Self-sabotage: What if you are your own 'village people?'

Sometimes, you are your own worst enemy and you don't even realise it!

A few days ago, I woke up early to go somewhere important. Instead of immediately getting out of bed, started pressing my phone, responding to messages, briefly checking Twitter before getting sucked into the vortex that is Youtube. 

I was running late by the time I remembered to check the time. As you can imagine, I jumped out of bed and started getting ready frantically before rushing out. I got stuck in traffic and sat there blaming everyone from the people created the Internet to Lagos government for the inadequate roads. 

This experience is a classic example of self-sabotage - doing or allowing any action that gets in the way of achieving your goals. I could have gotten out of bed as soon I woke up, left home early enough to avoid traffic and get to my destination on time, but I didn’t. Faced with the consequences of my self-sabotage, I pointed fingers at everyone else, including my 'village people' but me the culprit.

Sometimes we are our worst enemy

Many people like myself are guilty of getting in our own way, hence the term self-sabotage. We say we are going to do something or set out to achieve a goal but end up sabotaging ourselves by doing things that conflict with the said goal. We procrastinate while chasing perfection, allow ourselves to be distracted by a movie, Netflix or social media when we have important work waiting, allow doubts, negative thoughts to stop us from doing what we set out to do. We can even self sabotage our relationships by being bad friends, cheating, basically doing the opposite of what we should be doing to maintain healthy relationships.

Take a hard look in the mirror to ensure that you are not being your own enemy! Source - Everydaypower

Sometimes, self-sabotage is done out of fear, insecurities, laziness, boredom, low self-esteem, feeling undeserving of success, love, or happiness. Other times, it is a tactic we use to protect ourselves from failing, getting disappointed, hurt or feeling out of control. Regardless of the rationale, we self-sabotage our work, relationships, lives in a million ways until we have succeeded in trapping ourselves in a self-defeating cage of our making from which it seems hard to climb out. The result is that we have defeated, unhappy people blaming everyone else, including the famous 'village people,' for the bad things that keep happening to them.

Stop standing in your way

Even though self-sabotage is often done unconsciously, you can stop it with a little self-reflection and self-awareness. Start by figuring out what you want out of your life. Do you want to lose weight, find love, get promoted, be a better friend, partner, parent? Knowing what you want is the first step to getting it.

Next, identify your self sabotaging behaviours. A clear test to identify this bad habit is to determine if a particular action goes with or against your goal. For instance, you say you want to lose weight but refuse to workout and eat everything but healthy food, you are clearly self-sabotaging.

Finally, be intentional about doing things differently by replacing self-sabotaging habits with positive ones. When you are tempted to procrastinate, don’t. Instead of wasting time worrying, focus on what you can actually do at the moment. Fight the terrible things your internal critic has to say by reminding yourself of your accomplishments no matter how small.

Self-sabotage looks different for everyone, but the result is always the same - unhappiness, anxiety, failure to achieve your goals. It takes time to break unhealthy thought patterns including self-sabotage, but it can be done. Stop standing in your own way. Stop making excuses or allowing behaviour that isn’t aligned with where you want your life to be. Stop sabotaging yourself, okay?

I'm rooting for you.❤

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