Episode 18: Why You Keep Sabotaging Yourself (& How To Stop)

You say you want the thing or the change or the new opportunity, but as soon as you start working towards it, you stop.

Something comes up, there's a drama or you find something urgent to do and you let yourself down, again.

Self-sabotage isn't laziness, it's fear in disguise.

In this episode I'm breaking down:

- What self-sabotage really is
- Why you do it
- How self-sabotage shows up in really sneaky ways
- What you need to do to stop stopping yourself

This one's for you if you're sick of starting and stopping and you're finally ready to get out of your own way.

Did this resonate?

Book a free strategy call with me here and let's chat further.

#lifecoach #womenslifecoach #selfregulation #selfmastery #selfmanagement #emotionalregulation #nervoussystem #nervoussystemregulation #livewithpurpose #liveyourbestlife #beyourbestself #changeyourthinkingchangeyourlife #personaldevelopment #personalgrowth #personalgrowthjourney  

Procrastinators, this will change the way you show up for yourself and help you make serious progress in just 7 days.

STOP putting your progress on the back burner

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MAKE more progress in a week than you have in the last month

Get instant access to STOP Procrastinating in 7 Days here.

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If you know you want more from your life or career but you're totally stuck about where to start, I invite you to book a complimentary strategy call with me here.

We'll uncover what's holding you back from the goals you want to achieve and you'll leave the call with actionable steps to get you moving in the right direction.

For the tea on me, how I work, who I coach and the packages I offer, please visit my website - www.emmaobriencoach.com

You can also connect with me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach where I share an abundance of tools, strategies and brilliant content, you might also see the occasional dog.

Transcript

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Emma O'Brien: Hi, folks welcome to episode 18 of the lemons and pineapples podcast with me, Emma O'brien today, we're going to be talking about why you self sabotage. Even when you want something really, really badly. Self sabotage has to be one of the most frustrating behaviors that we do as humans. I know I have got really cross with myself over

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Emma O'Brien: multiple times for not taking action on things, for procrastinating, and for literally, I think of self-sabotage as throwing yourself under the bus. When you know you want something. You've got a plan. You've got a goal, you know the action you need to take, but you get in your own way somehow, and you don't end up taking the action.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm going to talk a little bit more about how this shows up, but I 1st want to talk about why self sabotage shows up. And what's really happening when you set your sights on the thing, the job, the business you want to start the move you want to make in your life, and the big change you want to make.

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Emma O'Brien: and you really really want it. But you just can't get yourself from where you're sitting stuck to, where it is you want to go, or maybe you start a bit, and then you go. Oh, it's too hard, or something comes up, or there's some sort of drama

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Emma O'Brien: it shows up in all sorts of different ways. Fundamentally.

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Emma O'Brien: self-sabotage is caused by a part of your brain called your amygdala, which is the alarm system of your brain. I've talked about this before on previous podcasts, particularly the ones that talk about self-regulation and emotional regulation. We have this amygdala that's constantly scanning for threats all the time.

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Emma O'Brien: It's scanning for lions, tigers, and bears, but unfortunately, our equivalent of lions, tigers, and bears these days is emails, other people. And you know anything that might be a slight risk out into the unknown.

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Emma O'Brien: This little bit of our brain goes not a good idea.

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Emma O'Brien: and you will be filled with feelings of stress. You will be filled with feelings of fear.

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Emma O'Brien: and you will be which are really distracting all on their own. And this bit of your brain will do everything it can to make sure you don't take action into the unknown, because the unknown is scary as hell.

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Emma O'Brien: And this is why people end up stuck in in comfort zones for years.

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Emma O'Brien: because they can't quite get past. The fear of of moving, because this little bit of your brain that needs to be regulated

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Emma O'Brien: is running the show, and it is really frustrating. So self-sabotage is often a very unconscious thing until you bring it into your conscious awareness. Often the behaviors you do to sabotage yourself, you'll be completely unaware that you're doing them, or how they're showing up, because it's just this unconscious. How do? How do I? The amygdala going? How do? How do I keep us safe.

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Emma O'Brien: I know. Let's throw some procrastination in the mix, I know. Let's get distracted with something here, I know. Let's talk ourselves out of it, because it's really, you know, we really don't know what's going to happen when we make a big change. This is why change is so difficult, because it is fundamentally quite terrifying. Often when you want something that's fantastic. So let's say, for argument's sake, I've got some clients at the moment who have come to me, and they want to start their own businesses.

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Emma O'Brien: But the self sabotage I'm seeing is epic. We've got chronic anxiety showing up. We've got fear that is literally keeping people in a rumination loop. We've got an imposter that is just like, you need to do more before you can step up and do this, and this is how it happens. And this is why no action gets taken, because we don't know. The amygdala doesn't know

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Emma O'Brien: if you take the action and start the business.

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Emma O'Brien: What's going to happen to the rest of things? Because we know collectively, this is a collective. We. We know that when you change one thing.

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Emma O'Brien: Lots of other things start to change as well. Often, I think, to jump onto a tangent here when you're on a self-development journey and a personal growth journey you change as a person.

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Emma O'Brien: and that tends to change your relationship with the people around you.

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Emma O'Brien: So it's literally this fear of if I'm different, how's everything else going to be different? And what if I don't like it? So do you know what? Let's just stay exactly where we are?

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Emma O'Brien: It's a big thing to get over self-sabotage behavior. But

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Emma O'Brien: once you get a handle on it, it's really, you know, with some persistent effort, it's really quite easy to be able to to move past it.

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Emma O'Brien: And it's really your amygdala and your nervous system, just trying to keep you trying to keep you safe, as annoying as it is, and as counterintuitive as it is, because we're safe in a comfort zone. But we're often stuck unhappy, fed up, bored, miserable. So the key is to be able to regulate that bit of your brain and regulate your nervous system. That's in a stress response in a flight or flight response, because it's like, Oh, my God, I can't deal with change. It's to do some self regulation which is

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Emma O'Brien: a really big part of the work I do. I'm a heart nurse, practitioner.

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Emma O'Brien: and it's a set of tools that essentially teach you how to regulate your nervous system and your emotional reactions. So this amygdala is not running the show the whole time.

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Emma O'Brien: Let's talk about how self-sabotage shows up. Maybe you recognize some of these. Procrastination is a huge, huge self-sabotage behavior.

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Emma O'Brien: When you're sitting down. You've written down your to-do list. You know exactly what you need to do, and then you think I'm just going to go and make myself another cup of coffee, or Oh, gosh! Maybe I'm going to tidy all the desk drawers, or let me just tend to my emails quickly. Before I get to this.

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Emma O'Brien: It's finding every reason to do something else other than the thing that is going to move you forwards. People pleasing is a horrible little self sabotage pattern. So often we'll be thrown off course by a request from somebody that you don't want to say no to people pleasing is very tied up with a lack of boundaries, and then we end up doing everything for everybody else and not for ourselves. So if you're a people pleaser.

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Emma O'Brien: What are you sacrificing with that people? Pleasing behaviour? And what would you be doing instead if you weren't people pleasing? So it's a really interesting one to start to challenge yourself with that perfectionism.

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Emma O'Brien: I see this often with people. So the the clients I coach predominantly female, and they're generally very, very accomplished, smart, brilliant women

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Emma O'Brien: who will say things like, well.

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Emma O'Brien: just need to get another certification before I can start. Not quite sure I'm ready, and I'll say to them. We've had a whole conversation about just how ready you are if you go and do another certification. You're self sabotaging, because this is a procrastinating behaviour of perfectionism is procrastination.

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Emma O'Brien: and perfectionism is a.

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Emma O'Brien: You've kind of being really mean to yourself.

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Emma O'Brien: It is because the time will never be right. Nothing will ever be perfect. It's not possible.

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Emma O'Brien: and there'll always be an excuse to do something else before you can start. So the key is to start, anyway, which is, you know it takes some work and some courage to be able to to do that.

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Emma O'Brien: The other one is planning. And this is, I'm guilty of this planning, researching, writing lists.

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Emma O'Brien: Let me just prep a little bit more. I'm going to chat to chatgpt just a little bit more about this. Let me just, or I think maybe I need to know a little bit more. No, you don't. The key is to start from where you are, and then move often. Another thing I'll hear people say is, I just need to be a little bit more confident before I can get going with this. And actually, confidence comes from being in action, confidence comes from doing. The more you do.

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Emma O'Brien: the more you'll go. Oh, actually, not so hard! If I can do this little thing I can do a slightly bigger thing. So confidence comes from being in action. So if you're telling yourself I need to be more confident, you need to get more confident by taking action, not by sitting around thinking about taking action. That doesn't build confidence. It's called self-sabotage people.

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Emma O'Brien: So

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Emma O'Brien: how do we go about uncovering and dealing with self-sabotage behaviors. Well, the 1st one is to start to build some self-awareness and be aware

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Emma O'Brien: of your self-sabotage behaviors. What do you do to sabotage yourself? What are you doing right now

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Emma O'Brien: in your life to stop yourself from moving forwards?

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Emma O'Brien: What behavior pattern are you running that is stopping you from going after the thing you want. Everybody listening to. This will have something that they want and some direction they want to be going in, but they're not going in that direction.

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Emma O'Brien: What behaviors do you do to keep yourself stuck?

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Emma O'Brien: Have a think about it. Reflect on it.

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Emma O'Brien: The second bit is to learn to really start to regulate your nervous system, regulate your emotions, and that begins with being able to feel them, name them and understand what's happening in your internal landscape when we know what's happening internally, and you listen to it, and you're aware of your own behaviors when you've got it. In conscious awareness, you can start to make changes, and it's incremental. It's not something you can do overnight. So it takes a bit of time. But self-awareness is key to being able to move yourself forwards.

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Emma O'Brien: I was talking to a client this week who said to me, I mean she has done brilliantly well. She came to me with a Bajillion business ideas, and had got quite far with a lot of them, and in quite a big way, and then had just let them fall off the table

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Emma O'Brien: because she was afraid.

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Emma O'Brien: and she said to me, We've been working together for about 9 weeks now, and we have picked a business idea, fleshed it out. Got a website, and she's got some customers. I mean, it's really, once you get into motion, it can be that easy. It doesn't have to be hard.

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Emma O'Brien: and she reflected to me, and she said, You know I've been sitting with this, and I'm feeling anxious

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Emma O'Brien: before I'm going to do stuff with clients. The business makes me. I've got a bit of fear riding along. But actually, it's okay.

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Emma O'Brien: And I said to her, unfortunately, the thing with fear is, it will always be there.

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Emma O'Brien: but when you can regulate it and not have it running the show, you can effectively have it riding as a passenger strapped quietly into the back seat whilst you drive.

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Emma O'Brien: It will always be there when you're doing something new when you are stretching yourself out of a comfort zone. Fear is always going to be a passenger. It never goes away.

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Emma O'Brien: but you can learn to quieten it down.

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Emma O'Brien: That's the key. With self-regulation

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Emma O'Brien: and emotional regulation. It's really, really important. But you have to have the self-awareness of realizing. Oh.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm being driven by fear here to go and clean a drawer when I should be typing out a pitch for something.

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Emma O'Brien: and then, when you're aware of it, you can change it.

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Emma O'Brien: And the last bit, really with understanding and getting rid of self-sabotage is to have a look at. What are the beliefs that you hold

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Emma O'Brien: that are allowing that self-sabotage behavior to keep playing out?

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Emma O'Brien: And this is again a big part of the work I do with people, because you can regulate as much as you want, and regulation is massively important. But if you don't actually unpack the fear belief that is driving your self sabotage behavior, you won't actually really make any progress. You'll probably be stop, start, stop start, and they're often beliefs like, I'm not good enough.

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Emma O'Brien: I don't know enough. I need to be cleverer. Success doesn't happen for people like me.

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Emma O'Brien: Whatever flavor. There's always a little variation of flavor in the beliefs that we hold that keep us stuck

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Emma O'Brien: and those beliefs serve a purpose. They're beliefs that we've taken on board that have kept us safe in the past. They've kept us safe when we've been vulnerable. They've kept us safe and in our comfort zone when stretching out of it has maybe not been possible. It's felt too much. But if you want to go for something bigger in your life.

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Emma O'Brien: you have to start reflecting on. What is it I believe, about myself that is holding me back. And how do I go about changing that?

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Emma O'Brien: And that is something I spend quite a bit of time doing with the one-on-one coaching clients that I work with.

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Emma O'Brien: I get people to to learn to be more self-aware

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Emma O'Brien: to really tune into listening to their internal landscape. What's happening in your nervous system? What's happening in the emotions you're experiencing and uncovering? What beliefs are you running that don't serve you anymore. Often they're beliefs that we've picked up as children because somebody made a flippant comment at some point, and our little selves went, oh, okay.

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Emma O'Brien: I need to hold on to that. Then there's no negative consequences for for me going forward. So it's unpacking stuff like that without obviously going into the complete psychoanalysis of it. Because you don't need to.

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Emma O'Brien: You often don't need to go dig deep digging around into why did I have this belief? But just remembering. Oh, I had this because this happened, and I don't need it anymore. I can put it down. I can reshape it. I can rewrite it. So I can actually move forwards to in the direction I want to go and create the life that I want to have.

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Emma O'Brien: So if this sounds like something that you would like to talk to me more about. If self-sabotage is causing you a problem. And actually, you've got to the stage of being so fed up of yourself, you are ready to make a change.

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Emma O'Brien: Please book a call with me. I offer a free strategy. Call for people to talk about how coaching might look like what I could help you with.

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Emma O'Brien: So you can go ahead and you can book that. The link is in the show notes. I've also got a very affordable course to help you crack your procrastination habit, which goes a little bit into the belief system work that's also in the show notes

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Emma O'Brien: and of course, you can have a look. You can go back and listen to the podcast there's lots of free resources here as well. Podcast my instagram, which is at Emma O'briencoach. Go check that out. See what resonates for you. You'll pick up quite a lot of valuable information from the content that is already out there as well.

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Emma O'Brien: So, as I said, this is a passion for me. This is a process I have been through. I've taken myself through this. I am still taking myself through this. I think this is the thing with personal growth work. It doesn't stop, it just evolves.

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Emma O'Brien: and it gets easier the more you do it to be able to continue to go. Oh, look! I'm throwing myself under the bus again. Let's just do a little. Let's just stop and just have a look at why am I doing that? What's happening here? And the growth, really? And the success and the potential becomes exponential when you really start to dig deep and do this work on yourself.

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Emma O'Brien: Hope this has been helpful. I will see you for the next episode, bye, for now.