Anxiety and Self-Sabotage:
You may have heard the expression that anxiety is the cousin of depression. Well, anxiety also has a best friend, and its name is self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage and anxiety often go hand-in-hand – where anxiety goes, self-sabotage tends to follow. The problem is that self-sabotage is often sneaky, and may not be as recognizable as feelings of anxiety. You may even find yourself confusing self-sabotage with external factors, blaming issues outside of your control as a reason why you’re holding yourself back.
As you know, I’m a health and wellness coach for anxiety. I chose this path because I have gone through my own battle with anxiety and self-sabotage, so I empathize with how you may be feeling. I know it isn’t fun, but I also know you can overcome it. I want to offer my personal management methods to prevent others from struggling the same way I did.
Here’s what you need to know about managing anxiety and self-sabotage:
What is the cycle of anxiety-induced self-sabotage?
As I said, feelings of anxiety tend to be much more recognizable than self-sabotage. When we feel our anxiety beginning to bubble up, a common reaction is to try to avoid it. When a difficult decision arises or we’re faced with situations that make us feel uncomfortable, we don’t want to deal with the associated feelings of anxiety so we run.
Running away is self-sabotage at work. Sneaky, isn’t it?
The form of self-sabotage I am referring to here is when we use factors outside of our control as an excuse for why we can’t achieve our goals. For example – procrastination.
Procrastination happens when we become overwhelmed with our inability to tolerate uncertainty. Feelings of anxiety often cause us to overcomplicate situations in our mind, and self-sabotage offers a desirable –but false– sense of comfort.
Self-sabotage validates our anxiety. It allows us to convince ourselves that it’s okay to not challenge our feelings of uncertainty, keeping us chained to the confinements of our comfort zone. It knows you don’t want to feel uncomfortable, so it offers a counterproductive solution in hopes you’ll abandon your ambitions and retreat to safety.
On the flip side, perfectionist tendencies are also a form of self-sabotage. Setting unachievable standards and believing you have to be great at everything is setting yourself up for failure, as you will become overextended and burn out. No one is good at everything, and building up expectations in your mind that you need to be a superhero in order to be validated opens the door for anxiety, overwhelmedness, and the sneaky hand of self-sabotage to waltz in.
How to manage your self-sabotaging nature
The good news is that just like anxiety, self-sabotage can be managed.
Prioritize – Focus on one-two goals at a time so you don’t feel overextended and overwhelmed. Rome wasn’t built in a day, your personal portfolio shouldn’t be, either.
Start small – Set achievable expectations for yourself using small, tangible steps. Eventually, you will get to where you want to be, but without feelings of burn out or overextension. Small changes create big results.
Ask for help – It’s in our nature to try to figure everything out on our own. It plays into the whole “trying to be the best at everything” facade. But asking for help can actually set you up for success faster and easier in the long run. By gaining insight from someone who knows how to complete a certain task, you will learn how to do it properly without wasting time and energy on trial and error. Remember, you are human. You are not going to have all the answers all the time, and that’s okay!
Call out self-sabotage – Become aware of when you are giving into self-sabotage and call yourself out. You can do this out loud or in your head. When you catch yourself saying/thinking something negative or notice you’re convincing yourself to avoid something, stop and simply say the phrase, “self-sabotage.” The more aware we become of our actions, the easier they become to manage. Remember, you cannot control something you don’t acknowledge.
Make lists – You may find it helpful to make a list of your recurring thoughts of self-sabotage. You can even write them down on your phone as you think of them. This will help you to remember and call out the thought the next time it arises.
Next, make another list that counteracts those self-limiting beliefs. It can be a “proof list;” a list where you prove to yourself all the times you were faced with self-sabotage and overcame it. Write down the experiences you had where you overcame your anxiety and self-sabotaging thoughts and came out stronger. When negative thoughts arise, pull out your list and prove to yourself that you have overcome these thoughts before and you will do it again.
Finally, make a third list of the times you didn’t accomplish something the way you thought you would, but instead, you learned something that ultimately made stronger, wiser, or brought you happiness. If you are still having fears of failing after reading your first proof list, pull out this list to prove to yourself that even during times when you may have “failed,” you still came out the other side. Showing yourself proof that you will still be okay during times of “failure” helps remove the scary unknown factor behind failing, making self-limiting beliefs become powerless.
Limit decisions – Limit the amount of small decisions that cause you to stress and panic. For example, know what you’re going to wear the next morning by laying out your clothes before you go to bed. Make your lunch the night before, meal-prep for the week, plan when you are going to budget time to clean your house, etc.
This helps preserve your energy throughout the day so you have more capacity to make bigger, more important decisions without feeling overwhelmed.
Limit distractions – If you have responsibilities you need to get done, give yourself a reasonable time frame to complete it and try to remove any distractions during this period. Put away your phone, turn off the TV, and remove anything that is going to take your mind away from the task at hand. Learn to master time management. With time management comes less room for anxiety and self-sabotage to sneak in. With less room for anxiety and self-sabotage, comes more room for freedom and growth.
Love and light,
Julia
