Abdicate the Self-Saboteur Throne: Love Your Best Life

You could love your life.

You’ve got the brains, the tenacity, the experience.

But you wreaked your life - again. Been there. Done that.

You tanked your progress. You burned bridges. You destroyed yourself, your opportunity, your dreams. Success is fleeting and evades your touch no matter the goal. A healthy body. A stable relationship. A secure job. You approach it, then you lose it.

Every time.

And loved ones ask you: Don’t you care about yourself? Why do you ruin your life?

You are painfully aware that you have self-defeating behaviors. You wonder: Maybe you hate yourself? Is your inability to succeed some hidden low-self-esteem? Everyone around you seems to think so...

And you want to win at life but can’t seem to do so.

If you have crowned yourself the Royal Self-Saboteur - (And I understand!) - you are looking for a way to stop your pattern and live your best life. A life you can love.

What if I told you that everything you have been trying is making it worse? And…that removing that self-saboteur crown for good is possible?

Give me five minutes. I understand you and self-sabotage. I’ve been there. I’ll show you why what you have tried is making the struggle worse. Then, I’ll offer the one solution you have not considered!

I threw away my self-sabotage crown and have not looked back. You can abdicate that throne, too!

The Life of the Self-Saboteur

How’s your health?

You plan your workouts. The scale reads the pounds melting. And then one morning, you don’t get out of bed in time to work out. Yes, you stayed up too late to finish your binge watching or stayed out too late. Mistake one. (Choice One…) And the next day, you are just too tired. You tell yourself: “I missed two days and ruined the entire week. I’ll start on Sunday and be perfect next time.”

You’ll enter the rabbit hole many times. Your bloodwork evidences an improved A1C or lower cholesterol. But you pound down cupcakes and bacon. You meet your friends at the bar that has those great cheese fries. Or you remember you must stop at the grocery store for milk - and walk right past the ice cream freezer. Heck, why not? You deserve some happiness!

Saturday night you forget to set your alarm and oversleep on Sunday. Guess those workouts will have to wait until next week! Can’t start on Monday - then the week won’t be perfect.

And you are perfectly unhealthy for another week.

And chastising yourself.

How’s your career?

You’re about to get that promotion - if you finish the major project on time, it will be your shining moment. But you put off the key research. And you can’t find last year’s data - which you swore you put in the cloud so you could access it from home.

And you ruminate: Why would they promote you? You’re just faking it. You’re just a fraud.

You present the project the morning it’s due, but you’ve missed key points and your supervisors are unimpressed. Your manager informs you she’s awarded the promotion to your coworker. “But maybe next year you’ll be in the running,” she says.

So, you quit. Because screw that job. They don’t appreciate you. You’ll get another job. A better job that will motivate you to do your best. Where you’ll be appreciated…

Appreciated like you are with your newest partner. This is the one. Your person. Every date over six months has been incredible. You agree on politics, religion, lifestyle. You’re educationally and intellectually compatible. And the sex is brilliant!

But then, he or she forgets your birthday. And you let it slide. Then, he or she jokes about your sore spot in front of your judgmental grandmother. You make a face but say nothing because you don’t want to fight. Until this week, when he or she doesn’t pay the rent like promised. You decide you can’t trust this person.

You ignore or swallow your negative emotions. You criticize your partner, focus on his or her flaws, and hold grudges, rehashing that old incident with every argument! And worse, you direct your energy to other activities - or other persons - outside the relationship.

And you get angry. And you demand a change. And the other person resists, confused because he or she insists things are going so well. You label your partner a liar and it’s as good as over. And you cry and hope there is someone out there for you.

What starts as a list of petty annoyances escalates into your patterned, scripted, nail-in-the-coffin ending. You’re too hard on yourself - replaying mistakes or insisting on perfectionism or paralyzed and procrastinating. You catastrophize and focus on the negative. You’re disorganized. You tolerate clutter and often lose things. You suffer from imposter syndrome. Your locus of control is skewed: success is because of others; failure is all yours. You can’t say no and overdo…everything.

Depression, emotional eating, self-medicating, anxiety, and burnout result. You rationalize surfing the internet, your video game obsession or chronic shopping - or consumption of pornography or drug use. Don’t you deserve to feel better?!

But these additional destructive behaviors don’t help you feel better. They are manure rocks in your barbed wire self-saboteur crown.

The Bottom

And you stare out the window watching the snow melt, nurse your cup of coffee or tea, and decide you will get a handle on your life. I’ve been there. You make lists. You read self-help books. You take self-improvement classes and attend workshops. You create a detailed schedule. You sync your bedtime to your circadian rhythm. You put post-it reminders all over the house - next to your affirmations signs. You place your sneakers and workout clothes at the foot of the bed. You do therapy, hire a coach, visit that psychic on the boardwalk.

And you’ve become fluent in the popular guidance: You must work on your low self-esteem. You have unhealthy beliefs about relationships. You have poor coping skills. You fear conflict. You fear failure - or success. You are so versed in the diagnosis, you’re practically a licensed therapist! You’ve talk-therapied your fill for this life.

And you secure a new, better job. And you enter a relationship with a new, better lover. And you buy a cutting-edge treadmill and subscribe to a food diary app.

It’s going to be different this time. You’ve got this. You repeat those affirmations over and over.

And as the leaves turn gold and red, and the football season begins, you’ve quit another job, you’re having regular arguments with your partner, and you’ve gained ten pounds.

You know what’s wrong, but you can’t seem to stop doing it.

Uncomfortable Truth #1

What you think is the source of your struggle is not what is wrong.

Knowing the cause of your self-sabotage behaviors does not change your behavior. And talking about it, thinking about it, and reciting affirmations you are a great and competent person becomes additional layers of gilding on your crown - and of pain on your core traumas.

In fact, labeling yourself as a self-saboteur absolutely ensures you will remain one.

Uncomfortable Truth #2

Your self-sabotage pattern is a brain defense mechanism formed in your childhood. And until you uncover the source of your brain program and rewire that pattern, you will continue to robotically self-sabotage.

But, as you read these words, you’ll protest, I was aware. I was thinking. I was in control.

You were not as aware as you believe. You were not thinking. You were emotionally responding. And you won’t sense something is wrong until you are living the negative result: The poor relationship. The extra ten pounds. The job you never should have taken.

And, all the while, you become more addicted to the emotional result.

The source of your brain pattern - the crucial moment - is rarely a big moment for which your therapist digs. It’s never the day your parents divorced or the day you suffered a severe punishment. The big crescendo moments are almost never the key moment. The key moment is not a moment at all. It’s a key pattern - usually the under-the-radar small, repetitive experiences. Those experiences let your brain reenact its misguided solution experiment.

Uncomfortable Truth #3

Without targeted intervention, your brain will continue its experiment. Have you considered you are accepting jobs you will tank? That you are entering relationships so you can execute your breakup routine? That you are unconsciously programmed to reward yourself with unhealthy food or stay up too late? That everything you choose to do or try is the first step leading to you executing your self-sabotage ritual?

Oh, that’s a new perspective.

You are unconsciously working toward executing that self-sabotage plan.

Because as long as you do, your brain tells you that you are safe.

Your brain is working against you.

Solution:

The most dangerous approach you can take is the self-soothing one of self-acceptance. Experts from every corner of the mental health circus recommend positive affirmations, journaling, getting comfortable with failure. You are just reinforcing your brain pattern: Yes, the self-sabotage solution is acceptable. Let’s keep doing it.

In fact, I know as a recovered self-saboteur, as you are reading this, you are resisting. Because your brain does not want you to rewire.

You’ve tried everything but Break Method: The industry disruptive therapy-alternative that gets sustainable results in less than 20 weeks. With Break Method, you don’t stop at identifying the reason behind your self-sabotage. You root it out and rewire your brain patterns. Break Method has helped over 15,000 clients rewire emotional reactivity, self-sabotage, communication breakdowns, and bad habits. You can, too!

For a deeper dive, check out this video: How to Stop Doing Things You Later Regret

Or, if you are ready to love your life, abdicate the self-saboteur throne and throw away that gilded crown, take the Break Method Brain Pattern Assessment.

If you're ready, book a FREE Break Advisory call with Gordon to come up with a unique strategy for you to heal.

We’re loving life over here. We’re ten pounds lighter. We’re succeeding. And we’re madly in love - with our partner - and ourselves. Come join the revolution!