The Failure Formula: Finding your way out of the self-sabotage trap

We can be our own worst enemies. But why is that little part of you so hell-bent on f*#king things up?

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Picture the scene: 

There was this guy I used to work with who I'd been in love with for years but was too afraid to ask out on a date. I told myself "if we were meant to be, then it would happen," and then I waited and waited. One night, the perfect opportunity arose: he suggested he should come to mine so we could do some work on a joint project, together, alone, in my flat. Surely, I thought, this was it! But do you know what I did that night? From the moment he arrived, I proceeded to make crass, inappropriate jokes even though I could see they weren't landing. It was like I was watching from the sidelines, horrified, but with no way to intervene as my traitorous mouth spewed profanity after profanity. I've got nothing against swearing, but I don't usually use the C word, and he knew it, so as it tumbled from my lips a fourth and fifth time… Ugh… I can still see his face, looking at me as if I'd gone completely mad. 

I know I'm not alone in stories like this. We all self-sabotage. But why is that little part of our minds so hell-bent on effing things up?

Defining self-sabotage 

Let's start with a simple definition. I talk a lot about self-sabotage and I usually describe it like this: anything we think, feel or do and then really wish we hadn't. 

If you take pretty much any example of this and look under the hood, you'll find some kind of fear, doubt or negative self-belief. Now, there's nothing wrong with those things – they're a part of being human. The experience of shame, for example, is proof that you're not psychopathic, which is almost certainly a good thing. But sometimes (maybe often) our negative self-beliefs can grow too powerful. These kinds of beliefs – often referred to as "limiting beliefs" – can govern our behaviour in such a destructive way that we find ourselves doing exactly the wrong thing at precisely the worst moment.

In other words, limiting beliefs – and all of our very worst self-focused fears – can lead to self-sabotage if (or maybe when) they wind up functioning like self-fulfilling prophecies.

For example: 

• The athlete who just doesn't believe they deserve the title develops a mysterious injury the night before the final, that disappears the following day.

• The student who is petrified that they're just too stupid to pass their maths A-Level, finds themselves with a totally blank mind as soon as they sit down in the examination hall.

• The young woman so consumed with self-loathing that she just can't believe the guy she likes could ever find her attractive starts spouting obscenities non-stop while he watches on, baffled. 

Examples of fear-related self-sabotage
- Psychosomatic pain, injury or illness
- Performance anxiety (leading to procrastination, clamming up, a blank mind, etc.)
- Social anxiety (leading to withdrawal, irrational behaviour, speaking too loudly/softly, etc.)
- And much more, including comfort eating, overachieving, self-medicating with drugs/alcohol, self-injury, self-criticism…

It's the stuff of nightmares. So why do we do it to ourselves?

Ultimately, the defining factor is this: to the unconscious mind – that emotion-, thought- and behaviour-generating system whose primary concern is to keep us alive – familiarity will always seem safer than novelty. That is true even when what we're familiar with is utterly miserable. After all, if something is known to us, then there is incontrovertible evidence that we are able to survive it. The same cannot be said about anything that is unknown, no matter how shiny and positive it might appear to the conscious mind.

So when we're presented with the possibility of breaking the mould – of growing, changing, becoming something new and exciting, or doing something damaging that proves all of our old, familiar self-doubts correct, there will always be a part of the mind that reaches, in a kind of desperate panic, for the latter, believing it can keep us safe when things stay the same. 

This is not to say that we're doomed to forever live out our greatest fears, because of course we're not. We can change. We do change. It just won't always happen effortlessly, unless we work on the system of beliefs that stand in the way. 

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Thank you for reading!

We’re Hazel (ex boxer, therapist and author) and Ellie (ex psychology science writer). We left our jobs to build an interactive narrative app for self-awareness and emotion regulation (Betwixt), which you can try on Android here and on iOS here.

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