The Art of Getting Out of Your Own Way
It happened one night, naked in my bathroom, as all good stories do.
I was getting ready for bed, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing about how fat I felt. Staring at my gut in the mirror and beating myself up, I racked my brain for what changes I could make to my workout routine because it clearly wasn’t working.
I mean, I had been workout religiously for 7 whole days. Why was I still fat?
I told myself that I had to rethink everything about my fitness and diet and make giant sweeping changes to every corner of my life or else I would be like this for…
And then it hit me.
I don’t know why, but right then I understood, and for the first time in my life I took my foot off the brake…
The Dragster of Self-Sabotage
“I feel like I’m sitting in a drag racer with one foot hard down on the gas and one foot hard down on the brake. I’m just spinning my wheels and smoking tires. And I know that if I just take my foot off the brake, I would shoot forward faster than I can imagine.”
I have said some form of this quote to every therapist, partner, and friend I have had over the last two decades. Some of them have understood, some of them have empathized, but no one really had a solution.
But that night, standing before my mirror, after 20+ years of tripping myself at finish lines and shoving sticks into my own tire spokes, I finally understood why we sabotage ourselves, and more importantly, how we can stop.
Self-sabotage is tricky, because most of the time we don’t realize we’re doing it. We just know we keep screwing up or getting in our own way, while constantly feeling like we’re capable of so much more.
If only we could take our foot off the brake…
It’s easier to recognize sabotaging behavior with drugs, or alcohol, or smoking, or binge-eating – destructive habits with physical effects we and others can see.
But what about when you’ve worked for years with no progress to show for it?
What about when you feel like you’ve done everything right but still keep failing?
What about those times when you know you’re capable of more, like that dragster smoking its tires, but you can feel yourself holding back?
This is why, for years, self-sabotage made no sense to me.
For every other destructive or unhealthy behavior in my life, I could trace the logic of why I had done it and what it gave me in return.
Alcohol gave me a buzz.
Smoking gave me a rush.
Overeating gave me pleasurable tastes.
What did self-sabotage give me?
Why was I constantly getting in my own way?
What could I possibly be getting out of this?
Was I afraid of failure? Then failing on purpose so at least it was on my term – a sort of “you can’t fire me, I quit” type of approach?
Was I afraid of success for… some reason?
Both?
None of this made sense.
Until that night, staring at my gut in the bathroom mirror…
I felt fat, I felt unattractive, and standing there that night, all I wanted was to not feel that.
That’s when I realized what self-sabotage is: it’s the inability to be uncomfortable.
The reason behind all of these behaviors (destructive and self-sabotaging) is the same:
Self-sabotage is a spectrum of comfort.
The extreme ends of this spectrum are where you’re most likely to throw a wrench in your own gears.
It’s like a defense mechanism that kicks in when you sense that you’re too far out of your comfort zone.
The middle section is where you’re least likely to encounter self-sabotage, and it’s not hard to see why.
This area is your “Comfort Zone,” the zone where you are – you guessed it – comfortable.
Here’s the thing: we don’t sabotage ourselves when we’re comfortable.
Comfortable in this sense doesn’t mean “happy” or “content,” it just means that we aren’t currently feeling discomfort.
We might be bored or unfulfilled or numb, but we aren’t actively uncomfortable and that’s the key.
On the extremes of the spectrum, we’re uncomfortable.
We may feel too bad, or we may feel too good (what Gay Hendricks calls “The Upper Limit Problem”), but either way our internal barometer has alerted us that something is too far out of whack, and we need to correct this imbalance, pronto.
Maybe that means eating a whole pint of ice cream because you already feel fat and ugly, so why deprive yourself?
Maybe it means having a silly fight with your partner after selling your first painting at a gallery show. Things are going a little too well, right? Something will spoil it eventually, might as well be this.
But if self-sabotage is a natural reaction, how do we stop it?
How To Stop Self-Sabotage
That night, standing before my mirror, it was like the world opened up before me.
All I had to do to guarantee my long-term goals and plans was to not respond to my discomfort.
This, I realized, was the key to stopping self-sabotage:
Never make a decision or take any action when you feel uncomfortable.
Unhappy, miserable, angry, hungry, tired, whatever; when you feel uncomfortable, the key is to do nothing. Or as close to nothing as you can come.
Don’t revamp your plans.
Don’t Google workout routines that you’ll definitely start tomorrow morning at 5am, you super-duper-promise this time.
Don’t have that talk with your partner you’ve been putting off because you just can’t wait one more second.
Don’t do anything.
Isn’t this just denying and avoiding the problem?
Nope. It’s the opposite. It’s recognizing that you’re not in a proper state of mind to solve the problem. You’re emotional and reactive.
Generals on battlefields don’t make plans when the mortars are whistling their way; they make them well ahead of time when it’s quiet and calm.
The best time to make decisions, change plans, or take action, is when you’re seeing things clearly. When you’re calm.
When life is at its hardest, when you are at your most uncomfortable, do not question your plans – that’s how you stop self-sabotage and make progress on your long-term goals.
Accepting Your Stumbles
So what did I do that night?
I went to bed, woke up feeling better, and did my workout the next day, as planned. In short, I stuck to the plan.
But I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that it’s easy to stop self-sabotage.
Barely a week after that fateful night, I woke up feeling moody and skipped my workout that day because I was mad, yet again, at my perceived lack of progress.
Not reacting to your discomfort is simple, but it’s not easy.
This is a game of awareness.
The more you can become aware of your moments of discomfort – even when life is seemingly going well – the more opportunities you will have to catch those moments of self-sabotage.
This takes practice. Lots of practice.
There will still be times when you sacrifice long-term gain for short-term pleasure without even realizing you’ve done it.
In those moments, the secret is the same. Don’t react.
Don’t swerve just because you had an off day. Don’t punish yourself for a misstep. That is the same self-sabotaging behavior we’re trying to avoid.
Let it go.
Stay aware.
Stick to the plan.
Try again tomorrow.
This is the way.