17 Signs You Are In A Cycle of Self-Sabotage
How to know if you are in a cycle of self-destruction and what to do from “The Mountain Is You” by Brianna West
1. Resistence
Resistance is what happens when we have a new project that we need to work on and simply can’t bring ourselves to do it.
It’s when we get into a great new relationship and then keep bailing on plans.
It’s when we get an amazing idea for our business and then feel tension and anger when it comes time to sit down and actually get to work.
We have to get clear on what we want as well as when and why we want it.
We have to identify unconscious beliefs that are preventing us from showing up, and then we have to step back into the work when we feel inspired.
Where are you experiencing the most resistance in your life?
What can you do to take the first step through the resistance?
2. Hitting your upper limit
When you begin to surpass your upper limit, you start to unconsciously sabotage what’s happening in order to bring yourself back to what’s comfortable and familiar.
For some people, this manifests physically, often as aches, pains, headaches, or physical tension.
For others, it manifests emotionally as resistance, anger, guilt, or fear.
Where are you experiencing challenges in your life and what can you do to fix them?
3. Uprooting
Uprooting happens when someone finds themselves jumping from relationship to relationship or changing their business website again and again, when they really need to focus on confronting relationship issues when they arise or taking care of clients they already have.
First, recognize the pattern.
When the moment comes that you would typically flee, confront the discomfort and stay where you are.
Figure out why you are uncomfortable getting attached to one thing or another, and determine what a healthy attachment would look like for you.
When was the last time you left something good?
4. Perfectionism
Perfectionism holds us back from showing up and trying, or really doing the important work of our lives.
Don’t worry about doing it well; just do it.
The truth is that we actually do not accomplish great feats when we are anxious about whether or not what we do will indeed be something impressive and world-changing.
We accomplish these sorts of things when we simply show up and allow ourselves to create something meaningful and important to us.
Instead of perfection, focus on progress.
Instead of having something done perfectly, focus on just getting it done.
From there, you can edit, build, grow, and develop it to exactly what your vision is.
But if you don’t get started, you’ll never arrive.
What have you been delaying because it is not perfect?
5. Limited emotional processing skills
Healthy emotional processing looks different for everyone but generally involves these steps:
- Get clear on what happened.
- Validate your feelings.
- Determine a course correction.
First, you need to understand why you’re upset or the reason why something is bothering you so much.
Without clarity on this, you’ll continue to waste your time mulling over the details without really understanding what’s hurting you so much.
Next, you have to validate how you feel.
Recognize that you are not alone; anyone in your situation would probably feel similarly (and does) and that what you feel is absolutely okay.
In doing this, you can allow yourself a physical release such as crying, shaking, journaling about what you feel, or talking to a trusted friend.
Have you been avoiding any difficult feelings lately?
6. Justification
Your life is ultimately measured by your outcomes, not your intentions.
When we have a goal, dream, or plan, there is no measure of intent.
It is only whether you did it or did not.
Any other reason you offer for not showing up and doing the work is simply you stating that you prioritize that reason over your ultimate ambition, which means that it will always take precedence in your life.
Start measuring your outcomes and focusing on at least doing one productive thing each day.
It’s no longer about wanting to show up for your friends; it’s whether or not you did.
It’s no longer about the great ideas you had about how to change your business; it’s about whether or not you did.
Stop accepting your own excuses.
Stop being complacent with your own justifications.
Start quantifying your days by how many healthy, positive things you accomplished, and you will see how quickly you begin to make progress.
What is one thing you’ve been avoiding and what is the first step you can take?
7. Disorganization
By leaving our lives and spaces in disarray, we are not just mindlessly forgetting to take care of our surroundings.
We are often actually creating distractions and chaos that serve an unconscious purpose.
A clean, organized space — both for work and for living — is essential to thriving.
To declutter and reorganize, start with one room, and if that is too much, try one corner, drawer, or closet.
Work on that, and only that, and then implement a routine that maintains the organization.
It is very hard to show up as the person you want to be when you are surrounded by an environment that makes you feel like a person you aren’t.
What part of your life or home can use some cleaning?
8. Attachment to what you don’t really want
Our inability to perform is not based in fear or lack of skill, it is based in an inherent knowing that this is not what we want for our lives.
We do not have to live the rest of our lives trying to achieve some measure of success we thought was ideal when we were too young to understand who we even were.
Our only responsibility is to make decisions for the person we have become.
When we let go of what isn’t right for us, we create space to discover what is.
However, doing so requires the tremendous courage to put our pride aside and see things for what they really are.
What do you want to eliminate from your life?
9. Judging others
We all know that gossiping, or judging other people’s lives and choices, is not a healthy or positive way to connect with other people.
When we set up judgments for others, they become rules that we have to play by, too.
By judging others for what we don’t have or because we envy them, we sabotage our own lives far more than we ever really hurt anybody else.
Many people say that you have to love yourself first before you can love others, but really, if you learn to love others, you will learn to love yourself.
Practice non-judgment through non-assumption.
Instead of reaching a conclusion about a person based on the limited information you have about them, consider that you’re not seeing the whole picture and don’t know the whole story.
When you are more compassionate about other people’s lives, you become more compassionate about your own.
When you see someone who has something you want, congratulate them, even if it feels hard at first.
It will extend back and open you up to receiving it as well.
Who do you need to apologize to for judging them unfairly?
10. Pride
Instead of thinking that we need to prove to everyone around us how perfect and flawless we are, we can imagine ourselves more realistically: as people who, despite our weaknesses, are trying our best.
In the end, it looks far worse to hold onto what’s wrong because you care about what others think than it is to let go because that’s what’s right for you.
People will respect you far more if you can acknowledge that you are an imperfect person — like everyone else — learning, adapting, and trying your best.
By not assuming you know everything or that you need to seem perfect, you can admit when you’re wrong, ask for assistance, and lean on others sometimes.
What are you doing just for the approval of others?
11. Guilt of succeeding
One of the biggest mental barriers people face is the guilt that comes with finally having enough or more than one needs.
This can come from many different sources, but it ultimately boils down to feeling as though you “don’t deserve” to have it.
What you have to realize is that money and success are tools.
They buy you back time and offer you the opportunity to help, employ, influence, and change the lives of others.
Instead of looking at your success as a status differentiator — which will always make you feel bad and uncomfortable — see it instead as a tool with which you can do important and positive things in the world and your own life.
What is the next most important thing you feel compelled to do?
12. Fear of failing
When we fail out of negligence, we take a step back.
When we fail because we are attempting new feats, we take one step closer to what will work.
What are you avoiding out of feat of failure?
13. Downplaying
When we downplay our successes in life, we are either trying to make ourselves seem less impressive so others do not feel threatened and therefore like us more, or we are trying to avoid the sense that we have “made it,” because we are afraid of peaking.
When we achieve one thing, we are better equipped for the future.
Life tends to gradually get better as we keep working on it; it only gets worse if we accomplish something then shut down because we are intimidated by our own power.
What are 3 accomplishments you are proud of?
14. Unhealthy habits
Define health on your own terms.
What does a healthy life look like for you?
How would it make you feel, and what would you be doing?
Figure out what makes you feel best.
Decide what combination of healthy eating, exercise, and sleep is right for you, and stick to it.
What bad habit do you want to stop? What good habit do you want to start?
15. Being “busy”
People who are constantly “busy” are running from themselves.
Being “busy” is not a virtue; it only signals to others that you do not know how to manage your time or your tasks.
Start with writing down your top 5 tasks that need to be done each day, and then focus on doing those and only those.
Does it make you feel more important than others?
Does it give you an excuse to say “no” to plans or to avoid some people?
You need to find healthier and more productive ways to cope with these feelings, such as finding genuine self-confidence in what you do by creating something you’re proud of, or getting better at calmly but clearly stating your boundaries and needs in relationships.
Look at your to-do list and ask yourself, “Is this really important?”
16. Spending time with the wrong people
Work on building a circle of people who support and inspire you, who have similar goals and enjoy spending time with you.
You should leave a get-together feeling energized and inspired, not exhausted and angry.
Do you have any friends or family members you’d like to spend less time with?
17. Worrying about irrational fears and least likely circumstances
When you find yourself in a fear cycle, constantly repeating some strange, random, or unimportant one-off circumstance or situation that has a very low probability of becoming reality, ask yourself if you have any feelings about something related that is actually valid.
At the core of the things we most fear is a message that we are trying to send ourselves about what we really care about.
If we can identify what we want to protect, we can find healthier and more secure ways to do it.
What event in the future have you been worrying about? Can you stop worrying about it and focus on what you can do instead?
How to tell if you’re in a self-sabotage cycle
If you are doing “everything you are supposed to be doing” and yet you feel empty and depressed at the end of the day, the issue is probably that you’re not really doing what you want to be doing; you’ve just adopted someone else’s script for happiness.
Instead of trying to incite war on yourself to overcome your overeating, spending, drinking, sexing — whatever it is you know you need to improve — ask yourself what emotional need that thing is filling.
Until you do, you will battle it forever.
Your willpower is a limited resource.
You only have so much in a day.
Rather than using it to try to become good at everything, decide what matters most to you.
Focus your attention on that, and let everything else slip away.
Read all of my notes from “The Mountain Is You” by Brianna West
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