Are you sick of your self sabotaging behaviors and committed to changing? This process isn’t going to be easy, but it will be worth it. Here are three steps how to stop yourself from self sabotaging.
1. Recognize destructive patterns/ actions.
First, you must recognize your destructive actions and/ or patterns. This takes awareness and practice. Look at what it is you are doing that continues to stop you from getting what you want. Perhaps it’s the same thing over and over.. this would be a patterns. Perhaps the reaction changes, but the trigger is the same. That is also a pattern. You need to look for these. The more patterns you can find, or overall info you can find, the better.
Let’s talk about my pretend client named Sue. Everyday Sue wakes up with the intention of coming home from work, doing her daily workout and making a healthy dinner that her family can enjoy together. But her day drags on at a job that leaves her unfulfilled and instead of doing her daily workout when she gets home, she hits the couch, binge eats chips and throws something together like pasta and canned sauce.
What’s the pattern here? Work – low motivation – couch – processed foods – further down the rabbit hole into depression. (We will get into what to do about this in step 3.)
Or let’s talk about my pretend client, Judy. She’s been doing a great job with consistently following her clean eating meal plan, getting in her daily workouts four times a week and she is noticing her pants feeling loose, her energy getting better and muscles getting stronger. After two months she starts to let herself skip the gym once or twice, drink wine a couple nights a week and start getting more muffins with her coffee in the morning. Now she’s started to lose the results she had.
What’s the pattern here? Have she done this before? The last time she got to this place where results started getting easier, did she take her foot of the gas pedal then?
2. Seek to understand why.
This step may require journaling or talking to a therapist or coach, but you absolutely MUST slow down and operate from a place of consciousness.
After you do every single thing that you do, ask yourself why. Why did you choose that? There is always a reason. Even for the little things. When you can understand why you choose the things you do, you can more easily change.
Let’s go back to talking about Sue. Let’s say over the course of a few weeks Sue realized the reason she’s been stuck in this pattern of coming home and losing motivation to workout and make healthy food because she hasn’t been eating enough to give her the energy to last the rest of the day. BOOM! There’s a reason to her pattern!
Or let’s say it’s not that simple and the reason she loses motivation at the end of the day is because she’s incredibly unfulfilled and just wants instant gratification that TV and snacks provide, when she gets home. She now understands why this is happening and is that much closer to change.
Finally, let’s talk about Judy. Judy realizes this is not the first time she’s self sabotaged after doing great for a few months. She recognizes two patters in her behavior. The first is that she has a tendency to be all in, then gets sick of living that all or nothing lifestyle and goes back to her old ways. And the other is because she self sabotages her own results because she doesn’t believe she’s capable of achieving her dream body, so she stops before she can let herself down. These are both very powerful things to understand and are vital to making change.
3. Create new patterns and behaviors.
Since we know our patterns and why we do them, we can add the final piece to the puzzle – taking action. On my podcast I interviewed behavioral change specialist, Kate Mann, about how to make changes to our diet to eat in alignment with our goals and she suggests asking ourselves these four questions before we eat:
a. does this have nutritional benefit?
b. do I eat this because I am happy, sad or both?
c. does eating this make me feel better?
d. I feel my best when I consume ________.
You can still choose to eat the thing you want to eat. But if you stop to ask yourself those questions, you are more likely to make conscious, rather than automated decisions.
You can also try setting boundaries around food and making plans. For example, a boundary could be , “if I am offered dessert tonight, I will decline, as this is not alignment with my goals.” Or “I will partake in two glasses of wine this evening at book club.”
As for making plans with food, this includes those boundaries, but it’s more than just setting limitations. This includes reviewing a menu before going to dinner. This could even include planning your breakfast, lunch and snacks before you go to dinner. That way you are in alignment with your calorie needs at the end of the day. I always remind my clients to set up their meal plans every Sunday for the week ahead. This way they are prepared and will make healthy choices at dinner each night.
I believe it’s also important to educate yourself about food too. When you have a solid grasp of what the food you are consuming does for you/ to you and inside your body, it is easier to make healthy decisions because you are informed. For example, if you understand that pairing protein with a higher carbohydrate meal can help balance your blood sugar and keep you from getting sleepy and cranky after, you are more likely to make sure you add some chicken to that bowl or pasta.
Finally you want to add in competing behaviors to the self sabotaging ones. This could be something simple like sending your coach a message when you are debating skipping your daily workout. It could also be grabbing a seltzer water to sip instead of soda.
Based on these suggestions for new patterns and behaviors, this is what I would suggest for my fake client, Sue..
If Sue doesn’t have the energy to do her daily workout, then Sue likely needs to eat more. Perhaps she could try having an apple and cottage cheese before leaving work so she has the energy to workout when she gets home (making a plan.) Another good idea would be for Sue to learn about the chips and canned sauce she is eating. If she realized what the ingredients were doing to her digestive system and brain, she would make healthier choices (education.)
If the issue is that Sue is unfulfilled in life, perhaps she could join a local gym to workout with friends instead of coming home to the couch (competing behaviors.)
For my pretend client Judy, I would strongly suggest she ask herself the four questions before making eating decisions. I would also suggest she begin to speak to a therapist or life coach that can help her believe in herself and her capabilities (educating herself.) Setting the boundary of only getting coffee, not a muffin, and only having wine once a week would then become much easier for her.
If you need help stopping yourself from self sabotaging understand it will not be easy, but if you are committed to constant self monitoring and being willing to change, perhaps I can help!
Learn more about my 1:1 coaching services at Commit2FitCoaching.com
Your Coach,
Kyra