You know what to do.

If you want to earn more money, you need to find a way to increase your income and minimize your expenses.

If you want to lose weight you need to find a way to consistently exercise while also managing the ratio of the number of calories you eat and the number of calories you burn.

If you want to create and sustain a healthy, loving, and playful marriage, you need to honor the word “commitment” every single day and act as if it’s the most important relationship in your life - every single day.

You know what to do.

And, sure, there’s an opportunity to learn more about the minutia of how to accomplish each, but the truth is that achieving each example above is simple. Sadly, simple is not the same as easy.

You know what would make each easier to achieve, though?

You no longer sabotaging your own efforts to achieve all that you desire in life…

In this edition of the Unstuck Yourself Newsletter, I’ll help you uncover the origin of your self-sabotaging behaviors and help you understand why this behavior continues. I’ll help you gain clarity on why you do what you do, when you learned this sabotaging behavior, and provide action steps to begin unlearning the behavior.

Even more, I released a brand new episode of the Unstuck Yourself Podcast that mirrors this episode - literally with the same title. It’s here that I also share a handful of powerful and relatable examples of the areas of life we’re all most prone to sabotaging our success and desires, and end by sharing a vulnerable example of how I sabotaged my own life.

Start reading!

Self-Sabotage Defined

Sabotage

/ˈsabəˌtäZH/

verb

deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something)

Self-sabotage can be defined as deliberately getting in your own way - deliberately destroying, damaging, or obstructing progress toward your goal - despite your best intentions.

It can occur both consciously and unconsciously.

An example of conscious self-sabotage would be finding yourself in the kitchen at 9:10 PM after having just put the kids down for bed and feeling emotionally and physically drained for the day. You find yourself with one hand on the freezer door as you lock eye contact with Ben and Jerry, who happily smile back at you. 

You know you shouldn’t indulge right now as it’s not in alignment with your health and fitness goals. But you quickly tell yourself, “fuck it, I want ice cream so I am having ice cream.”

This is an example of conscious self-sabotage. You had a distinct decision opportunity and deliberately chose the path that served your short-term emotions rather than your long-term dreams.

Pay attention to this last sentence: “deliberately chose the path that served your short-term emotions rather than your long-term dreams.”

This should serve as a key “aha” moment as you why you struggle to make consistent, meaningful progress in your pursuits: choosing short-term pleasure over long-term reward.

Unconscious self-sabotage, on the other hand, is often not realized until days, weeks, months, or even years later. This is a pattern you typically don’t become aware of until long after it happens.

Examples you may relate to include:

• Identifying the core reason you cycle between periods of having zero and significant credit card debt, 

• losing and regaining the same 20 pounds, or 

• hopping from one toxic relationship to the next

I can tell you that I remained stuck in a toxic relationship cycle due to a lack of awareness of a core fear of abandonment I had. 

It wasn’t until I had ample experience routinely participating in one failed relationship after the next that I was able to gain this clarity, which allowed me to do the inner work necessary to clarify my boundaries, my worth, as well as what I wanted and did not want in a relationship. 

Interested in learning how Hypno-Mindset and Performance Coaching can help you stop self-sabotage and unlock your full potential? Schedule a free 30-minute Mindset Coaching Discovery Call now.

To help you best identify the wide range of self-sabotaging behaviors you may be engaging in, I like to further categorize them into what I call capital “S” and lowercase “s” sabotaging behaviors. 

Types of Sabotaging Behaviors

Capital “S” Sabotaging behaviors are the obvious behaviors you’re aware of that are sabotaging your success.

Examples include: 

• Addiction, coping, and numbing behaviors (alcohol, THC, drugs, porn, video games, social media, Netflix, etc.),

• Procrastination and avoidance

• Binge eating

• Overspending

• Infidelity

These are the “duh” behaviors that everybody in the world - no matter their location or culture - would quickly identify as a behavior that is holding you back.

Lowercase “s” sabotaging behaviors are the not-so-obvious, often overlooked behaviors you’re unaware of that are sabotaging your success.

Examples include: 

• Hitting snooze in the morning

• Skipping workouts

• Missing meal prep

• Grazing on food throughout the day

• Not following through on promises to yourself

• Engaging in regular negative self-talk

• Holding grudges

• Arguing over nothing - with your significant other, child, or colleague

• Hiding or repressing your emotions

• Lying - to yourself and others. 

Why do you fall prone to deliberately sabotaging our success?

Why You Sabotage

Self-sabotage is the result of incongruency between your unconscious and conscious mind. 

If you haven’t already read last week’s Newsletter, “Unlocking Success: The Power of Achieving Mindset Congruency,” I recommend you click here to open it in a new tab and plan to read it now - or shortly after. It provides a deeper understanding of the concept of Mindset Congruency. 

When your conscious and unconscious mind are not on the same page, your unconscious always wins. This becomes your default and numerous sabotaging actions are put forth to keep you stuck in a predictable place of comfort.

Here’s what I mean:

Your unconscious is home to your emotions, memories, and beliefs. 

If fears, doubts, or feelings of inadequacy reside in your unconscious, they'll directly shape your conscious thoughts and actions, ultimately influencing your identity and reality. 

This is especially true if you harbor a lack of safety around a certain behavior or achievement - if your unconscious mind doesn’t feel safe losing 20 pounds, for instance, you will continue to find yourself stuck in a yo-yo diet pattern.

Your unconscious wants to keep you safe and always thinks it’s doing so. Unfortunately, what it deems safe often appears outdated and irrational to your conscious mind. You consciously know it’s safe to make a million dollars or to lose 20 pounds. 

But if you’re struggling to achieve one of these goals, a deep-rooted collection of beliefs and emotions likely formed to tell a story that it’s unsafe to achieve either of the above. 

Take my Hypno-Mindset and Performance Coaching client H, for instance. She’d struggled with her weight and health for nearly three decades.

During this period she’d lost more than 20 pounds multiple times, yet, always seemed to find it again (plus a few extra). Through hypnosis and Mindset and Performance Coaching, we delved into the origin of her self-sabotaging behaviors, understanding, unlearning, and upgrading them.

We discovered that these behaviors originated from a traumatic experience - multiple sexual assaults within a year by the same perpetrator during her time in the military. 

In an attempt to prevent further harm, her unconscious associated being lean, fit, and strong with danger, making it challenging for her to maintain a healthy weight and confidence for the next three decades.

After addressing this trauma and focusing on proper healing, she reached a point of empowerment and safety in caring for herself. 

I'm proud to share that she has successfully maintained a weight loss of over 30 pounds for 18 months and counting since our work together.

The Anatomy of Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotaging behavior occurs as a defense mechanism deployed by your unconscious to keep you stuck in a pattern of predictability and familiarity, which your unconscious deems as safe.

If you begin to engage in and experience beliefs that don’t align with what your unconscious deems to be true (and safe), it will begin to deploy an array of sabotaging efforts aimed at bringing you back into a place of safety.

This looks like predictable patterns and routines of two steps forward, and three steps backward. If you think about where and how you’ve gotten in your way in the past, you may begin to notice several commonalities between situations.

Your unconscious has no issue recreating a pattern of stuckness because it already knows that you’re capable of surviving it, which is in line with priority number one: keeping you safe and alive.

However, you remain stuck - or even become more stuck - by continuing to apply a surface-level solution to a deep-rooted problem.

This is comparable to noticing a large weed in your garden and persistently trying to eliminate it by trimming the visible part, rather than directly targeting the roots for complete removal.

Or, to paint an even more vivid image: attempting to solve a deep-rooted (subconscious) issue with a surface-level (conscious) solution is like treating a bullet wound with a band-aid…

A self-sabotaging behavior is a pre-programmed response to an emotional state. Each time you engage in a sabotaging behavior, there exists an emotion, a trigger, and an action.

Emotion (the core of the root system): this emotional state is often born out of fear and a desire to feel safe. You may feel the emotion of lack - of love, worthiness, deservingness, etc. - or an accompanying feeling of guilt, anger, rage, sadness, or grief.

Trigger (the bulb of the weed): you attempting to leave your comfort zone or make progress past a level your unconscious deems safe.

Action (the visible plant and leave): unconscious and conscious sabotage - both capital “S” and lowercase “s” behaviors ensue.

To eradicate self-sabotage, you must go to the source of when you learned this behavior and pluck the roots!

Interested in learning how Hypno-Mindset and Performance Coaching can help you stop self-sabotage and unlock your full potential? Schedule a free 30-minute Mindset Coaching Discovery Call now.

Stop Self-Sabotage Action Steps

Below, you’ll find a list of helpful prompts to guide you on your path to thinking more deeply about why you do what you do. 

• Think of one particular area where you’re sabotaging your goals. List out at least two examples of when you’ve engaged in conscious self-sabotage. 

• List at least two capital “S” sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in.

• List at least two lowercase “s” sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in.

• Focus on one sabotaging behavior you’ve routinely engaged in. 

  • Identify the core fear, emotion, trigger, and action. 

  • Label this behavior as conscious or unconscious and categorize it as a capital “S” or lowercase “s” sabotaging behavior.

• Allow your mind to drift to the earliest memory you have of engaging in this behavior…

  • How old were you?

  • Where were you?

  • Who were you with?

  • What was going on for this younger you

  • Have you ever engaged in this behavior previously? If so, allow your mind to drift yet again and then repeat these questions…

Your Next Step

Knowing what to do and deliberately not doing it is frustrating, to say the least.

Rather than stewing in that frustration, which creates greater feelings of anger, shame, and bitterness (while keeping you in a place of inaction), it’s time to take action.

You can’t change unless you change.

Take your time to listen to this podcast and complete the action steps shared above. And, if you feel you need expert help to stop self-sabotage fast, know that I’m happy to help.

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter.

Interested in learning more about how I help high-performers just like you unstuck themselves and unlock their full potential?

Apply to work with me and schedule a coaching discovery call here. 

You may catch up on previous newsletters here. 

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If you have a question about anything I discussed in this week’s Unstuck Newsletter, please message me on Twitter (@pauljsalter7) or Instagram (@paulsaltercoaching).

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