Is It Self-Sabotage or Is It Naivete?

Tackling the self-sabotage beast requires, first, putting the beast in proper perspective: taming it. We've got to turn off the scary lights and turn on the examination room floodlights, quiet the eerie soundtrack, and shush its growl.

We find it hard to finish things--but not just projects, relationships, and jobs, but conversations, too. We tend to stay longer than we'd like to, and wind up saying Yes when we mean No. Yes, Keep Talking, we say when we'd prefer to have the ease of saying Goodbye. Failing to end a relationship is saying Yes, I Still Want This when, truly, you mean to say Goodbye. Staying in a job when you'd prefer to find a better one is saying Yes, This is Good Enough, when you wish you could say I Quit. Because we don't know how to finish-up projects, we abandon them instead, leaving our work incomplete.

What does being bad at finishing things have to do with self-sabotage?

Continued...

Incomplete projects produce the same negative sensations that self-sabotage produces. That feeling you get when you leave things unsaid, when you can't champion your inner voice, feels just like self-sabotage: it's that icky gut-feeling, or fuzzy-brain feeling, a dull "uh oh" or "why did I do that?" sensation that we all know.

Being unable to finish projects and end relationships are vehicles to self-sabotage, ones that adult children of alcoholics are most apt to tangle with. (Self-sabotage is a topic I've written about before.)

Somebody Needs a Definition Adjustment

I've been thinking about the term self-sabotage. While sabotage involves a plot against something, self-sabotage refers to a plot to defeat ourselves, by ourselves. I dislike the term because it's so dramatic (sabotage is a Hollywood sub-plot) and because plotting against ourselves means we're conscious of our hateful act, which we're often not when one's in a fit of self-sabotage.

Because so much of our so-called self-sabotage is a side-effect of our lack of experience with finishing things, I prefer the term success-shy instead of self-sabotage. Or: achievement-shy, prosperity-shy, fame-shy, contentment-shy, or triumph-shy.

You Can't Finish if You Don't Know the Next Step

If you were raised in an alcoholic family, you don't have much experience with completing projects easily. It's unlikely that one of your parents took the time to help you learn how to break down a larger project into tasks with a timeline, making the project manageable and easy to complete. If you have a large project to complete and you're not sure how to plan each part of it so that you're sure to complete it, you are guaranteed to get overwhelmed, are highly likely to procrastinate, and are sure to be working all-out at the final hour (or even past your deadline).

Your parent was probably in a relationship that should have been actively repaired or ended. But, if you didn't see that happen, you are not going to have had a good relationship model to follow in your own adult life. If the relationship model you had was of a bad marriage, how would you have learned to end a bad relationship on time?

Because we lack good models, we often behave in ways that mimic acts of self-sabotage. I don't think these acts are conscious, nor that we want to hurt ourselves or plot against ourselves.

Emotional pain is familiar to us. This is the only reason we unconsciously seek out situations in which we can re-enact that pain and childhood situations -- the urge to repeat what's familiar (even if hurtful) is so strong in our subconscious that as adults we'll react as if we're in childhood scenarios even when it's a bit of a stretch of reality to do so.

Become Comfortable with Achievement

Achievement can be as simple as ending conversations when you want to, and not letting someone talk on, and on, just because you're uncomfortable interrupting them, because you want them to like you, or because you've convinced yourself you're responsible for their feelings (you're not).

Get comfortable with, "It's great to talk, but I have to get going," by using it.

Say goodbye. End conversations.

Complete your projects.

Dig up an old, interesting project and figure out what the next step is. Don't worry about what the final step or outcome is, just the next step. After that, you can tackle the next step. Then, the next, etc.

That's how achievement is created. Small steps accumulated - that's a project completed.

Most People Procrastinate Simply Because They Don't Know What The Next Step Is

When you think you're procrastinating and wondering if you're trying to sabotage yourself -- first ask yourself if you're unsure of what your next step is. It's more likely that you haven't yet figured out the next step than that you're sabotaging yourself.

"Spectacular achievement is preceded by unspectacular preparation."
--Robert H. Schuller

Be good to yourself.

P.S. ask for someone's help.

Comments

[Brent Macklem]

This article so speaks to my career/workplace behaviour. That inaction that I am really unaware of, that creates more shame and self-defeat feelings. It has caused me to dull down my desires,belief in myself, expectancy of good things to come,trust in divine guidance. The best thing for me/us(?) to do may be to take a leap of faith and assume the best "ANYWAYS"

Thanks Amy