EP. 32- Overcoming Self-Sabotage: The REAL Reasons You Feel Stuck
EPISODE 32-
Overcoming Self-Sabotage: The REAL Reasons You Feel Stuck
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Tell me, have you ever found yourself in these situations?
-Have you ever made a commitment to cut back on sweets or alcohol, only to end up bingeing late at night and feeling guilty the next day?
-Have you ever strayed from your health plan mid-day, thinking, 'I'll start fresh tomorrow,' instead of forgiving yourself and moving forward?
-Have you ever ghosted someone in a relationship because things were going too well, and you were afraid of getting hurt? Or felt like you were 'too much' in a relationship, overdoing communication out of insecurity?
If any of this resonates with you, you're not alone.
In this week's podcast episode, 'Overcoming Self-Sabotage: The REAL Reasons You Feel Stuck,' we're delving into the invisible roadblocks that are hindering your confidence, goals, and relationships.
In this episode, you'll learn:
>>> The biggest mistake people make when chasing their goals.
Have you ever felt fired up at the start, only to lose momentum before reaching the finish line? Find out why.
>>> How perfectionism hinders your progress.
Your inner critic tends to see things in black and white, making it easy to abandon progress after a single mistake.
>>> Why people-pleasing complicates habit changes.
It's not just about your discomfort; you may worry about others' reactions. Prioritizing their needs over your own makes it hard to stick to positive changes.
>>> Practical tips for confident decision-making and boosting self-confidence, so you can create the life you desire inside and out.
And stay tuned until the end for a special offer that will help you bid farewell to people-pleasing and perfectionism for good.
Say Hi on Instagram @Mrs.Hard_TimesNoMore
Visit my website: Mrs-Hard.com
Don't let anxiety control you any longer. Take the first step towards a joyful life without fear. Sign up for my free 3-day coaching series—Stepping Off The Chaos Roller Coaster: 3 Simple Steps For Anxiety Relief
Speaker 1: 0:01
Hi, I'm Alessandra Tolome Hard, aka Mrs Hard, and this is Hard Times no More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people-pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, I stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use in love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships, and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Hard Times no More Relationship Podcast. I'm Alessandra Tolomey-Hard, aka Mrs Hard, your host.
Speaker 1: 1:09
Today, we are going to talk about a sneaky behavior that might be wrecking your attempts to build a healthy and satisfying life. This behavior may be hindering you from becoming close with others. It may be standing in the way of your goals, whether it's weight loss, to eat healthier, to become more active, to cut back on the booze or the sugar which is feeding your anxiety, or relentless perfectionism, which leads you to focus on what isn't going right in your life instead of the things that are going well. Today, we're going to talk about what's behind this behavior that we really don't want to have but can't seem to get rid of, the reasons why you do what you do, even if it isn't really benefiting you, and proven practices you can implement to stay on track when you set out to make positive changes in your life. So tell me if you've ever done this. Have you ever set some health goals? Maybe to eat less sugar or cut out sugar completely, to lose a couple pounds, or to improve your blood work, because your cholesterol is high or your blood sugar is high. So you're trying to cut out the sweets and eat more vegetables, but you have a very stressful work, meeting or something happens with your kids and you reach for a candy bar midday and instead of just picking yourself back up, dusting yourself off, you think, well, I already screwed it up. Might as well not care about my healthy choices for the rest of the day. I'll start again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: 2:57
You may wake up the next day and feel bad, feel regret and think you know I always screw it up, why even try? Have you ever promised yourself that you're going to stop drinking or cut back and then for a long busy day you swear you're just gonna have one glass of wine, and then one turns into two, and then two may turn into three, and then you lose all momentum to do any positive self-care for yourself, like maybe instead you were planning on taking a bath or practicing yoga to ease your stress, but you came home, the day didn't go well and you just reach for that glass of wine and then you wake up the next day regretting that you drank and feeling bad and putting yourself down. That you drank and feeling bad and putting yourself down. Or have you ever been in a new relationship where it feels really scary to open up to this person and so you start to push them away? Or you swing the opposite way and you need to be around them constantly because you want to know that they're really into you, even though they're giving you all these signs that they are, and you feel like you always have this pattern, whether it's pushing someone away, becoming really distant when things are going well and you're getting close to them or becoming overly needy of their attention because you need validation from them. If you're a human, there's a really good chance you've experienced one of these behaviors, and this is called self-sabotage.
Speaker 1: 4:30
I'm sure that you've heard about self-sabotage before. It's when you have good intentions to make a change in your life, but then you revert back to old behaviors or even take it another step and do something that's going to be the complete opposite of the positive decision you wanted to make. Self-sabotage is an invisible force that pushes you in the opposite direction of where you actually want to go. Have you ever sat around and thought about why you do this? Well, I have, and so we're going to talk about it. I'm going to go through four main reasons why we self-sabotage. Because you're not alone in this. We all do this. But it's really important to understand why and what might be motivating your self-sabotage, so that you can step off the self-sabotaging roller coaster and have more self-confidence. Have more self-esteem, because you'll be able to trust yourself, that you can follow through and make the real positive changes in your life that you desire. So four reasons why we self-sabotage.
Speaker 1: 5:44
Number one fear of success. Now, this one may seem a little backwards, but hang in with me here. Let's say you decide to change your eating habits and you cut out all the junk food and the sugar, but you're afraid that when you go out to dinner with your husband which you both love to do you're worried that you won't be fun anymore, that you won't be out to dinner with your husband, which you both love to do. You're worried that you won't be fun anymore, that you won't be able to connect with your husband and enjoy your date nights together because you'll have all these food rules or you'll eat differently. That can be related to fear of success, because, imagine, you've kind of become a different person and that is actually successful, but it might make somebody else uncomfortable or disrupt something that you enjoy doing. Now. And when it comes to relationships, let's say that you are successful and you open up to somebody, you become close with them and you have a really happy relationship. But what if something happens to this person? What if they end up cheating on you or do something to hurt you down the line? And so, even though you have success, sometimes you may have fear of failure.
Speaker 1: 7:01
In the long run, you may be afraid of how these changes may impact your life and ultimately end up changing your life, even if it's for the better. And I know I have a lot of fellow people pleasers and perfectionists listening to this show. So let's take a little segue into perfectionism and people pleasing and how this may be showing up. So, with perfectionism, we can tend to have very black and white thinking. So we may be afraid to change how we're eating because we may think we can never have cookies and ice cream again if we make these changes, when in reality, if you're eating healthy, truly healthy 90% of the time, you can have cookies and ice cream every once in a while, and it won't ruin everything cream every once in a while, and it won't ruin everything.
Speaker 1: 7:59
Also, when trying to make a change, if it's around food, let's say that you have a really stressful day. Just one thing after another happens that you didn't expect. Things are crazy with your kids and you reach for a candy bar midday because you forgot your lunch, your blood sugar is low and you just can't take it anymore. Perfectionism shows up when we think I've ruined the whole day. Might as well ruin the rest of it instead of picking yourself up, testing yourself off, being like I made a mistake, it's okay, I can make the rest of the day great with good decisions, because my blood sugar is back on track. We think, nope, it's ruined, might as well start again tomorrow. And sometimes we wake up the next day and we're full of guilt and shame and we think to ourselves you know, this is too hard, I'm going to fail anyways, so I might as well give up.
Speaker 1: 8:59
So then you give up your health goals and then people pleasing can show up in these situations where if you're thinking about date night with your husband and you're thinking about, oh, if I eat differently, he might not like that, it might make it uncomfortable and our dates won't be as much fun. And it's weird that I've had this happen, where my brain will focus just on the food instead of the experience we're having. Because when I have a date night with my husband, we love to go out to eat and I have had to change my eating habits over time for various reasons. And I would get anxious when I was just focusing on the food instead of focusing on our connection, the time we were spending together, the quality time together, and so my brain would tell me that if I was successful, it would hinder our relationship, it would make the other person uncomfortable and that is a form of people pleasing. And so people pleasing and perfectionism can really show up to wreak havoc and make us afraid of having success when we want to make a change in our life.
Speaker 1: 10:11
And the second reason we self-sabotage can be low self-esteem can be low self-esteem. When you have low self-esteem, you expect yourself to fail, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing you are not good enough makes it so that your external reality aligns with your internal beliefs about yourself, and it's a defense mechanism. And this defense mechanism may cause you to intentionally mess up. And when you do that, it's a form of control, because you are creating a familiar outcome which, on some level, may make you feel like you have control over the situation, may make you feel like you have control over the situation, because our inner critic, our ego, wants everything to stay the same. Keeping things the same equals safety and security, because even if something is uncomfortable, it's familiar and we know how things are going to play out. So creating a change creates instability and insecurity.
Speaker 1: 11:24
And when we have low self-esteem, low self-confidence, we doubt our ability to succeed. We don't think we're good enough, we don't think we're worthy, and so we self-sabotage to fulfill the self-fulfilling prophecy and feel like we have control in our life. I hope that makes sense. I know it's a little tricky, but low self-esteem can make you feel unworthy and not trust yourself. And not trusting yourself will make you want to keep everything the same, keep the status quo, even if it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: 12:05
And the third reason why you may be self-sabotaging is fear of failure. You would rather not take the risk of being disappointed, being hurt, of being disappointed, being hurt of not doing a good job, of needing to try again. And fear of failure can sabotage you by keeping you stuck and frozen in your fear, completely unable to make a decision. And sometimes real failure is not trying at all, just staying in that place of indecision because you're afraid to take a risk. Fear of failure can also cause you to avoid a situation Like maybe you start ghosting the person that you're really interested in because you're afraid that they're going to hurt you in the long run, or you ignore the signs from your blood work showing you that you need to make a life change. And the problem actually gets worse when you try to tackle it later on down the road because you are afraid that if you do something about it and you fail, then that may mean that there's really no hope for you.
Speaker 1: 13:17
And the fourth reason is fear of the unknown. So we kind of touched on this already. But our ego, our inner critic, likes to keep the status quo, keep things the same because they're safe, they're familiar. And we severely underestimate our subconscious draw to the familiar, even if it's hurtful to us, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's blocking us from the life we really want, the relationships we really want, because that is unknown territory. We don't know how to play that game, we don't know the rules of that game. And stepping outside of our comfort zone is always uncomfortable. And that discomfort isn't always bad, it can actually be a good sign of growth. But we sometimes self-sabotage and subconsciously pull ourselves back from a situation halting our progress because it's unfamiliar. We don't know what's going to happen. So, as you can see, fear is a common theme here, even with self-esteem, because we are afraid that we're not good enough, that we're not worthy enough.
Speaker 1: 14:36
And even though the current lifestyle or current relationship is uncomfortable, it's familiar In our actions how self-sabotage is playing out in our lives. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The real issues lie beneath the surface. They lie beneath the eating ice cream late at night or drinking wine when we promised we wouldn't, or being afraid to get close with somebody or needing a ton of validation from them to feel secure. And there are some simple practices you can do to help address the deeper issue.
Speaker 1: 15:17
But first I have to fill you in on an exciting announcement I am moving to a new brick and mortar location in downtown Napa, and the best part about this new location is that it has space for workshops, in-person live workshops. On Sunday April 14th, I'm hosting a workshop called how to be your own best friend, where I'm going to show you tools to quiet your inner perfectionist, to release people pleasing, to soothe that negative self-talk so that it's not driving your actions. We're going to talk about what's beneath the self-sabotage that you are experiencing and what you can do to change that. Because when you change what's going on in the background, what's happening beneath the surface, then taking the actions become so much more easier and real, lasting change becomes possible. Tickets for this event are limited because I like to keep it cozy and intimate. I've done this same workshop several times at various retreats and at corporate events, and I'm so excited to share it with you. This event is also fun. I know internal work can be heavy, but when it's done in a supportive environment it can be a great time. I've never had a workshop that didn't include laughter, and I will also lead you through a special guided group meditation for releasing perfectionism and people pleasing. So, like I said, there is a limited number of tickets and I have a feeling they're going to go really fast. So if you're ready to release self-sabotaging behaviors like perfectionism, people pleasing and negative self-talk that is keeping your self-esteem low, this workshop is for you. You can find the link to sign up for the how to Be your Own Best Friend workshop on my website at mrs-hardcom, and I'll also put a link in the show notes. But in the meantime, between now and then, there are some other things you can practice to ease your inner saboteur.
Speaker 1: 17:34
First, start small. Don't try to change everything at once. All Don't try to change everything at once. Sometimes, when we're embarking on a new health journey, we want to change every single thing cutting out gluten, cutting out sugar, cutting out dairy, going vegan, you know, whatever it is, we want to do it all at once and we get kind of high off of that. It actually like revs up our adrenaline a little bit and we get a little buzz off of it. That's why you may find that you have a lot of success at the beginning of a diet and you're excited about it, you're enthusiastic. But then that wears off after a week or two and then the self-sabotaging behavior starts to kick in. So, even if it doesn't feel like as much fun in the beginning, start small. Choose one or two things you're going to change and give yourself time to really implement those changes instead of going full bore all at once.
Speaker 1: 18:31
Next, make a plan. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I love the power of a well thought out plan, because the plan works when we're overwhelmed and a plan helps us to stay on track. So we're not needing to make so many decisions moment to moment, because decision fatigue is real. If you haven't heard of decision fatigue, it shows up mostly at the end of the day, when, after you've had to make a ton of decisions at work, a bunch of decisions for your kids, for your family, and you are literally tired of making decisions, and so your willpower goes out the window. And if someone puts a glass of wine in front of you or a pint of ice cream, you're going to say hell yes, because you're stressed, you're overwhelmed and you want those good, good endorphins from the sugar, from the alcohol. You want to let go, you want to relieve the pressure that you feel because it builds up through the day. But when you have a plan, it can keep you on track and it can help you be more successful and it can give you a fighting chance at sticking with your good behavior goals rather than slipping off track.
Speaker 1: 19:49
And then what are you going to replace whatever you're removing with? If you're removing something from your life, like if you're removing a food or sugar or alcohol, what are you going to replace it with? Replace it with a. You going to replace it with. Replace it with a bath, replace it with some yoga, replace it with a self-love meditation. You can find those on YouTube. You're going to have to find something else that's going to take the edge off, that's going to support you, because, even though you may be practicing a behavior that's quote unquote bad, that behavior is serving you. It's helping you in some way. It's helping you decompress or get an endorphin hit, and so you have to replace it with something. Otherwise, you just have a void, and that's really hard to avoid.
Speaker 1: 20:40
Another thing you can do is play the tape forward. So how many times have you set out, with good intentions, to make a change and you wake up the next day feeling guilt, feeling shame, or sometimes even right after you do the thing, you feel guilt and you feel shame. What are you going to do instead? Play the tape forward. Think about how, if you make this decision that you don't really want to make, how it's going to affect you In the relationship example, if you withdraw from this person even though you really want connection, but you're afraid of putting yourself out there, you're afraid of getting hurt again, there's no way you're going to have a successful relationship. Play the tape forward. Maybe you've done this in the past. How has it worked out in the past? Maybe it's worth the risk, even if you're subconsciously drawn to the familiar. And so play the tape forward. What are you doing? That may be self-sabotaging your goals and your progress, and then create a plan. What can you do instead? And it's really best if you make this plan ahead of time, instead of when pressure's on and the thing is happening, because it's hard to change our behaviors in those moments. It's much easier when we don't have as much on our plate or as much pressure, and so make this a part of your morning routine.
Speaker 1: 22:05
Take a couple minutes in the morning to write down what you really want for yourself and how you're going to get there, and then inquire about the different fears that might be coming up. Are you having a fear of success? Do you have low self-esteem? So are you afraid that you're not enough, that you're not worthy? Are you having a fear of success? Do you have low self-esteem? So are you afraid that you're not enough, that you're not worthy? Are you afraid of failure? Are you afraid of the unknown? Check in with those points and see, you know, if you can inquire as to where these fears are coming from and see if you can create some perspective shift. You know. Question if you think that these fears are valid. Are they really serving you? Where did they come from?
Speaker 1: 22:46
And, like I said, I'm hosting a live workshop on April 14th, from 10 to 1130 am, called how to Be your Own Best Friend. We're going to dive into all of this stuff together, and I find that it's so much easier to move through these obstacles when you're supported, when you realize you're not alone, when you're guided by somebody who's been there, who's done that and who has a better relationship with self-sabotaging. I'm going to be honest with you. Sometimes I still do it, but I can see it coming or I can notice it quickly afterwards and I can change my decisions and I can understand where it's coming from, what's motivating it, and that is empowering. That allows me to take a different road, which doesn't feel as scary because I've done the internal work around it, and this all leads to a different outcome, an outcome that propels you towards what you really want for yourself, what you really deserve for yourself. So this workshop will be fun. It'll be insightful. You'll learn proven practices to release your inner saboteur.
Speaker 1: 24:00
So join me. Find that link on my website at mrs-hardcom. Find it in the show notes. If you follow me on Instagram at mrshardtimes underscore no more you'll be able to see it up on my Instagram. There'll be plenty of places to find this link. And don't forget it's going to find this link. And don't forget it's going to sell out fast and so I don't know when you're listening to this episode, but if it's way past the date, april 14th, check my website anyways, because I plan on having ongoing workshops in my new space, so I'm looking forward to seeing you there and connecting in the future. Until next time, take care.