Self-Sabotage: Why You Do It and How to Stop for Good

Self-sabotage can be defined as the action through which you undermine your worth and goals. Even though you want something, you do actions that are contrary to achieving your target. There are mainly two types of self-sabotaging behaviors, as follows:

• conscious self-sabotage: you do the actions that will end up undermining your goals consciously.
• unconscious self-sabotage: you do actions that will end up undermining your goals without being aware of this.

Self-sabotage can appear in our lives under many shapes:

• procrastination: putting off what we should be doing now
• substance abuse: consuming alcohol and drug often leads to us not reaching our goals
• chronic lateness: this will usually result in you being perceived as a not so trustworthy person
• stress eating: we all know the end of this one- poor diet or even illness
• intimacy and commitment issues: the negative consequence refers to you ending up alone.

Studies revealed two main causes of self-sabotage:

• modeling: individuals tend to self-sabotage as they grew up seeing this in their parents' behavior
• power: persons may tend to self-sabotage by entering into relationships with people who are, one way or another, inferior to them

In order to stop the self-sabotage, have a look at the below four steps:

• get to know and understand why you feel the need to self-sabotage
• once you have identified that need, check out ways you can fill it without having to involve self-sabotage
• if you have already found the proper alternative, think about ways to identify and overcome possible obstacles
• build up tolerance when dealing with unpleasant feelings
• make sure you really know your values and goals