Stop Self-Sabotage

We get real about self-sabotage and the ways we quietly block our own success without even noticing. I share what self-sabotage looks like, where it comes from, and how we can build self-awareness and healthier habits that our kids will learn from too. 
• defining self-sabotage as thoughts and actions that undermine our goals 
• naming common patterns like procrastination, perfectionism and negative self-talk 
• tracing root causes like fear, low self-worth and unresolved past experiences 
• sharing my education story and how I talked myself out of growth 
• using a simple write-it-out test to catch a negative undertone 
• setting realistic goals and stacking small wins to build confidence 
• remembering our kids mirror what we model, both good and bad 
• choosing support through therapy, books, videos and trusted resources 
• teaching our children on purpose so social media does not do it for us 
I would love to hear from you if you're inspired by this podcast. And if you are inspired, tell another mom, another parent. If your dads are listening, tell another father. 

https://singlemomsunitedpodcast.com/

As Mom's we are more than nurturers we are Mentors to our children.

Transcript

What Self-Sabotage Really Looks Like

Common Causes And Hidden Triggers

Signs You Might Miss Daily

The Degree Story And Saying No

Build Awareness With A Written Test

Realistic Goals That Create Success

What Kids Learn From Our Patterns

Drop The Past And Grow Forward

Updates Downloads And Share The Show

If You Don’t Teach Them Others Will

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey ladies, welcome to the Mom to Mentor podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome. If you are a re listener, thank you for your loyalty. Hey, I'm just gonna get right down to it today of what I'm talking about. And this is gonna be pretty deep. So I hope you hang around and listen to the entire episode because I think you're going to find value. And not that my other episodes didn't provide value, but this one I think is gonna hit closer to home for a lot of you because actually it's hitting home for me. It's bringing up some memories and some things I actually struggled with as I've navigated through life. So it really hits home for me. But what I'm talking about today is self-sabotage. That means that you are sabotaging yourself and being successful. And how do I know that this is real? Because I've been sabotaging myself for a very long time, and so I'm gonna get into the crux of the matter of what it is, why we have it, how to get over it, and then hopefully, once you get a better understanding of what self-sabotage is, then you'll start being aware and trying to address it because I guarantee you, just like me, you did it every day, or you're doing it every day, and you don't even realize it. That's the significant part here. We don't even realize we're self-sabotaging ourselves because we've become so accustomed to certain behaviors and then accepting certain things that we don't even know that the enemy is within. Yeah, it's not the outward enemy, it's the enemy within us. And that's why this is so personal to me. That's why I think you're going to actually benefit from this because you may have an aha moment during this episode. Wow, I've been doing this to myself all along and blaming others. All right, so let's go ahead and get the party started. So again, we're talking about self-sabotage. And what is it? It refers to behaviors, thoughts, or actions that unconsciously prevent you from achieving your goals, often undermining your own success and well-being. In other words, you are your worst enemy. Yeah, when it comes to achieving goals. And why is it? Self-sabotage is a pattern where individuals engage in behavior that works against them and their long-term goals, even when they consciously want to succeed or improve their life. These behaviors often operate subconsciously and can manifest as procrastination, perfectionism, negative talk, that was me, and sometimes still is, avoidance, quitting at critical moments, or unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance abuse. You want to know why you're going back to the marijuana or other substances? Yeah, and it's not always drugs and alcohol, sometimes it's food. Yeah, think about that. You have this obsession with food. The effects are consistently counterproductive, creating obstacles and personal, professional, or relational areas of your life. The online definition of what self-sabotage is. So here's my definition, which really brings it home and keeps it concise, which is instead of saying I can, you're saying I can't without even getting additional information. It's also code for I'm afraid, I'm unworthy. We self-sabotage ourselves in so many areas without going in and understanding what it is. Why do we do that? Because it's simple, it's fear. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that of what causes self-sabotage, right? What causes self-sabotage is due to various psychological reasons, often rooted in uh fear, low self-esteem. That's me, I have my hand up, or unresolved past experiences, which are common causes that include fear of failure or success, basically avoiding actions to prevent disappointments or the pressure of change, low self-worth, feeling undeserving or of success can lead to behaviors that undermine progress. Emotional coping mechanisms using short-term relief strategies such as procrastination or substance abuse to manage stress or unwanted feelings. And there may be some mental health issues, ADHD. Again, I'm raising my hand. I've dealt with attention deficit disorder, right? Anxiety, raising my hands again, or hands, excuse me. Depression can also increase self-sabotage, impacting motivation, focus, and impulse control. So here's some additional signs of self-sabotage. Delaying important tasks of procrastinating, setting unrealistic expectations or perfection, engaging in negative self-talk and criticism. That's me. I'm holding both of my hands up on that. Because I did and do have times where I'm talking myself out of stuff. I haven't even tried it, and I'm already talking about, uh-uh, yeah, I don't think so. This ain't gonna work. Avoiding opportunities due to fear or failure or rejection. How many times, ladies, that opportunities have come to you and you say, uh-uh, that's not me. Another example for me is a higher level of education. During high school, I didn't think I was gonna make it out. I just didn't. I just wasn't mentally into it and I graduated. Wow. I now have my degree. Matter of fact, I have two degrees. I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that as I continued through life and as I got to a place in my life where I was more focused, it allowed me to go back and get my degrees. So my mental space from where I was in high school to where I was to get my degrees was drastically different because obviously I'm more mature that I was able to go in and stay focused enough to learn the curriculum. True story, I actually did because there were others, my co-workers, you need to go get your degree, you need to go get your degree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, all right. Kept moving on and moving on. Oh, you are doing such a great job, and I can see you in a higher role, but you got to get your degree. And I'm like, Yeah, I barely made it out of high school, so I don't think me and a degree will get along. And plus, that's not how I learned. I'm a hands-on person. Again, you really are doing a fantastic job in this role. I can see you really leading people, etc., etc., etc. But you can't do it because you gotta go get your degree. Yeah. So this was going on for a couple of years, actually, because I kept saying no. And at that time, the company is saying, we'll pay for it. And I still said, no, I can't do it because I'm reflecting back to what high school was. But I got my degree, degrees, and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for the experience. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was gonna be, because again, my maturity level was different than what it was when I was in high school. But, ladies, that's what you have to look at where you are in life. In one of my episodes, I talked about a three, five, and 10-year plan. Where do you expect to be in three years and five years and 10 years? And go back and look at that because that's also going to help you overcome self-sabotage. Because if you want it, then go after it. All right, so how do we overcome self-sabotage? Number one, you have to increase self-awareness because again, you probably just like I was, you didn't even know you were sabotaging yourself, you didn't even know you have the enemy that's living within you. I didn't know. I was just functioning or thought I was functioning and holding up my hand with stops without saying, hey, bring it, let me see, let me try it, let me know more about it. And we're so often putting up our hand without the understanding of what it is and how it could benefit us. So again, become aware, understand underlying causes, replacing harmful patterns with constructive actions. If you are in a situation of self-sabotage and you're not aware of it, or you have it or not, take that situation of opportunity and write out your response to it. What you would say in your out loud voice, write that out. Then once you write it out, go back and see if it has a positive undertone or a negative undertone. If it has a negative undertone, then guess what? Yeah, you're self-sabotaging yourself. That's how you know. Because I can tell you you can say it in your out loud voice and you identify it, but sometimes that just doesn't work because you're not listening to yourself. That's just like me. I wasn't listening to myself. But every time someone approached me about something, the whole school, the additional education, I put my hand up. Nope, nope, that's not me, and it's not gonna happen until I realized got a taste of it, and it the rest is history. But until I got there, yeah, I was sabotaging myself. So that's how you're gonna know, ladies. Write it out, write it out again. If it has a positive undertone to it, then you're in good shape. But if it's a negative undertone, yeah, I'm self-sabotaging myself. I'm hindering me, I'm holding me down. Yeah, you're pretty strong to hold yourself down. Love yourself, encourage yourself, practice saying, I can do this regularly. This is another way to overcome self-sabotage, setting realistic goals. May you can use an example of maybe you want to lose weight. Instead of you saying, Hey, I want to lose 25 pounds, start with five pounds, right? And what's it gonna take to lose those five pounds? Exercise and eating, instead of spending time in the potato chip aisle and the pop aisle, spend more time in the produce section, get more veggies and fruits, that's gonna help you achieve your five-pound goal. Maybe you want to increase your vocabulary, or maybe you want to learn a new language. So if you want to learn a new language, learn one that requires a response. But if you want to achieve a goal in a short period of time, just learn how to respond. One of my favorite Spanish responses is una momento por favor, right? That means one moment, please, I believe. Yeah. But anyway, that's a way of taking it slow and achieving your goals. Because remember, I talked about on the episode of success. Success is all about setting a goal and achieving it. It's not about hand having grand money and all of that, because remember, more money, more problems. But if you set a short-term goal and you achieve it, you're successful because now you just build on that. Because now you know what it is to achieve that success and you know what path you took to get there. And again, you got to pay this for it, remember, to your kids, because they're paying attention when you're self-sabotaging yourself. So now they're adopting that same behavior of self-sabotage because you don't know it and now they don't even know it. All right, so other areas or things you can try, you can seek professional help. Now, I don't, everybody's different, but let me put it this way: professional help doesn't always have to come through a therapist, it can come through a podcast link. You can watch some videos. There's a lot of videos out there with self-care. You could read a book, you can do a lot of things to help you get through that self-sabotage that you may be experiencing. And again, you just have to understand what it is. It's gonna help you with personal growth because it's gonna allow you to break destructive cycles and improve relationships. If you're struggling in a current relationship or trying to find one or a relationship, some of that is not everybody else, some things are with you, and so until you identify what characteristics or that you're self-sabotaging yourself, you know, that's what's holding you back. Yeah, think about it. I really encourage you to think about this because it's real. How do I know? I just gave you examples of things that I've encountered in my life, and as a result of that encounter, I didn't realize I was self-sabotaging myself. I had no idea I didn't have a have the confidence level I needed. And then I didn't have that support structure to come back and say you can do this until I got to the area of where, hey, you need to go back and get your degree. You should do that. You have strong character traits that you'll be an effective leader in this organization. And guess what? I forgot to add the second part to that, is as soon as I got my degree, I did get elevated to a role, a leadership role, where I was not only leading domestic teams, but I was leading global teams as well. Yeah. But it takes too. It takes the fact that I had to get rid of the self-sabotage, start thinking positive now that I know that I can achieve something. And I actually did, because a lot of things that again we're self-sabotaging ourselves on is because of things that happened in the past and we won't leave it there. It's like rocks in a bag, and we're carrying it over our shoulder instead of just dropping the rocks. That's your past. Let it stay in the past. But we're carrying it on our shoulder in our future, and so we still think we can achieve some things because of our past. So I encourage you, please check and see if you are your worst enemy, and and turn it around, turn that behavior around because now you have children that you have to encourage and motivate because you are more than a nurturer, you are a mentor. That means you are providing a physical example of what it means to be successful as a mentor, and whether you're actively sharing this with your kids or not, they are paying attention, they're watching, they're absorbing, they are sponges. Ask me how I know. Because again, I seen things my kids were doing that we'd never discuss, but I know they saw me. They saw me, they heard me, and because of that's where they adopted the behavior. That's why they're demonstrating that same behavior, both positive and negative. Yeah, that's why we have to go back and make sure we level set and have discussions with our children. Yeah. All right, ladies. I hinted the last episode that I was I had a surprise for you all. I am updating my logo. So all of you folks that come back each week or anytime I produce a new episode, you'll be seeing a new logo. I think it's gonna happen a little bit over time. I just don't want you to be surprised, like, oh, what's this? It's still gonna say mom to mentor, it's just gonna look a little different. And I'm also in a process of updating my website as well. So, some good things happening here. So, again, I'm not self-sabotaging because it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. So I appreciate your support. Again, I've exceeded the 20,000 mark, and since achieving the 20,000 mark, I've had another 350 downloads. So I'm now at 20,350. I would love to hear from you if you're inspired by this podcast. And if you are inspired, tell another mom, another parent. If your dads are listening, tell another father. I encourage you because again, this can also act as this critical thinking that you need as a parent, because it's you're more than a mom, you're more than a dad. You are a parent, a parent that teaches. And that's what our children need. We're not just providers, we have to get in a position of teaching our children. Because if we don't do it, social media will. Yeah. Yeah. And I hear you, I monitor their social media. Okay, they go to school, their peers will. And you can't be with your kids 247. You can't do it. It's impossible. So if you're not teaching them now, somebody else will. Yeah.