Self Sabotage : Why Do People Self Sabotage?

• Self sabotage can cause you to subconsciously destroy success or happiness.
• Examine your self talk for signs of self sabotage.
• Change your handwriting to stop self sabotage!

Self sabotage is a term used to describe the things people either do or say, which ruins success or happiness they may be experiencing in their life.

This sabotage may affect their current success/happiness, or possible future success/happiness. Generally speaking, there are two obvious ways self sabotage can manifest itself.

Reaching A Plateau In Life

The first occurs as reaching a “plateau” in life, whereby you achieve some level of life success/happiness, but can never seem to get any more than what you have.

Even though you try your hardest to climb up the ladder, no matter what you do, you always seem to remain where you started.

Not Being Able To Hold Onto Success Or Happiness

The second way self sabotage can manifest itself is by achieving a high level of success/happiness, and then suddenly loosing it within a short period of time. A good example of this can be found with many lottery winners.

Despite winning millions, a large percentage people who win the lottery loose all their money within a few years. They are then right back where they started before they won the jackpot.

The Subconscious Mind

An important point to remember about self sabotage is that it is not something which is done consciously, but rather subconsciously from the subconscious mind.

This means that even though you may want to achieve success and happiness, because of some limiting beliefs you have acquired throughout your life into your subconscious mind (most commonly during childhood), you now subconsciously do not believe you are worthy or deserving of obtaining that success or happiness.

As a result, these limiting beliefs in your subconscious mind can prevent you from achieving more than your beliefs think you are worth, stop you achieving anything at all or destroy something once you have achieved it.

Therefore the beliefs you have in your subconscious mind act like a “success thermostat”. They will constantly regulate what you achieve, and make sure you always have what they think you are worthy of.

The most common areas of your life these beliefs in your subconscious mind regulate (and therefore the most common areas people self sabotage) include: relationships, money, health and career success.

Let’s now have a look at a fictional example to demonstrate how beliefs in the subconscious mind can cause a person to sabotage their life.

Self Sabotage & The Subconscious Mind

As a child Mary was always told by her parents that compared to her sister she was not good looking, and would be lucky if she ever found a man later in life.

When Mary grew up and went to school, she was never very popular and attracted little male attention.

But later when Mary left school and started working, she blossomed into a fine attractive young woman. Her luscious blond hair and voluptuous figure, made her very popular with her male colleagues. As a result of this attention Mary had many offers from men, and soon started dating.

However, Mary had one major problem. All her relationships started out wonderful, but within a few months things would start to turn bad and soon the relationship ended.

No matter what Mary did, she could never seem to hold onto a long term relationship.

So what happened?

Mary’s childhood and school years continually reinforced the belief that she was undesirable to men, and not attractive enough to be with them.

These beliefs were accepted by Mary’s subconscious mind, and when she finally started dating, her subconscious beliefs caused her to sabotage any relationship she was in.

Mary’s beliefs told her that she was not good enough to be in the relationship, and so caused her to sabotage it by being over controlling, demanding, obsessive, possessive and negative.

In the end, Mary always got out of a relationship what she subconsciously believed she deserved. This is why it is extremely important to determine what beliefs you have in your subconscious mind, and then take steps to control your subconscious mind.

Because if you don’t control your subconscious, it will continue to control you the way it has been doing so far.

Causes Of Self Sabotage

As you saw in the previous example, Mary’s self sabotage originated from a belief she acquired during her childhood, and which was subsequently reinforced during her school years.

This left her with a subconscious belief that she was unattractive, undesirable and unworthy of male attention.

Although this was a fictional example, this type of scenario is very common. However, in reality there are many different factors which may lead a person to sabotage their life.

So let’s now have a look at some of the most common causes of self sabotage.

Belief Systems Created During Childhood

These are formed by the people you meet and the experiences you have with them. Typically these beliefs are created by your parents.

These beliefs may then be reinforced during your school years, or replaced with different beliefs.

The mind is very impressionable during childhood, so the majority of your beliefs will be formed during this period of your life.

Associating Failure With Pleasure

If throughout your life you have learnt to associate failure with pleasure, then you may subconsciously want to fail in life because of some perceived pleasure you may get from that failure.

For example, if as a child you received lots of love and attention after you failed at something, this may have created a connection between failure and pleasure in your subconscious.

Another way failure may become linked to pleasure, could involve receiving a reward after experiencing some kind of failure. For example, after a relationship ends you go on a holiday to take your mind off the pain.

Associating Life Changes With Pain

This type of self sabotage comes from associating pain with changes in your life. This causes you to sabotage things which may take your life in a new direction, such as a new job or a marriage.

Things which may have caused people to associate change with pain usually involve frequent changes in location as a child, such as by moving house or moving school.

Or alternatively, change brought on by the death of a close family member or pet.

Low Self Worth

Low self esteem is a major cause of self sabotage, and is most commonly formed during your childhood along with your beliefs systems.

Low self esteem and feelings of unworthiness, can cause you to subconsciously believe you are unworthy of any success or happiness in life.

As a result, when you achieve success or happiness, your beliefs will limit what and how much you ultimately achieve.

Identifying Self Sabotage

Self sabotage can be found in all areas of life, and the reasons for it can be varied and complex.

However in general, most self sabotage occurs due to beliefs that were acquired during childhood, and subsequently reinforced later in life.

As stated earlier, the most commonly affected areas by self sabotage occur in relationships, health, money and career success. You will know that you are sabotaging your life when :

• No matter how hard you try you can never seem to achieve more.
• You are close to achieving something, then it suddenly slips away.
• You experience some degree of good fortune, only to loose it shortly afterwards.

If you notice any of the above in your life, you are most likely subconsciously sabotaging yourself due to some limiting beliefs you have acquired at some point in your life.

If you want to learn more about self sabotage, I recommend you read the books “Success Secrets Of The Happy And Rich” and “Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind”.

The Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind is an extremely interesting book, because it talks about how we each have our own “financial blueprint”.

This blueprint is a direct result of the beliefs you have acquired about money, and therefore determine how wealthy you become.

The millionaire mind is a good book to read because it specifically talks about beliefs created during childhood, which is something that affects us all.

How Bad Is Your Self Sabotage?

Your belief systems (the majority of which were created in your early years of life) will largely determine the extent of your sabotage, and how worthy you subconsciously believe you are of success or happiness.

For example, self sabotage does not have to completely destroy or end a relationship. It may be enough for it to continue and for the person to remain unhappy, with the thought of some happiness in the future when things “get better”.

The trouble is, happiness in the future will always be in the future, and so it never comes. Ultimately this type of belief system leaves the person in a relationship they are unhappy in, because at the subconscious level that is what their mind thinks they should have.

So never assume that a relationship or career has to fail completely for there to be self sabotage. Sabotage can occur in many different forms, one of which includes keeping you unhappy and unfulfilled in life.

Low Self Esteem And Self Sabotage

Things that make you happy, or present you with an opportunity to be happy, are a good way to discover how highly you value yourself.

This is because in people with low self esteem, happiness and success often act as a trigger that activates internal limiting dialogue. This is known as negative self talk.

Sabotaging Self Talk

Negative Self talk occurs as phrases such as “I don’t deserve this”, “it will never last”, “don’t worry about me” or anything else that puts you down or minimizes your importance.

If you use negative self talk when success or happiness presents itself, this may indicate limiting beliefs systems you have acquired, and is a good sign that you will probably sabotage happiness or success when it appears.

However the good news is that once you are aware of negative self talk, you can actively monitor your thoughts and change or replace the self talk to something much more positive and empowering.

Eventually your negative self talk will be replaced entirely, and you will have created new belief systems that finally allow you to achieve your maximum potential in life.

Change Your Handwriting, Stop Self Sabotage

Another way to determine if you self sabotage is to look at your handwriting. To do this simply write the letter “y”.

If your last stroke heads up to the baseline then turns away (as shown in picture) you have a subconscious fear of success and are likely to self sabotage.

 

Eliminating Self Sabotage

Overall just remember that whilst there are many different reasons and causes for self sabotage, they all originate from subconsciously acquired limiting belief systems.

The best way to overcome these beliefs include monitoring self talk, examining your handwriting and carefully thinking about the beliefs you may have acquired as a child.

This last point is perhaps the most important, as the majority of your belief systems were created by your parents, who obtained those beliefs from their parents.

If you can identify the challenge you now wish to overcome in your life, and link it to something which may have created that limiting belief in the past, you will be in a very strong position to finally overcome the sabotage in your life.

If you enjoyed this article or website please tell someone about it!