65: Self Sabotage

You set a goal, make a plan, feel excited… and then sabotage it. Procrastination, excuses, distractions—we all do it. But why?

Why We Self-Sabotage:

💡 It’s a worthiness issue. We only allow ourselves to succeed at the level we believe we deserve.
💡 Fear keeps us small. Success brings change, and change feels risky.
💡 More effort isn’t the answer. If you don’t believe you’re worthy of good things, you’ll block them—no matter how hard you try.

For Missionary Moms:

If you’re stuck in stress and worry, ask yourself:
✨ Am I making things harder than they need to be?
✨ Do I feel guilty resting while my missionary struggles?
✨ Am I afraid that if I stop worrying, I won’t be a “good” mom?

Here’s the truth: Your peace helps them more than your stress ever will.

How to Break the Cycle:

✔ Notice the pattern without shame.
✔ Practice receiving—compliments, rest, joy.
✔ Take one small action that aligns with your worth.

Start today: Pause, breathe, and remind yourself I am worthy of good things. 💙

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Transcript

0:29

So just let that sink in. So you know how sometimes people say you know, people can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps out of poverty. And what's interesting about that is I'm like, I've always asked like, why can't somebody in the middle class just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and earn more money and exceed what they think is kind of a comfortable living? You know, scrolling Instagram or doing anything instead of what you actually set out to do and. It gets kind of tricky when we sabotage ourselves because we rarely realize we're doing it, and when we do realize it, we have a tendency to judge ourselves and give ourselves a lot of grief. But in the moment we tell ourselves things like, I'm just too tired. I don't have time, is probably not that important anyway. But what if self-sabotage isn't random? What if it's actually a sign of something a little deeper? And what if we could stop sabotaging ourselves by not trying harder, by understanding why we do it in the first place? I, and that's what we're going to get into and explore today. Why we sabotage ourselves and how, how it ties into our self-worth and how we. Finally start to break the cycle. So let's dive in. I wanna start with just sharing a story. So I used a personal train years ago at A-Y-M-C-A. And about once a year we would do a contest, all the trainers, and we would pick somebody that had been coming consistently and we would each personal train and we would see what kind of success. And it was kind of a trainer against trainer, but also, you know, person against person. And it was interesting'cause a few years, like, you know, some of the people I trained had done spectacularly and then. The one year I was training a lady and she was losing weight, which was her goal, and she was, I think she started around 260 pounds and she had dropped to about two 15 in the course of working together, and she was continuing to drop, but she came in one day and she was kind of upset and I asked her. Like, what's it matter you're doing? You're doing so great, but like, like there's always up and down, so what's, what's the problem? And she said Being overweight is something I'm familiar with, but this, and she kind of pointed at this loose skin on her arms. She's like This, I don't know how to handle, I don't know what to do with. And so, interesting enough, she ended up. Starting to sabotage her own weight loss and her own goals because even though she wanted to lose the weight for her health and she had some young daughters the unfamiliar things that she was facing was, it felt more of a problem than the familiar so. One of the things that we wanna talk about is one of the biggest takeaways from that book Worthy that I've mentioned before by Jamie Kern Lima, is we only allow ourselves to succeed at the level we believe we're worthy of. So just let that sink in. So you know how sometimes people say you know, people can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps out of poverty. And what's interesting about that is I'm like, I've always asked like, why can't somebody in the middle class just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and earn more money and exceed what they think is kind of a comfortable living? Why not that it's the same bootstraps, but it's because we have our own ceiling that we've in inflicted on ourselves. And so we only allow ourselves to succeed at the level we believe we're worthy of. So if you don't tri truly feel worthy of success, of ease of good things happening to you, your brain will find. Ways to make sure that you don't get them. So I have found myself at times sabotaging my own growth in employment that I've had. Like I've gotten to a point in my employment where I felt unsettled, and so I've taken new employment. With a, you know, with a substantial raise and that raise in money and that raise in income, I, it's basically, I almost sabotaged my own success because there's a way of, there's a ceiling that, you know, I was unaware of that I felt worthy enough of, which is one of the really interesting psychological things that happens when people win the lottery. More, most of them are back into their, their same amount of money that they're, they've had it all spent or they've got it, it's all gone in less than five years. And it's because their ceiling, it jumped so fast, but their ceiling didn't jump with them. And so their, their ability to believe in their own self-worth that they could have that much money. It didn't. Elevate with them. They spent it all and it was, and it's gone. So this shows up everywhere. You wanna get healthier, but you kept falling into old habits. You want to feel more at peace, but you feel your schedule with distractions. You wanna be present, you wanna be calm, but you can't stop over worrying or over controlling or over comparing. Because deep down part of you doesn't fully believe that you deserve better, and until you believe in your own worthiness, no amount of effort will override the part of you that's still resisting success. So the fear of stepping into something bigger is why. Is our way, our brain's way of keeping us safe. If we stay small, we don't risk failure. If we never really go for it. We never have to face the possibility that we'll fall short. If we sabotage our own progress, at least we're in control of that outcome. Does that sound familiar? So in Elizabeth Gilbert calls this fear of the unknown self. It's just not fear of failure. It's also fear of who we might become if we stopped holding ourselves back. And some of these are stories that have come up, you know, that we've been brought up with. But here's the real thing. Real change is uncomfortable. Growth is uncomfortable actually believing you're worthy. Of more is deeply uncomfortable. So instead we sabotage, we stay in patterns that feel familiar, even. If they're miserable because at least familiar is safe. And this goes back to the lady that I was talking about, that I had personal trained, she was miserable being overweight like she was, but it at least was familiar because the unfamiliar felt even worse to her. So how do we stop sabotaging ourselves? This is like. One of the, one of my friends, we've said this, I don't even know how many times, why do we do what we do? When we know what we know? So let that sink in. Why do we do what we do when we know what we know? So how do we stop sabotaging ourselves? So if we don't want to Saab sabotage ourselves, what do we do instead? So here are three powerful shifts to start to break the cycle. First, you wanna recognize the sabotage pattern, and we wanna do that without shame, without trying to hide it, without being embarrassed about it first. You have to notice it. And when you find yourself. Avoiding procrastinating, self-sabotaging. Pause and ask yourself, what am I actually afraid of here? Which is a really powerful question. I used to sabotage myself with my health and my eating, and then I would club myself because for years I personal trained, I taught group exercise, but I couldn't get my own. Health and my own eating under control. And so actually asking myself, what am I actually afraid of here? Am I afraid of failing? Am I afraid of what will change if I succeed? I. Do I feel like I don't deserve this? So I had created food as a way of coping with some of my emotions. And so I would self-sabotage my health goals because I felt like I didn't deserve it because I didn't, I didn't feel like I was worthy enough. And so. I basically created a layer of fat, if you will, around myself, around my, so that it created kind of a space between me and other people because I didn't feel like I deserved to be healthy. I didn't deserve to be. This version of me that I had, you know, aspired to be. But instead of judging yourself for this pattern, just get really curious about why it's there. Because when you can start to name it, it starts to lose power over you. And this was really, really key for me when I was reading that book Worthy and I realized that. Most of my self-sabotaging came down to a worthiness issue. Then I could start to unwind it and unfortunately, right, my brain had like made all these stories around Temple recommend questions and worthiness there. I. Or being told like, oh, if you do these things, then you're not worthy. And I had wound those into my own self-worth. And so it was like a really bad combination. And so I had to actually be very intentional to expand my capacity for worthiness and not. Have it be this outside judge that it was okay. I was okay exactly where I was and that God knew me and understood who I was. So that helped me start to expand my worthiness. So most of us have like a worthiness thermostat where we allow ourselves only so much success, so much peace, so much love before we start pulling ourselves back down. Not because we actually want to. But because it feels unfamiliar to receive more. So how do we start to change this? Like this is really critical. We start practicing receiving, so we wanna try a few things. When someone gives you a compliment, don't deflect. Just say thank you. When something good happens, pause and actually feel it, instead of brushing it off. Start telling yourself I'm worthy of good things just because I exist. Isn't that like so mind blowing and so helpful? I. Just because I exist and it might feel awkward at first, but that's okay. I started working on this, like when somebody would give me a compliment saying Thank you, because prior to that I would say things like, oh, but you look so good. Or, oh, doesn't you dress look nice, or, oh my gosh, your hair looks amazing. Instead of just saying thank you. So your brain has spent years believing you have to earn your worth, but the truth is your worth was never up for debate. So we're gonna take some small worthy actions. So instead of trying to fix self-sabotage overnight, start proving to yourself that you're worthy of better. So we're gonna start doing some little small things. Take five minutes to stretch just because your body deserves to feel good. And this is kind of funny, sometimes I like to get up in the morning and do yoga, especially if I've been sore or I feel kind of stiff. But I usually pull up a. A YouTube and watch, you know, my favorite yoga channel on there. And I found myself looking to see how long some of them were, and I realized that if they were over about 20 minutes, then I started getting like, I'll work up about it. And I finally was like, why am I doing that? That's so weird. Like, it is okay if I take care of myself. So this one is just taking five minutes to stretch because your body deserves to feel good. Maybe it's another worthy action would be setting a boundary and not overexplaining yourself. So do you ever get invited to something and you don't really wanna go and so you're like, oh, well thanks for inviting me. I've got. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, other things going on. So it's like overexplaining instead of just saying, thanks for the invitation, but I'm gonna have to pass on this time. So just set the boundary and don't overexplain. Just say what it is you wanna say, and then taking a deep breath. When you start spiraling into self-doubt, something that I do when I'm going on a walk, sometimes I'm like, what story am I telling myself right now? Like, my brain is amazing and making up the most wonderful stories about everything. So I'm like, what here is my brain telling me? And that. Really helps me see the self-doubt.'cause my brain will start to spin in some of these old stories, some of these old worthiness things that have come up. And if we can just take a breath and just tell ourselves, you know what, I don't live there anymore. You know how when you buy a new house. And the first, if you just buy a house, like across town or you move something, I did this recently. I moved something out of one cupboard and I moved it into another area of my kitchen. And when I go to get it immediately I wanna go to the old place. And then I'm like, oh, that's right, I moved it, so I've gotta go over there. So it's the same thing with your brain. You have to start like, oh, actually I don't live there anymore. Or I like. So it's kind of the same concept. You have to remind yourself, oh, actually I don't believe that anymore because your brain is gonna drum up some of the old stories because they've worked in the past, like we've gotten stuck in'em, we've spun in them or whatever. So just being able to like take a deep breath, tell yourself, I don't actually believe that anymore. And these tiny, tiny actions start to rewire your brain. It's called neuroplasticity. It's amazing our brains can learn new things because every time you choose something in alignment with your worth, you reinforce that you're capable of more than the patterns that have kept you stuck. And soon self sabotage isn't the automatic response anymore. So I always try to include like a little section about why this is important for missionary moms. So let's just bring it back to that. If you're sabotaging your own peace, ask yourself, am I making things harder than they need to be? Because I feel like I should. Suffer because maybe my missionary's struggling. Do I feel guilty that I am resting, relaxing, I live someplace with clean water, or I'm having joy and they're out doing hard things and they're in a completely different culture. Am I afraid that if I stop worrying that I'm not a good mom, how many times do we do that? Like we think that worrying is part of being a good mother, like. What is that narrative and how did we ever even come up with it? So what if we just start to rewire those little parts of our brain that create some suffering and some sabotage and. We start to let some of those go. So let me tell you something really important. You are worthy of peace. Even when your missionary is struggling or when you have an adult child that's struggling, or you have something else that's going on, you are still worthy of peace. You're allowed to take care of yourself even when your children are going through hard things. Did you catch that? Even when they're going through hard things, you are allowed to take care of yourself. You don't have to sabotage your wellbeing because they're in a challenging season of their life. It's okay. The truth is your peace will help them more than your stress ever will. So let's stop self-sabotaging and let's start believing that we're worthy of the ease, the joy, and the grace that we give most people in our life. So here's my challenge for you. Choose one small worthy action. Maybe it's drinking water and saying, my body is worthy of care. Maybe it's stopping a negative thought and replacing it with I am enough. Sometimes when I'm in working on some tech, like in my website or on social media and I start to spin and like, oh my gosh, I'm not very good at this. I replace it with I am enough. I am enough. Another one is I can't do this again. I've mentioned this before. That was one that my brain was really drumming on. Sending out my youngest missionary, I can't do this again. I can't do this again. And I was like, wait a second. I am doing this again. I am doing this. So we start to replace some of those negative thoughts and you have to kind of catch'em because they're just going. Without you actually proactively thinking. and they sneak up on you, so you have to kinda catch'em. And I caught that one as I was getting in my truck and I was like, wait a second, what do you mean I can't do this? I am doing this. So just those simple things or maybe it's simply just pausing when you feel yourself starting to self-sabotage and whispering, I don't have to do this anymore. I'm okay. I really, really used food to sabotage, like I mentioned, my own health. And I can feel that urge coming up at times, especially when I'm emotionally Kind of distraught. I recently was waiting for some information. My mom has cancer and so I was waiting to hear some test results and some things, and I felt that really deep urge to just go stand in the pantry and eat. And I was able to just catch myself and say, I am worthy of taking care of and that's not gonna make me feel better. It's gonna make me feel worse, so let's just like pause and be kind to myself. Even though the anticipation and kind of that uncertainty was really drumming up a feeling of urgency around sabotaging my my health. So one small shift at a time. And you start to rewire your brain to believe in your own worthiness. And when you start doing that, everything starts to change. Alright you guys, if you sent a missionary off in the last week or two weeks, I just want you to know that I say prayers for you every day. I pray for every mission mom out there. Obviously not by name, but just praying that you will find peace and comfort and that you will be okay and that your missionary will be okay because this journey is personal for me. I really, really have a huge heart towards mission moms, just to wrap up in the end for the end of this episode, how do you notice self-sabotaging your life? What's one small shift you're gonna make today? And if this episode helped you, please share it with another mom who might need it. And until next time, take care. And remember, you are worthy of all good things. We will see you next time. Bye-bye.