Self-sabotaging habits are sneaky. Most of us don’t even notice when they rob themselves and their lives by falling into these patterns. That’s because we’re bombarded by information that only supports it: self-help books and articles, all those images of highly successful people. What they do is—often—hold you back from enjoying your life.
So, let’s talk about three ways all of us (including me!) self-sabotage our lives without being consciously aware.
1. Bettering Yourself No Matter the Cost
When we take on a project, it’s easy to think we’re enriching our lives. But is it that simple?
For instance, you decided to take up running. A fitness freak will list 100 cool benefits this habit will give you. But what about what you’ll lose? All those things you were doing during that time —and even more.
Firstly, the time. You’ll have to plan your day to fit in this activity, change your clothes before and after, take a shower… Secondly, the energy. You can only accomplish a certain number of difficult tasks a day, and physical exercise takes up some of the energy you used to give to other spheres of your life.
If someone says, “I now wake up 40 minutes earlier every day and go for a run,” you might respect their effort. But that’s because they forgot to add, “So I don’t have morning sex anymore.” And how about, “I’ve started learning the Greek alphabet, so I never hang out with my friends these days.”
If you do consider the cost, you might conclude that those walks in the park with your friends and a couple of Pilates classes a week you already have are enough.
2. Telling Yourself You’ll Magically Become Another Person
Imagine a person who spends all day at a dead-end job and plays video games every night (yeah, that’s me!). They have a vague feeling like they might be missing something, but aren’t doing anything to change the situation.
This person might dream of how, in 10 years, they’ll own a fancy restaurant network and live happily ever after. That’s just a coping mechanism, which exists for a reason—to protect us from the harsh truth. But it may also work against us.
Someone who realizes they are just the laid-back, low-energy type who will never turn into a human dynamo may devise a more straightforward, working strategy to change their life in small ways, just enough to feel comfortable.
More importantly, they may start doing a single thing every day that will bring the kind of change they need. Maybe all they actually needed was just new social activities or a chance to start a new creative hobby (possibly, that also has a perspective of paying well): making photos of your friends’ events, performing simple graphic design tasks for local businesses, making and selling tote bags embroidered with unusual patterns, like Celtic symbols, or even basket weaving.
Why work hard to become successful when you’re already happy?
3. Being Too Strategic
Imagine you go to your doctor and suddenly find out that you’re prone to a kind of bacterial infection, with which you’ll have to struggle for the rest of your life. You’ll have to do a specific procedure to treat the infection twice a day, every day. Moreover, you’ll have to visit the doctor twice a year and possibly undergo painful treatment, which will grow more and more invasive with time. You’ll even have to replace parts of your body with a kind of implants!
Yeah, the bacteria are caries, as you might have guessed by now! When you brush your teeth, you don’t focus on the amount of work that having better teeth involves—and this is part of the success.
Planning a long-term project might make you feel like it’s too much of a burden. Take, for instance, learning any skill. At the beginning, when you look at those who’ve already mastered it, it might seem like a mountain of work looming overhead. Hundreds of hours! But for many skills, even half an hour a day will bring you where you want to be, in the long run.
So, those who don’t consider the long-term perspective too much and view it only as “one piece of work today” often succeed faster.
Conclusion
Focusing on “how” to accomplish something instead of “why” is a common thinking pattern. That’s because this approach permeates the sources of information we contact daily, from social networks to self-help books and courses. After all, they aim to sell their products, and they have to make you think you need to change your life—and make you believe it’s worth it.
At the end of the day, though, it’s up to you to ask other questions, such as “Why do I want it?”, “What will I lose to get it?” and “Do I need it, given the cost?”