relationships and how it's never your fault but
Speaker 1: always the fault of the other person that self sabotage.
Speaker 1: You're probably wondering what's going on in the brain that
Speaker 1: leads to self sabotage. Well, remember that the brain has
Speaker 1: one mission, which is to keep us alive and imbalance.
Speaker 1: In that guise, it's focused on steering us away from
Speaker 1: threats while simultaneously motivating us with the promise of future rewards.
Speaker 1: Self sabotage typically comes about when these two desires get
Speaker 1: confused and blurry. Think of it as an ongoing war
Speaker 1: between dopamine and other brain regions that include the hypothalamus, amygdala,
Speaker 1: and the prefrontal cortex. To use our early example, let's
Speaker 1: imagine that on the surface, at least, you tell yourself
Speaker 1: you want to accel at work. There's no reason not
Speaker 1: to believe you either. You're eager to show your boss
Speaker 1: and your colleagues what you can do, and in response,
Speaker 1: your brain floods your system with dopamine. But other areas
Speaker 1: of your brain have something to say too. Hearing you
Speaker 1: want to excel at work stresses your brain out, puts
Speaker 1: it on edge makes it fearful. The hypothalamus kicks off
Speaker 1: this stress response by sending a message to the pituitary gland,
Speaker 1: which in turn stimulates the adrenal glands, which release cortisol,
Speaker 1: the stress hormone. Your breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure
Speaker 1: all shoot up more and more blood sugar is pumped
Speaker 1: into your bloodstream to give you energy for what's ahead. Basically,
Speaker 1: what's happening is that the reward and threat centers of
Speaker 1: your brain are at war with each other. They're being
Speaker 1: given contradictory messages, but the problem is you can't admit it.
Speaker 1: Remember that the brain is always acting in our own
Speaker 1: best interest. Its mission at the end of every day
Speaker 1: is to protect us. The reward seeking part of your
Speaker 1: brain may be saying I want to succeed at work,
Speaker 1: but the regions of the brain that predict potential threats
Speaker 1: respond by saying, do I really? Then? Why do I
Speaker 1: feel so angry? Why am I holding back? In its
Speaker 1: chemical way, Our brains are like friends through thick and thin,
Speaker 1: who know us better than we know ourselves. Here's another example.
Speaker 1: You might be someone who has always wanted to follow
Speaker 1: their passion, but keep putting it off. This is because
Speaker 1: your brain is busy predicting how you would feel if
Speaker 1: you pursued that dream but came up short. In other words,
Speaker 1: your brain is trying to protect you from emotions it
Speaker 1: knows are painful for you to feel future embarrassment, future disappointment,
Speaker 1: future pain. This is the essence of self sabotage, the
Speaker 1: brain knowing things we don't or that we don't want
Speaker 1: to admit to ourselves, which in turn obliges us to
Speaker 1: act cross purposes with ourselves. Self sabotage isn't a cause
Speaker 1: or a source of anything. It's a symptom of a
Speaker 1: feeling or a dynamic that we're usually not aware of.
Speaker 1: When we act in a self sabotaging way, we almost
Speaker 1: never do it consciously, otherwise we would probably stop ourselves
Speaker 1: unless we've been seeing a therapist for a long time. Really,
Speaker 1: do we have access to the original feeling or model
Speaker 1: that leads us to act in ways that run counter
Speaker 1: to our own interests and ambitions. Self sabotage has many faces,
Speaker 1: but here are the top four ways we do it
Speaker 1: so you can use this as a checklist to understand.
Speaker 1: The first way is chronic lateness. Here I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about those times when we're stuck in traffic, or when
Speaker 1: we realize the clock in our car doesn't match the
Speaker 1: time on our phones, and we arrive twenty minutes later
Speaker 1: for a doctor's appointment or a meeting with a friend.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the habit of lateness, lateness that happens
Speaker 1: so often and predictably that it's your middle name, the
Speaker 1: trait most closely associated with you. If someone tells you
Speaker 1: that lunch starts at one o'clock sharp, you don't show
Speaker 1: up till one fifteen, one point thirty or even later.
Speaker 1: You always have a good reason too. Your car is
Speaker 1: low on gas, you can find your keys, the dog
Speaker 1: needed to be let out, a phone call came in
Speaker 1: that you had to take. Whatever the reason, it's always something.
Speaker 1: Now most of us who are late apologize for holding
Speaker 1: everyone else up, and after that things are fine. It's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. You might even be someone with
Speaker 1: a genuinely flaky relationship with time and scheduling, someone who
Speaker 1: has trouble predicting how long it takes to get somewhere
Speaker 1: or get something done. But consider what your chronic lateness
Speaker 1: communicates to your friends and work colleagues. It reduces the
Speaker 1: trust they have in you. It means you can't be
Speaker 1: trusted to keep your word or be relied upon. Those
Speaker 1: are the real world effects your chronic lateness has on
Speaker 1: other people. But considering that this episode is about self sabotage,
Speaker 1: what are some of the underlying reasons that drive the
Speaker 1: behavior of someone who's never on time. You could be
Speaker 1: someone who secretly believes the rules that apply to other
Speaker 1: people don't apply to you. Maybe you're on the outs
Speaker 1: with your friends but don't have the heart, the time,
Speaker 1: or the patience to find another friend group. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: secretly a diva who knows that by always showing up late,
Speaker 1: you can make a grand entrance with everyone's eyes on
Speaker 1: you and everyone whispering about that you're finally here. Whatever
Speaker 1: the unconscious motive is, it ends up doing you far
Speaker 1: more damage than good. A second way we self sabotage
Speaker 1: ourselves is procrastination. Procrastination, of course, means putting things off
Speaker 1: until the very last minute, or in some cases, never
Speaker 1: getting around to them at all. Like all the examples
Speaker 1: of self sabotage in this episode, we've all been guilty
Speaker 1: at least once in our life. The problems always is
Speaker 1: when we take these actual behaviors to extremes. For example,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we've all had the experience in high school
Speaker 1: or college when we put off writing a paper. We
Speaker 1: were given a week to complete it, and every day
Speaker 1: we told ourselves we would at least get started. As
Speaker 1: the week went on, we never did, at least not
Speaker 1: until the day before it was due, when we stayed
Speaker 1: up all night writing it and earned a not very
Speaker 1: good grade from the teacher or the professor. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you were one of those people who always did well anyway.
Speaker 1: But when it becomes a habit or a routine, procrastination
Speaker 1: can be a form of self sabotage and a source
Speaker 1: of self undoing. For example, you might be someone who
Speaker 1: delays paying bills you know are due the first of
Speaker 1: every month, but which you don't get around to addressing
Speaker 1: in time, which gets you into trouble with creditors and
Speaker 1: collection agencies. But where I see procrastination most often is
Speaker 1: in our own ambitions. It shows up regularly in people
Speaker 1: who are working one job but harbor a secret, unfulfilled
Speaker 1: fantasy of doing something else. Maybe their dream is to
Speaker 1: become a performer or a writer, or maybe they've always
Speaker 1: wanted to learn to play the piano, or run a
Speaker 1: full marathon or hike. They spend hours, days, weeks, and
Speaker 1: years dreaming about this future self and imagining how fulfilling
Speaker 1: and rich their lives will become once they finally make
Speaker 1: their move someday, they think. But if you're a procrastinator,
Speaker 1: it never happens for any number of reasons, and the
Speaker 1: excuses they come up with to explain why very likely
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with the real reason, which, in
Speaker 1: nine cases out of ten, can be traced back to
Speaker 1: experiences they had and the patterning that was imprinted in
Speaker 1: their early childhood. The fear of failure, for example, or
Speaker 1: its close cousin, the fear of success. What would it
Speaker 1: really mean to pursue and accomplish their dreams or their goals.
Speaker 1: It might mean doing better than your parents in a
Speaker 1: way that's shameful to acknowledge. Or maybe your mum or
Speaker 1: dad had their own dreams they weren't able to pursue.
Speaker 1: By procrastinating and putting off what you want, you're protecting
Speaker 1: your parents and maintaining a familiar dynamic within your own family.
Speaker 1: It's an act of love that ends up damaging you.
Speaker 1: I don't have enough time, you think, or I'm too old,
Speaker 1: or I have responsibilities to your partner and my family.
Speaker 1: All of these things may be true, but it's not
Speaker 1: the real reason why you're procrastinating. By now, I hope
Speaker 1: you've become more aware of the conflict that arises in
Speaker 1: the brain when we self sabotage, and of the misalignment
Speaker 1: that happens when our conscious behavior is at odds with
Speaker 1: our own unconscious motives. All acts of self sabotage, remember,
Speaker 1: can be seen as defense mechanisms. They're the brain's way
Speaker 1: of protecting us from the stress and fear of confronting
Speaker 1: more difficult emotions. The third way we self sabotage ourselves
Speaker 1: is by putting ourselves down. It's pretty easy to make
Speaker 1: fun of people who take themselves too seriously. There's even
Speaker 1: an argument to be made that the TV show The
Speaker 1: Office gave rise to a new brand of humor that
Speaker 1: comes from knowing more about other people than they know
Speaker 1: about themselves. And make no mistake, self deprecating humor is
Speaker 1: a very attractive and humanizing quality to have. It not
Speaker 1: only shows you have a sense of humor about yourself
Speaker 1: and your position in the world, it communicates that despite
Speaker 1: the good things that are happening in your life, you're
Speaker 1: still the person you always work. But here I'm referring
Speaker 1: to the constant habit of denigrating yourself, whether by apologizing
Speaker 1: too much, showing excessive humility, or never stopping to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the times you have a win in your column. Putting
Speaker 1: yourself down shows up in ways both obvious and not
Speaker 1: so obvious. Studies show that girls and women apologize more
Speaker 1: than men do, and many girls say I'm sorry almost
Speaker 1: as a reflex, But as well as showing kindness and consideration,
Speaker 1: the habit of overapologizing can risk coming across to others
Speaker 1: as insecure and self doubting, while at the same time
Speaker 1: undermining your own self esteem. Denigrating yourself is also very
Speaker 1: common in people who don't know how to receive compliments.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who is doing fantastically well in
Speaker 1: his career, but whenever I would point this out, he
Speaker 1: would always say something like, ah, I was just lucky
Speaker 1: or I was in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: But refusing to take credit for your own accomplishments can
Speaker 1: end up hurting you. In my friend's case, by refusing
Speaker 1: to acknowledge and appreciate his own success. He was effectively
Speaker 1: asking others to buttress and validate his accomplishments. He came
Speaker 1: across as insecure and unconfident, qualities I knew wouldn't serve
Speaker 1: him well in the future. As is true in all
Speaker 1: instances of self sabotage, the origin of our behavior vary,
Speaker 1: though it's safe to say they began when we were children.
Speaker 1: If you're constantly denigrating yourself, maybe you grew up around
Speaker 1: a hypercritical parent and putting yourself down is a way
Speaker 1: of keeping that parent's voice close. Maybe, and this is
Speaker 1: a theme that keeps coming up with self sabotage. It
Speaker 1: stems from lower than usual self esteem, where a long
Speaker 1: time ago someone gave us the impression that we weren't
Speaker 1: good enough, or smart enough, or deserving enough. If you're
Speaker 1: in the habit of putting yourself down, you might fear
Speaker 1: that the act of owning your success risks alienating friends
Speaker 1: who aren't at the same level as you. Or possibly
Speaker 1: you'd think that unless you put yourself down, someone else
Speaker 1: will jump in and do it for you. Studies show
Speaker 1: that while self deprecation is linked to improve overall psychological
Speaker 1: health in most people. As usual, the risk comes from
Speaker 1: overdoing it and being seen as someone who lacks confidence
Speaker 1: and proficiency their work. So the next time you hear
Speaker 1: yourself saying I was just lucky or anyone could have
Speaker 1: done what I did, ask yourself, are my words serving me?
Speaker 1: Followed by or are my words protecting me? The fourth
Speaker 1: them final step of the ways we self sabotage ourselves
Speaker 1: is perfectionism. Perfectionism is a personality trait marked by sky
Speaker 1: high standards and expectations for yourself and everyone around you.
Speaker 1: If you're a perfectionist, you're no doubt averse to making mistakes,
Speaker 1: and this is often accompanied by fear that unless you
Speaker 1: act or dress, or speak, or engage or produce in
Speaker 1: any way other than what you deem to be perfect,
Speaker 1: then you're opening up yourself to criticism, unhappiness, and feelings
Speaker 1: of failure. Perfectionism is another common way we self sabotage
Speaker 1: ourselves and psych ourselves out of attaining our potential. Perfection
Speaker 1: is blocks progress. Perfectionism blocks the process. Perfectionism can block
Speaker 1: you from unlocking your potential. Perfectionism has its healthy beneficial sides.
Speaker 1: It can be incredibly motivating for one thing and help
Speaker 1: you overcome challenges and accomplish what you're after. But what
Speaker 1: can make perfectionism unhealthy and even toxic is its capacity
Speaker 1: to paralyze us and keep us from going forward. Since
Speaker 1: our greatest fear is what might happen if we make
Speaker 1: a mistake or a bad decision, of course, self sabotaging
Speaker 1: perfectionists can't admit this, and instead believe they have higher
Speaker 1: standards than other people and a vision no one else shares.
Speaker 1: If you're a perfectionist, chances are good you revise and
Speaker 1: rework things constantly until you decide they match your impossible
Speaker 1: standards of perfection, only to discover the next day that
Speaker 1: the work you considered perfect twenty four hours earlier suddenly
Speaker 1: feels imperfect and in need of more work, which means
Speaker 1: you have to start all over again. Perfect and perfection
Speaker 1: are like the proverbial goalposts that refuse to stay put
Speaker 1: and that keep inching backward depending on what day of
Speaker 1: the week it is. Naturally, perfectionism can cause problems at
Speaker 1: work and in your social and love life. It can
Speaker 1: also impair both your physical and mental health. Perfectionism goes
Speaker 1: hand in hand with depression, anxiety, eating disorders and eventually burnout.
Speaker 1: Since you're convinced that nothing you do and no one
Speaker 1: you know is perfect enough to match, never mind exceed,
Speaker 1: your own high standards, this often leads to erratic friendships
Speaker 1: and relationships. There's nothing wrong with seeking excellence. The problem
Speaker 1: comes when we take it to extremes, When our own
Speaker 1: perfectionism ends up boxing us into a corner. We forget
Speaker 1: that perfect as a concept is an abstract ideal, one
Speaker 1: that can change daily. When you lead your life expected
Speaker 1: to be graded for everything you do, you're setting yourself
Speaker 1: up for disappointment, disillusion, and endless frustration. By now, we
Speaker 1: know that the reasons behind any act of self sabotage vary.
Speaker 1: Though the culprit is usually a relationship or imprint from
Speaker 1: long ago, it could be a fixed and internalized belief
Speaker 1: about ourselves or an exaggerated need for control. Perfectionists of
Speaker 1: both these traits in spades, the downside being that their
Speaker 1: perfectionism leaves them more vulnerable than most people to anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: and escapist habits like drinking, in drugs, Taking aim and
Speaker 1: shipping away at our own self sabotage means beginning to
Speaker 1: collaborate with our own brains, and that means delving deep
Speaker 1: into the root causes of whatever self sabotaging behavior is
Speaker 1: creating problems in your daily life or getting in the
Speaker 1: way of things you hope to accomplish. Here are three
Speaker 1: ways to get closer to the roots of your own
Speaker 1: self sabotaging behavior. Step one in this journey is self compassion.
Speaker 1: This can be a tough one for self saboteurs to accept.
Speaker 1: By their very definition, procrastinators, perfectionists, chronically late, self deprecating
Speaker 1: people are already extremely hard on themselves. Many have grown
Speaker 1: impatient with their own behavior, and some even believe they're
Speaker 1: beyond repair. I'm terrible at love and relationships, they think,
Speaker 1: or I'm hopeless at work and will never amount to anything.
Speaker 1: But if you read between the lines, what they're really
Speaker 1: communicating is that their best behaviors are misaligned with what
Speaker 1: they really want and they don't know what to do
Speaker 1: about it. If someone tells you they're beyond fixing or
Speaker 1: they're given up, most of the time, they're doubling down
Speaker 1: on the original feeling or injury they experienced as children
Speaker 1: that they're now trying to avoid as adults. This is
Speaker 1: where self compassion comes in. Instead of telling yourself that
Speaker 1: it's too late, or you're never going to change, or
Speaker 1: something is wrong with you and unfixable, why not try
Speaker 1: to picture yourself as a little kid, a four foot tall,
Speaker 1: ninety five pound bundle of love and energy, who, in
Speaker 1: between discovering new things about the world, is also absorbing
Speaker 1: messages from parents, siblings, friends, extended family members, teachers and classmates.
Speaker 1: A child new to the world whose feelings are easily hurt,
Speaker 1: and who is doing everything in their limited power to
Speaker 1: understand and defend themselves against a world that can sometimes
Speaker 1: seem overwhelming and unkind. Remember too, that they were born
Speaker 1: with a brain whose job it is, on one hand
Speaker 1: to motivate them to seek rewards and on the other
Speaker 1: to avoid stress, hurt, injury, and disappointment. Show your inner
Speaker 1: child some compassion. Treat them with as much patience, empathy
Speaker 1: and understanding as you can in a way possibly you
Speaker 1: wish someone had treated you back Then, as you start
Speaker 1: pinpointing the possible reasons why you and your goals got misaligned,
Speaker 1: remember that your brain is on your side and the
Speaker 1: two of you need to work together, and then watch
Speaker 1: is everything you've always wanted and I mean really wanted
Speaker 1: starts making greater sense, and that by making peace with
Speaker 1: feelings you've spent a lifetime running away from, you're able
Speaker 1: to soar to levels you've always told yourself you wanted
Speaker 1: but never thought possible. Thanks for tuning in and listening.
Speaker 1: I'm always in your corner and forever rooting for you.
Speaker 1: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Speaker 1: Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
Speaker 1: heal emotional wound to stop moving on from the past.
Speaker 1: Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a
Speaker 1: tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it. It
Speaker 1: goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.