You’re frustrated. You feel stuck in a repetitive motion, running at a crazy pace on a hamster wheel—getting nowhere—and perhaps even running the wrong way.
The truth is most people are totally unaware that they are sometimes controlled by internal mechanisms that are designed to protect, but that can actually function to sabotage certain goals in their lives. The fact is, all of us possess self-destructive elements that can manifest at any time in a variety of ways. We perform this harmonious dance back and forth between what we truly want and what stops us from achieving it.
“Behavior is said to be self-sabotaging when it creates problems and interferes with long- standing goals. The most common self-sabotaging behaviors are procrastination, self- medication with drugs or alcohol, comfort eating in the face of weight concerns, and self-injury. These acts may seem helpful in the moment, but ultimately undermine us, especially when we engage in them repeatedly.”(1)
Self-sabotage is easier to recognize when someone else is doing it to themselves versus when you are doing it to yourself. Nowhere is the power of a fear-based mindset more evident than when we sabotage our own dreams … and ultimately our success, too.
In her book, Mindset, Carol Dweck Ph.D. says your chances of successful change rely less on your ability and your circumstances, and more on your belief system and how you believe things can or will change. Essentially, she puts people in two different groups—those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset.
