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.
Just a quick question, have you wrote any article that describes in detail why some people fail to complete something they started? Is that like a fear of success and if that’s the case why do some people fear success? As if they might think success is something hard to achieve or that they will most likely fail before they succeed which is why they fear the success? or could this be a behavior programmed by the parents or experienced through life, how can it be described properly and dealt with?
Yes i have written about fear of success before, but not in detail.
It ties in with beliefs you may have acquired as a child.Usually this occurs as self sabotage, where people subconsciously stop themselves from achieving something just as they were doing well or about to achieve it.
So if you are failing to complete something you start it may not be a fear in the traditional meaning of the word, but rather a subconscious belief that you should not achieve success or have happiness. This is extremely common, and many people sabotage themselves.
People who think success is hard or think that they will not achieve it so why try, are acting out limiting subconscious beliefs that they are not worthy or capable of achieving something. Again this is something that was most likely formed during their childhood.
I will be discussing this in the articles i am writing this week on how childhood effects our adult lives. Virtually all of the limiting beliefs people have come from their childhood, which is why i am spending this week discussing these factors and why they occur.
in terms of dealing with this it will require programming the mind, to think you are worthy. This is why i spent so much time writing about self esteem and self acceptance after the subconscious mind programming techniques. Without true self esteem and self acceptance it is very difficult to program your mind successfully, as i discussed in the articles on self esteem.
Generally i write about subjects that build on and support each other, so usually its best to read articles in the order they were written whenever possible.
Also read the book i mentioned and look at the handwriting section as it specifically talks about how to identify and eliminate a “fear of failure”
Of course there may be other explanations as to why a person may not finish what they are doing, such as lack of motivation by doing the wrong work, or simply a lack of self discipline.
Martin
The whole idea that the WAY you write can tell sooo much about your personal feelings and character is just awesome info! Thank you very much for sharing this!
My wife and I have been fighting as she has stopped taking her prozac because she didn’t feel it was doing anything and so over the past few months she has gotten completely out of hand and is pushing me so hard away that I am ready to leave but all she can do is talk about how everone eventually leaves her and is unable to see the connection. Is this a Form of Self Sabotage? How can I help her to see this is what she is doing?
There was a report on BBC news recently (a major news channel here in England) that prozac was just as effective as a placebo, and had very little effect on depression. So its quite possible that your wife was correct in saying it had no effect on her.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7263494.stm
However this very much sounds like self sabotage. As if the medication was having no effect on her, then there would be no reason for her mood to change once she stopped taking it. Subconsciously she may be using the excuse of giving up prozac to destroy any success or happiness she was having. In other words, she was happy, but then had a subconscious desire to end that happiness. This is a classic example of self sabotaging behavior.
Your wife basically needs to be educated about what self sabotage is, and reasons why she may be sabotaging her life. The fact that she says men always leave her, suggest this sabotaging has been going on all her life.
If you want to help her, you need to find the root cause as to why she self sabotages. I have outlined some possible reasons for this in the article, however the main reasons are:
a) Has learnt to associate pain with pleasure in the past. You may want to try and discover what she has done in the past after a relationship ended. Did she spend lots of time with family or close friends getting lots of attention? She may have learnt to link some pleasure to failing a relationship, although it may take some time and skilled questioning to find out what pleasure she links failure to.
b) Has learnt to associate pain with change. This usually occurs when there was some change a persons life that bought on a negative experience. So if there is anything that could signal significant change in her life such as moving house, new job or having a child, this may cause her to self sabotage to avoid this change.
c) Low self worth. this is usually the result of childhood exeriences, where the child is made to feel undervalued, unloved and unworthy of anything that may be good or pleasurable. In other words, a sense of low self esteem (you can find more information about self esteem on this site)
I think if your wife can better understand what self sabotage is, she will stand a better chance of beating it. But it may take a while for her to actually realize what she is doing to herself.
The fact that your wife has said that everyone eventually leaves her, suggests that she subconsciously realizes she is self sabotaging and that she feels unworthy of love or long term happiness. It’s almost as if she is saying, “i know your going to leave me eventually because i know im not good enough for you, so i might aswell sabotage this relationship now because i know its going to end”.
If i had to guess, i would say she had a bad experience in the past where she lost someone close to her. This has caused seperation anxiety, in addition to feelings of low self worth.
This is why it can be difficult to correct this as you really need to talk in detail about her past, and her childhood. Which depends on how open and honest of a relation you have with her, and whether she would feel comfortable talking to you about those things.
To confirm that it is self sabotage, you may want to examine her handwritting, paying particular attention to the letter “y” to see if it signals self sabotage as detailed in the article.
As a side note, I would not recommend taking prozac as it has been linked with an increase in suicide rates, as is the case with most psychotrophic drugs.
http://www.drugs.com/forum/latest-drug-related-news/antipsychotics-increase-suicide-risk-20-times-33941.html
http://www.teenscreentruth.com/psychiatry_drugs_suicide.html
http://www.namiscc.org/Research/2002/AntipsychoticSuicideRisk.htm
I am married to the most awesome man but am still experiencing a lot of self sabotage as I sometimes do not feel I deserve this stunning man. On two occasions I have messed up very beautiful moments (our wedding and honeymoon) with stupid insecure feelings about sex and his children. Reading your article makes so much sense. My past is ruling me. It will be hard work but I am going to change this.
I am currently 31 years old, the first person in my family to go to college and be somewhat successfull. I grew up with an alcoholic mother who was extremely verbally abusive, and a father who constantly worked so he wouldnt have to deal with it, I feel as if I am holding myself back when it comes to having healthy relationships or a successfull career. I have been told many times that I must think poorly of myself and I shouldnt, How do I go about changing my habbits? I want to find happiness someday.
Sarah,
In what way do you feel you are holding yourself back when it comes to having a healthy relationship or successful career? Whats going on in your mind? Are you finding yourself drawn into unhealthy relationships? Are you sabotaging your chances at a successful career? Are you afraid that if you do become successful and get into a good relationship, you will end up like your mum or do something that will drive your partner away?
If you have been told many times you should think poorly of yourself, it is likely you have accepted this subconsciously. You will know if this is the case because you may put yourself down occassionaly (like call yourself an idiot for example), or doubt your abilities, because you think you are not good enough. This is known as self talk, and is a manifestation of those negative subconscious beliefs.
read this article for a brief description of self talk
http://www.eruptingmind.com/talk-with-subconscious-mind/
I can’t specifically advise you on how to change habits, as i don’t know what you are trying to change. However, you should find the articles on self discipline helpful in changing habits in general. Although i suspect your habits are largely negative beliefs you are trying to overcome about yourself.
(i am actually working on a new article series about habits, which i will publish when i finish it)
I will link you below some article series that will help you, take your time reading them as you need to understand what they are saying. This will cause you to slowly start to re-examine your beliefs about yourself, which is what will help you. If you read the about me page (roughly half way down) i explain this idea of subconscious beliefs in more detail
http://www.eruptingmind.com/about-martin/
for information on beliefs see this article series (numbers on bottom of each article are the rest of the series)
http://www.eruptingmind.com/personal-values-beliefs/
for self discipline and habits see this series
http://www.eruptingmind.com/importance-of-self-discipline/
understanding childhood influences series
http://www.eruptingmind.com/effect-childhood-adult-life/
you would probably benefit from the self esteem articles also, as it is all interlinked with your beliefs, but i would say that overall i think your self esteem probably isn’t that low
http://www.eruptingmind.com/how-to-improve-low-self-esteem/
Also, think of finding happiness now, not someday. That sets up the belief that “someday” you will find happiness, and to the subconscious, someday will always be someday. The subconscious needs specifics. If i want something, i will literally talk to my subconscious saying “subconscious i want…” or something similiar to that…
Thank you for the articles! I am realizing how much I hurt myself and my success. I know I can do better through understanding. Thank you again.
This explains why we should make sure our kids are able to achieve the goals set for every developmental stage. Erick Erickson, Sigmund Freud and other theorist in Psychology have significant works that can explain why we do self-sabotage.
Every event in our lives are linked to each other. Don’t think that you became a smoker out of influence. You can be a smoker because you were not orally gratified as an infant.
In relation to self-sabotage, fixations are the common culprit for its occurrence. However, this is not something that we can’t fix. I agree that talking about your problems and avoiding negativism is the best way eliminate self-sabotage.
When you finally get what you want, then suddenly don’t want it, is that self sabotage? I’m 29 years old and I grew up with a horrible father, who was/is verbally/physically abusive. I went through a morbid high school experience (people pushed me in lockers, threw trash at me, called me names…etc) I’ve never felt like I was good enough. Now I’m trying my hardest to stop. I just finished nursing school, I have amazing friends, and family. I’ve been able to change almost every aspect of my life. Except for two major things, my relationship with men, and my self esteem. How do I stop?
I am 50 years old, been alone most of my life, dating became hard with children plus avoid all the bad experiences that may come with relationships. Not to say I have dated and met some wonderful people. I met my new partner,which a new step for me since the kids have grown a bit. He is the most golden hearted person I have met, we laughed all night on the first date. We even went to Cancun for a week and surprise it was wonderful each and every day. Only weeks after that all of a sudden something changed. Things would bother him, small things but when talked about he would place these things as if they were the end of the world, for me that was confussing because his take on them were nothing like he sees it and they were lifes normal ques. Each time you think things are better there would be a new one. Up and down till I was on an emotional roller coaster. I know he told me once all his dates, in time he would find little knit picking things wrong then end it. I first felt, well it was just his way of saying he is not ready or was not the right person. When mad, i would hear things such as, “telling me what to do”, or “trying to control me”, “thinking I am stupid”, “let me be the man” out of a situation that it never happened, his sight on the issue went overtime.
Now I am getting the distance, he says he loves me BUT…
this all happened overnight. I do have my own issues and issues with trust due to my past but I try not to bleed that into the new person, but with him acting like this it does not help.
My dad was abusive at times, my x’s cheated on me so maybe he found a match with the same esteem but I know I have learned to see myself in a better light since then to the most.
His mother had schizophrenia, and do know there is only one child she only really noticed out of 5. Meds were not good back then. I hear bits and pieces but really wonder how wounding it was, they were farmers so he spent most of his time outside. He had 2 marriages, one they were just too young and everything was about them and not a we thing. The second he ended up with a person i feel might have had low esteem, she ended up with bipolar (but not sure on the stories since i see what has been happening). I know he wanted out of the relationship because she was belittling, highs and lows but due to a child he stayed for years till the child reached a certain age. One, I feel most was developed when young but can staying in a low esteem relationship make it worse or bigger, such as pick up more traits? I love him, the person I first knew, how does handle this? What are the proper steps because they see the world different in reasoning? I do not want to make things worse yet, it seems I will have to take some of this additude for it to get better.
Kate,
It could be self sabotage, but to me it sounds like someone who was doing something because they thought it would make another person happy.
In other words, they were doing it to please (or win approval of) another person.
As a result, when they got what they thought they wanted they realised they didn’t want it at all.
Usually this occurs with people who have low self esteem or feel inadequate with themselves in some way. So they think that by doing what someone else would approve of, they would gain acceptance from that person (who is usually someone close or significant in their life, such as a parent).
You may be having relationship problems with men, most likely due to the type of relationship you had with your father. Although i cannot say exactly how this has affected you, i would guess that you may find it difficult to get close to men or that you don’t feel desired by them.
In addition to this your low self esteem (which seems to have come from your childhood) is making things more difficult for you.
To start with i would suggest reading the articles on childhood and self esteem on this site, as this will help you with these issues.
You can find those articles here
http://www.eruptingmind.com/personal-development-tips/
Vickie,
I am unsure of your question. What exactly is it you are asking?
Thank you Martin!
I’ve been reading the articles, and they have been helping me.
Hi Martin,
I just finished reading your article and it describes my life to a tee! I have been in a relationship for the past 8 years to a wonderful man and everytime we get close to some form of happiness of new beginning I completely sabotage it. I am so fed up and my partner is ready to go out the door with my twins underarm and leave me to suffer for the rest of my life!
I have sabotage us from having certain things (unconciously) and I even caused my partner to lose his restaurant (which was his dream to have) because I was afraid of losing him to his business partner (who was a older women, but trust me she wasn’t pretty!).
I am now seriously going to seek some form of help and I have taken the step to call my Doctor to get a referral.
I love my partner and my twins. We’ve gone through so much on the count of my behaviour and do not deserve this guy. He and my twins bring my so much happiness, but the pain of losing them tears me up.
I want to know how to pinpoint the childhood things that created our beliefs so that I can find my answers and really work hard to get back the LOVE of my life and save our family.
Hi Tonya,
Based on what you said here are my views.
It sounds like you have some insecurity issues where you expect your partner to leave you, and your actions seem to suggest that you may be subconsciously trying to get him to leave you.
I think this is occuring subconsciously because you yourself said
“…and do not deserve this guy.”
So for whatever reason you may feel unworthy of being with this person, and so essentially are self sabotaging yourself by acting out this belief.
Since you raised your childhood, there is a good chance this belief of unworthiness was created then. But only you will know that.
You may want to think back to your childhood and see if there were any times you were told you “weren’t good enough” or “didn’t deserve that”, or something along those lines.
To help you reverse these limiting subconscious beliefs, i recommend reading the self esteem articles as they will help you to improve your sense of self worth
http://www.eruptingmind.com/helping-yourself-gain-self-esteem/
If you want to explore your childhood, then you can also read these articles
http://www.eruptingmind.com/effect-childhood-adult-life/
Another thing you can do to pinpoint negative subconscious beliefs is to monitor your self talk, there is some information about this here
http://www.eruptingmind.com/talk-with-subconscious-mind/
http://www.eruptingmind.com/fear-fulfillment-needs/
Martin
Hey,
My girlfriend and I have been together about a year and a half. For most of this time we’d been living together. Because of how our relationship started our families greatly disliked our counterparts. There were many times I felt the arguments we had were totally pointless and they got to be so abundant I started losing my mind. She constantly told me she knows I’m going to move out and leave her and I should just do it. After hearing it every day for months I cracked and left.
We started talking shortly after and it resulted in me coming to a very abrupt realization that both our self-esteems were very low. Since then I’ve taken measures to change that part of my life. My girlfriend knows her self-esteem is low and she has no idea how destructive it is on our temporarly ended realtionship.
She’s an amazing amazing woman and I love her with all my heart and it kills me to see her treat herself that way. It’s been hard on me because to defend herself now she lashes out at me cussing and swearing. I know it’s not who she is and she’s just in a lot of pain. But I’m sure there’s nothing I can do aside from what I’m already trying to help her. She has to decide to help herself.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I can help her see how her feelings are making our relationship toxic for both of us and how there’s a far greater chance of happiness if she will accept help? Or will I just have to tough it out and wait for her to realize it on her own, however long that’ll take?
Ok, well this sounds like your girlfriend feels she is unworthy of being with you, or that she feels anyone who she gets close to will eventually leave her.
This may be related to her childhood, or a previous relationship.
As a result, she is essentially sabotaging the relationship by trying to prempt (through arguing and her behaviour) what she thinks is inevitable (you leaving her).
I have come across this before, and i think the reason for this is because if you end the relationship yourself it is a lot less painful than someone else ending it. So if she thinks you are going to leave her, she will try and end it first.
The fact that you said
“she knows I’m going to move out and leave her and I should just do it”
Does seem to suggest that consciously she wants to be with you, but there are some subconscious fears she has about the relationship. These fears are then causing her to sabotage the relationship, by the way she acts towards you. A classic example of self sabotage.
Dealing with this can be difficult, as until she subconsciously accepts that she can trust you (as a romantic partner) and feels worthy of being in such a relationship, her behaviour is likely to continue as it has done.
So you really need to dig deeper and find out exactly why she is acting this way. Is it something to do with her childhood, such as being abandoned by her parents? Or is it to do with previous relationships where she was abandoned?
So for the time being yes you will have to tough it out, but this alone won’t solve anything. unless you can determine exactly what is going on in her mind, you won’t be able to help her.