How To Eliminate Self Sabotage

“If you are ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”  By Sun Tzu

There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most effective and proven ways are procrastination and self sabotage. People who procrastinate sabotage themselves They put obstacles in their own path, set up their own stumbling blocks They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.

Why would people do that to themselves?

Well the truth is Procrastinators are made not born no one was ever born to be a procrastinator, people choose self sabotage over self-regulation, It's easy to forget just how powerful our subconscious mind can be. We are often completely unaware of how our actions (or inactions) are affecting our lives. We may complain that things never work out for us, we have bad luck, or we just don't have what it takes to be successful.

For most people procrastination is a lifestyle stemming from habits that they have adopted over time you have to remember that our thinking pattern becomes habitual. We form habits and habits form character. Before you realize that you have got the habit, the habit has got you.

Habits are a lot stronger than logic and reasoning. Habits start by being too weak to be felt and end up becoming too strong to get out of,

So what is self sabotage? And why would some one want to sabotage themselves?

Self sabotage is a combination of our Thoughts, Feelings and Actions. Actions that are working against self-interest these thought patterns are creating barricades in our lives that is literally preventing our success at all levels even thought we want to have success.

You can look at it like this. We want something consciously but we sabotage our self unconsciously, it should be clear by now that there is a conflict going on between our conscious wants and our unconscious desires.

Some of the reasons why people might sabotage themselves are that subconsciously they create a safety mechanism to protect them from disappointment so out of fear of disappointment they actually create the disappointment.

So what are some of the consequences of self sabotage?

• They prevent us from reaching our Goals.
• They prevent us from taking action.
• They prevent us from making important decisions
• They hold us back in life.

 What are some of the reasons why people sabotage themselves?

• some people sabotage themselves as a way of comfort or a coping mechanism.
• Lack of self-esteem.
• Lack of self-worth.
• Lack of self belief.
• Lack of self confidence.
• An inability to manage our emotional state.
•  An inability to manage our reaction to circumstances, people and events.

                                                       Self sabotage is shooting your self in the foot.

Other well noted ways of self sabotage are.

• Fear of failure.
• Fear of risk.
• Fear of making mistakes
• Fear of what people might think.
• Fear of succeeding. ( yes some people do have a fear of becoming successful)
• Limiting beliefs such as (it wont work, I can't do this, I am too busy for that right now, I am just not ready, I am just not good enough
•  One of the worst is comparing ourselves with other people.

When these thoughts and actions go unmanaged or not corrected they we will continue to self sabotage which will work against our self interest.  

So how do we fix self sabotage and eliminate it from our lives? Well the first thing we have to do is identify our self sabotaging behaviors we can do so by examining ourselves carefully or write a list of all our thoughts and motives that we believe maybe holding us back, we should also be careful to identify the triggers that set off these self sabotaging behaviors. 

Some of the triggers could be a place, an event, an object, people or a specific time.

 After we have single out the culprit that as been killing our dreams, stealing our prosperity and success then we can move in to repair or correction mode.

 Our next step is to identify some healthy replacements that will help us achieve our self interest, as we have already establish, these self sabotaging behaviors are habits that are deeply-seated into our subconscious so it will take a full commitment on our part to eliminate and replace them .

so the best way to fix the problem is to ask your self  why do you need to change this habit and if you find a good enough reason why you will have the motivation that you need to propel you forward to make the change ( i.e. my current habit is holding me back from starting my own business.

Start practicing your new healthy behavior until an habit is formed to replace the old negative habit, some people recommend that you should practice for 21 days but I believe that you should give your self the least 30 day and be very consistent, because some of the self defeating thoughts that you are now trying to correct took many years to form some were even developed from childhood so I really don't think 21 days is sufficient.

This is not a comprehensive lesson on how to eliminate procrastination and self sabotage, but the steps that have been laid out here withing are sufficient enough to get you well on you way to success providing that you follow the steps carefully and that you are committed to change and self-regulation.


final tips be aware, be optimistic, learn from your mistakes by asking self improving questions in contrast to your mistakes, identify self defeating thoughts root them out and replace them the instant you discover them and be committed and consistent your success, happiness and entire life depend on it.     

7 proven ways to eliminate procrastination.

"Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself." ~Author Unknown

Almost everyone is held down by what some call “the silent killer”. Procrastination strikes everywhere. We all want to avoid the pain or discomfort of doing something we feel is boring, stupid, pointless, hard, complicated, risky, possibly really emotionally painful and so on.

But even though we know that we will have to do it eventually and that we’re just deluding ourselves we still put it of. Often with reasons we know deep down are weak and we really just made up. We get stuck in a vicious circle of doing too little of both what we want and what we don’t want. We get stuck. Here are 7 ways to squash procrastination and move forward.

1. Recognize that there is more pain in procrastinating than not

 If you have procrastinated a lot (like me) you might have discovered that:

You procrastinate to avoid doing something that is boring, hard or something like that. You want to avoid that pain.

But after having some experience with procrastination you’ll probably realise that procrastination itself causes your more pain than actually just doing what you were supposed to. Realising the true amount of pain in the two choices will make it easier to get things done.

2. Force yourself to do it before you really absolutely have to do it,

and your self-esteem will go up. And the next time you feel like procrastinating remember that you forced yourself, but that you felt better when it was done. There was a nice reward when you were done. Whenever you feel like procrastinating remember this to get you to start moving forward.

3. Create a flow

 Instead of doing nothing, begin with doing something. Clean your desk, take out the garbage, wash the dishes. Just stack a couple of simple actions to create a flow, a momentum. When you’re in the flow, in that forward motion, getting started with what you have to do will be much easier. Also, cleaning up can get you too feel more motivated. A messy work or living -environment seems to often reinforce procrastination.

4. Get some leverage

 Sometimes we procrastinate on things that aren’t just dull tasks in the office or school. Maybe you are stuck, not able to take the next step fearing some deep personal pain. If you are thinking about changing jobs or career or taking a next step in a relationship you are probably focusing on what could go wrong. Instead, get some leverage to both push and pull yourself forward.

How to: Take a pen and a piece of paper. Write down as many things as you can come up with that you will miss out on, not just now but the next few years if you don’t take this step now. Really dig down into yourself and feel that pain that you will feel not just tomorrow but in a year and the next five or ten years.

Then write down all positive and wonderful things you will experience if you take this decision and move forward to where you want to go. Think about them and write down all those things you will experience and feel, not just in the next few days but in one year, in two, in five years or ten. Get the stick and the carrot to work for you. And put the problem in a longer time perspective to really give it an emotional punch.

5. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time…

 Don’t look at everything you have to do. One of the common sources of procrastination is feeling overwhelmed. Break it down into smaller tasks. Write them down as a list on a piece of paper. Focus on just getting that one small task or part of the big thing done. Then move on to the next. Take it one step at a time and don’t think about the rest. Before you know it you’ll be half way there.

6. Change your beliefs

 The problems that repeatedly put you into a procrastinating state might disappear if you change your view on reality. Examine your beliefs. Ask yourself if you could see things in a more beneficial and effective way for yourself.

Realise you can choose you beliefs about yourself and the world. The past is not the future. You don’t have to hang to limiting beliefs based on past experiences if you don’t want to. You are here right now and you can choose and change your habits.

7. Make a small deal with yourself

Here is an effective one I first heard from Ed Bliss (well, actually now that I think about it I probably first heard it from a teacher back in school more than ten years ago. It kinda rings a bell).

Here’s how you go about it: Promise yourself that you’ll work on something for just 5 minutes. After those 5 minutes you can do something else if you want to. But make a note on your schedule when you will come back to the task and work another 5 minutes with it. As Bliss notes, no matter how unpleasant a task may be, you can often talk yourself into working 5 minutes on it.

I’ve found this one to be effective to make a dent in those tasks you have put of for a longer while. After you’re done with those first 5 minutes the next 5 minutes will feel a little easier. And after that the next 5 minutes will feel even easier. Or maybe you raise the bar to 10 minutes of work. Getting some actual work done on that task, if only for 5 minutes, gives you a rush of exhilaration. Making a game out of how much work you can get done in those 5 minutes can also be a small but in its own way fun challenge.