#016 - The ways self-sabotage sneaks in to kill success

In episode 16 of The OvercomeHer Podcast, host Samantha Noelle breaks down how self-sabotage shows up in business in ways that look “reasonable,” like procrastination disguised as preparation, perfectionism, confusion, underpricing and discounting, self-isolation, overworking without direction, and avoiding your numbers. 

She also covers sneakier patterns like creating drama, chasing new ideas right before a launch, comparison, overhelping, seeking approval from the wrong people, discounting your wins, overconsuming content, and even burnout or getting sick when your nervous system doesn’t feel safe with growth. 

Samantha explains why it happens—fear of success, identity conflict, unworthiness, loyalty to old stories, fear of outgrowing relationships, and a “financial thermometer”—and how to deal with it by naming it, tracking patterns and metrics, interrupting the loop, taking smaller next steps, building accountability, doing identity work, and stopping the wait to feel ready.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You didn't quit. You just got really busy right before the launch. You didn't give up. You just suddenly decided that the offer needed to be perfect before you put it out. You didn't self-sabotage. You just had a really valid reason to slow down every single time that something was about to go right. Hey everyone, I'm your host, Mantha Noelle, and you're listening to the Overcome Her podcast, episode number 16, how self-sabotage sneaks in. Self-sabotage isn't always dramatic. It rarely looks like blowing up your business in one move. Most of the time, it looks like reasonable decisions that quietly keep you exactly where you are. Does this sound familiar? Does this sound like you? Can you recognize some of this in decisions that maybe you've made in the past? In today's episode, I'm going to talk about what self-sabotage actually is and the ways that it shows up, the obvious ways that it shows up, the less obvious ways that it shows up, some of the signs that self-sabotage is about to show up in your business and in your life, why it comes up, which is really important for us to understand the cost of self-sabotage and how to deal with it and stay on track so that you can have the most success in your business and in your life, because that's the whole purpose of this show and all the work that I do. So let's dive right into it. Let's just get into what is self-sabotage. A lot of women will hear self-sabotage and they think up the obvious destruction: overspending, quitting, blowing up a relationship, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, having an affair. But for ambitious women in business, it is almost never that visible. Self-sabotage is any pattern of thought or behavior driven by subconscious thought that protects you from the discomfort of growth, even when that growth is exactly what you say that you want. And having worked with so many businesses and small business owners over the years, I have been the person hired to come in and help a business get back on track with their finances, get their systems and their processes cleaned up and improved so that they weren't constantly leaving money on their table, so that they weren't running their business from a place of chaos. And guess what? Every single time I have been at some point in their eyes the enemy. And only after they are able to see the positive results has that changed, although it did come with discomfort. And the reason that this happens is because people think and say that they want growth, but oftentimes their behaviors, their thoughts, their words, their actions all actually start to say that they're terrified of it. And the real truth is that this isn't a character flaw. It's a survival mechanism that has way outlived its expiration date and usefulness in your life and in your business. At some point in your life as a woman, you learned that plain small was safe. And I've talked about this in previous episodes. As women, we have been hammered that truth for generations and decades that it's safer for us to be polite, palpable, sweet, go unnoticed. It's almost like the saying that the older generations would say about kids children are meant to be seen and not heard. But that often is applied to women. So we learn to play it small because that's what was safe. That kept us socially, economically safe. But now here you are, you're in a business, you've built your business, you're building your business, you're stepping into something that's going to require more of you. It's not going to require something that you don't have. It's just going to require pieces of you that until now you haven't actually had to embody. Think about it. If you've managed to just get by being politer, less direct, less powerful, then what happens when you actually have to build upon things that are within you? Now you have to be more resourceful, more resilient, more powerful. You have to step into those things. Well, the old programming that you're living off of is trying to protect you from being those things and doing those things and being too seen, being too visible, and it's costing you. So the real reason that self-sabotage ends up being so sneaky is because it's not always the most overt thing. Sometimes it's the quieter decisions that we make, the things that we think, the things that we don't do that show up. So self-sabotage is anything that we do consciously or unconsciously that negatively impacts the success that we say that we actually want. What are some of the obvious ways that self-sabotage shows up? Let's just talk about it. The first thing, the most obvious thing, is procrastination. But not just procrastination, procrastination disguised as preparation. You know, you're not ready yet. There's just always one more thing for you to learn or tweak or do before something can be launched or before you can finally open your business or before you can hire the person that you keep saying that you need to hire. There's something you keep getting stuck on doing. And it usually comes under the guise of, well, it's just not perfect yet, or it's just not ready yet. And that's procrastination. Because if there was no block to your success, if there was no covert self-sabotage going on, you would pick a due date for when something needs to be completed by and you would get it done. End of story. That due date, that timeline wouldn't just keep getting pushed out. And I can already hear it right now. But Samantha, this came up, or that came up, or no, it took longer, or this family member, this, or I had this health issue that. Trust me, I get it. We can all come up with a million excuses. And I know that's a really challenging thing to hear. Yeah, but you don't understand, Samantha. There was something real and big that happened in my life. And I get it. But even though that happened, I'm sure that you could have probably still met your deadline of getting something out to create the success that you say that you want to create in your business. Now, perfectionism is part of that preparation piece. And usually perfectionism is the underlying cause of thinking that you need to be more prepared. Perfectionism is a productivity killer because if it's not flawless, then it doesn't go out. So it never goes out. Because perfectionism isn't just high standards, it's fear with a professional title to it. Because, hey, our society rewards us for being perfectionists. And I'm saying this as somebody who is a self-proclaimed perfectionist and probably not even self-proclaimed. I've definitely been told by people I'm a perfectionist. It's taken many years to lessen that perfectionism and to realize that sometimes just getting things out there is far better than waiting until it's perfect because the person who gets it out sooner has the opportunity to tweak and make more changes to what it is that they put out there. So they're getting real world feedback in real time. And that allows them to make the changes and the tweaks that they need to make so that they can actually recognize the success in their business. This is one that I know so many of us can relate to. Confusion. How many times have I, in my own journey, been so confused about the actual offer? How often does this show up for us in our business where we start taking direction and then we think that maybe we're actually doing the wrong thing. We should actually move in this direction. Or maybe we should just do something entirely different. We need to just reinvent our entire life and we need to go back to school for a degree, and we just need to stop doing what we're even doing. And we need to stop doing what we're doing. We need to just go do an entirely new thing. Does that sound familiar? We overcomplicate things. We make things that could be really simple. And I really truly believe that every time somebody overcomplicates something in their business, it's because they've attached that piece of their business to their identity and self-worth. Think about it. If something's overly complicated, then you make it in your mind that nobody else can do it or no one else can do it as good as you. And of course they can't because you've overcomplicated it, you've made it so complicated. Of course, you can never outsource that. Of course you can never hire somebody to do it because you've overcomplicated it. And so it makes you feel worthy and it makes you feel like you have value where you can never be disposed of. Because again, going back to I need to feel safe. I need to feel like I have purpose and meaning. And if there's something in my business that I am emotionally tied to in terms of my value and my worth and what I'm capable of and the fact that I'm actually needed in my business, then if I simplify that and someone else can do that, what does that say about me? Right? I get it. Thought it, felt it, probably have done it. Another thing that we do when we're self-sabotaging is we underprice, we undervalue ourselves. We think that we have to offer discounts that now make it so that we're not even profitable in our business because we think that the only customers that we can get are the ones that want to undercut us. And then we start telling ourselves a story that that's all that there actually is. We start to believe that nobody else is actually out there who would be okay with our prices without us having to overly justify them. And that's a form of self-sabotage. And we start getting ourselves roped into relationships with customers and clients and people that are always looking for a deal. It's discount Danny and bargain Betty. Another thing that we do when we're self-sabotaging, we self-isolate. And I have been so guilty of this. I will pull back from people, community, mentors, friends, family, the good support. Now I'm not talking about the bad ones because sometimes in our journey to building something, we actually do. We do have to refine, we do have to cut out people who aren't really the best for us, who don't really want the best for us. And maybe they say it, but their words and their actions completely prove otherwise. I'm talking about the self-isolation where there's actually people around you who love you, who support you, who can help mentor you into greatness and you pull yourself away from them. I had somebody say something to me once. He said, if you can't afford $500 today for this programmer that's going to help you earn money, then you're never going to be able to afford anything that costs $500. And that's stung a lot to hear that very uncomfortable truth. Now he was part saying it from the fact that he wanted me to buy into something, but I think he was also saying it because he did see something in me. And that uncomfortable truth made me realize my thinking was backwards. I was always looking at things from, well, I can't afford it instead of okay, maybe today I can't afford it, but could I afford it in a week or two weeks or a month if I really worked hard? Could I not get resourceful? And that's what he was getting at, but I didn't get it at the time. And so when we start to pull away from the people who offer us the hard truths that we need to hear, that's going to get us to where we need to go because they see the potential in us, but they're also seeing that we keep keeping ourselves stuck through our own mindset, our own limitations, our own beliefs, our own actions that just keep us plain small. When we distance ourselves from them, that's self-sabotage. That's us afraid to grow and step into our greatness. Another thing, and this ties into the last episode that I just did, which is overworking without direction. This is when we just create the chaos, we create the busyness, we make it look like we're actually doing something really important because we are busy, but we aren't even edging the needle towards our outcome and our goal. And that's why reverse engineering our goals is so important. So if you missed that episode, go back to that last episode. Because when we keep ourselves just so busy, we never actually have to be honest with ourselves about whether the business is actually growing or not. Another thing that we do to self-sabotage, we don't track our data, our results, our numbers, our finances. How many people have come to me and said, Samantha, my books are a mess. I don't want you to look at them. I don't want you to see them. They're a mess. I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. It's really bad. It's really embarrassing. A lot, probably like 60% or more of companies that I have worked with have been embarrassed by the fact that their numbers are a mess and they don't even know them. And honestly, I don't blame them. I really, really don't, because we're not even taught finances growing up. We're just not. And then we get into business and maybe somebody tells us that so-and-so's wife can just do the bookkeeping for us. Meanwhile, that person is just data entering. They're not bookkeeping, they're entering data. It's different. A good bookkeeper, at the very least, can help you understand your profit and loss and your balance sheet, which is the bare minimum a good bookkeeper should be doing. So avoiding our numbers is one of the most common and costly forms of self-sabotage in our business. Because if you're not measuring it, how can you improve it? You can't make it better. I was working with a client and I realized that they discounted 20%, which caused them to be at a loss in their business. They were grossly in a big profit if they had not discounted anything, but they discounted so much that they were in a gross loss. They knew that they offered discounts, but they didn't know how badly it was impacting them. And that's exactly what happens when we don't know our numbers. We make mistakes in our business that cost us things and we don't realize how much it's costing us. So discounting is another way that we self-sabotage, which is the same as underpricing. So we're discounting because that's how we think we're going to win business, is by discounting. You win business by providing value and selling the vision, which is an upcoming episode. You don't win business by discounting. If someone needs you to discount in order for you to sell them business, it means that they don't understand what the value is. It means that you haven't conveyed what the value is yet. Okay, so now that we've talked about the really obvious ways that self-sabotage shows up, let's talk about some of the less obvious ways that it shows up. This one, creating drama and getting sucked into it. All of a sudden, now you're creating conflicts. Now you're ticked off with so-and-so who you think didn't do a good enough job, or they looked at you the wrong way, or you didn't like their tone, and now you're getting sucked into the drama. And you're part of creating, and you don't even recognize that that's self-sabotage. But usually it's happening right before you grow. Suddenly, there's more conflict. All of a sudden, you get a massive order, you get a massive new client or a big deal. And then all of a sudden, right around that same time, there's more conflict. And you think it's outside of you. But here's what I'm gonna tell you everything in this entire universe is so interconnected. And our world, the world that we observe, the one that we are witnessing, because everybody has their own perception and own observation of the world. Our brain has something called the reticular activating system, which I've talked about in previous episodes, which confirms for us everything that we believe and everything that we think subconsciously and consciously. It confirms it for us and gives us more evidence in our world for us by pointing out things to us and drawing our attention to it and having an emotional reaction and attachment to the things that we observe in our world to confirm those beliefs. So if we have a belief somewhere in the system operating behind the scenes that believes that growth is scary or chaotic or bad, or that success and growth in our business equals chaos or drama. Guess what's going to show up as soon as we move into something big in our business? Guess what? Chaos and drama. And we're gonna be at the center of it. And we'll think it's everyone outside of us. We'll think somebody else started a fight with us, but underneath there was an unchecked, undiagnosed, subconscious belief, fear, or pattern. And you actually essentially, in a way, without going like woo-woo here, you almost in a way attracted that to a degree. Now, I'm not gonna say it's your fault, especially if somebody does something to you that harms you, that's not your fault. Let me explain it to you like this. I watch Caesar Milan a lot. If you guys don't know who Caesar Milan is, he is the dog whisperer guy. And he will tell you, along with every other great dog trainer out there, they will tell you that your energy, your dog is feeding off of your energy. So if you have an anxious dog, you, the owner, are anxious and my dog is anxious. So, how do I know when I'm anxious? Because my dog's anxious. And sometimes that anxiety is so low level that we don't even realize it because it's operating on the background. And so, what I'm trying to say here is that if we believe on a deeper subconscious level that copious amounts of success or more success means more drama and chaos, if somewhere that belief got programmed into us somehow, from a song we listened to, like more money, more problems, or some other crazy thing, maybe a show we watched, or maybe watching our parents or something. Wherever it came from, it got there. And it told us that drama and chaos is part of success. And so we start creating it on a subconscious level by the energy that we're operating at. And because like attracts like, and because we're in this entire universe that's all connected, we start experiencing more of that every single time that we go to level up. Another way that self-sabotage can show up that's not that obvious, is you have this sudden urge for something else. It's like a new idea, a new project or crisis that has to just take priority and the business all of a sudden has to pivot. And that just shows up the week before a launch or right at the time that you start gaining success and momentum in your business. It's like we never fully step into that power when we do that. Another way is when we start getting into comparison. I've said it before, I'll say it again. The Bible talks about it. Comparison is a thief of joy. We're not to compare ever. If you start finding yourself comparing, if you're on social media and you see people that are making you compare where you're at with where they're at or where you think that they're at based on what they're posting, unfollow them or unmute their stories and their posts. Another way that we self-sabotage that's not so obvious is that we start overhelping other people when we just start pouring into clients or family or friends in overtime, in overdrive. And because being generous is such a good thing, it often gets seen as being a good thing. So we don't think it's self-sabotage. But when it starts emptying our own bucket to the point that we can't pour into our business, it's no longer helpful, it's hurtful. Have you ever found yourself constantly trying to get others approval before you do something? Like you tell them your idea before you actually launch it because what you're looking for is confirmation from them that you have a good business idea. And you're usually asking people who aren't even in business themselves or aren't where you want to be or who have a completely different mindset from you. And how is that a good idea? Why would you ask somebody for advice that's not even playing in the same arena that you're playing in? Now, these last three that I want to talk about, these are kind of sneaky ways that are really not that obvious. And one of them, which I will say for the last, most people don't think about it as self-sabotage because it's not conscious. And here's the thing about self-sabotage: it's never conscious. You're never thinking, I'm gonna just go screw up my business today. That's a good idea. No one consciously does that. So, my last three, less obvious ways, we self-sabotage. We discount our own wins. How many times have you done this or you've had like a real awesome win in your business and you discount it? Maybe you don't want to make somebody else feel bad or you don't want to seem like you're bragging. And I don't think we should brag just for the sake of bragging, because nobody likes that. Also, people don't like it when you just send them your wins and you never ask them how they are doing. Don't do that. That's a bad friend. Um, had one of those, let them go. So when you discount your own wins, meaning you don't even celebrate when you actually have a win in your business, that's self-sabotage. Because when you hype yourself up and when you feel good about your own wins, then that's going to propel you to do more. When you underplay them, then where's the excitement in you actually achieving any more future goals or doing anything that's really good and exciting in your business? Another way is that another way we self-sabotage is we overconsume my Instagram algorithm. I tell you, you know it, right? Your YouTube algorithm, your Instagram algorithm. It's like you search for one type of course, and now all of a sudden, every single influencer, advertisement course, anything that's related to that one search is now all of a sudden popping up and you're going down rabbit holes for five hours a day instead of actually moving forward with launching your offer or your new product or your business or opening up that extra store or hiring that employee. You're avoiding doing the things that are actually going to result in more success in your business because you are just now going down all these rabbit holes thinking that you need to take more of these courses. You need to learn more. And here's the thing I'm gonna tell you something right now. There's so much information in the World and the universe, like the universe has information that our world doesn't even have yet. There is so much information out there that you could never learn everything in an entire lifetime. So when you find yourself starting to overconsume, just check that and watch that. Okay, this last one here, this is one that nobody ever talks about. Like, no one talks about it. I think people don't want to talk about it for a specific reason, but getting sick and burning out, right? We've all had this happen. We've all had it happen. Like right before something really big, or when we're going to step into something really new and powerful, something crazy happens. Maybe it's like our vehicle all of a sudden breaks down, or like all these crazy things come up, or we get sick, we have a health flare, and we don't think that that's self-sabotage. We just actually start to think it's just something that was not in our control. Because again, self-sabotage is never actively overtly, oh, I'm just gonna sabotage the success that I'm having in my business. How do we do that today? Nobody wakes up thinking that. Like it's not a normal thought process that people actually have. So when it shows up, what it is, is it's a result from the nervous system that isn't feeling safe with success. And so you have a health flare, you get sick, something breaks down. Again, we are these energetic beings and our thoughts and our feelings have a frequency and an energy to them. And most of the time we're not consciously aware of our thoughts and feelings, and especially nowadays, because so many of us are on autopilot and we're so distracted by so many different things that rarely do we take the time to check in and go, How am I feeling? How am I thinking? and settle in and almost deal with maybe some of the underlying panic or overwhelm that we had. Like if we actually woke up in the morning and said, How am I feeling today? How am I feeling about this growth? Maybe we'd be honest and we'd be able to recognize that actually I'm feeling really overwhelmed and really scared and I'm afraid that it's gonna fail. Or actually, maybe I'm afraid that I'm gonna be so successful and I'm not going to be able to handle the success. I won't have time with my family and my friends. Or maybe I'll fall back into an addiction that I have. Or maybe I will stop taking care of myself the way that I know how. And we don't do that. So the nervous system does it for us and says, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. I don't want this person to destroy themselves. I don't want this human to wreck their life. Again, the brain knows this is really important to this person. And I have a programming that says that if I achieve this success, that then all of a sudden this is going to fall apart in my world and this will fall apart and this will fall apart in my life. So the nervous system goes, let's protect her. And what do we do? We get sick. What do we do? We have a health flare, sends us back, keeps us playing small because too big, too visible, is too dangerous to our brain and our nervous system for some reason. Some of these things that I just listed, some of them are gonna sting, right? Some of them are going to be really uncomfortable truths. And you might go, I don't really know if I like this Samantha chick. I don't know. I don't know how I feel. But good. Because if it stings, if it's a very uncomfortable truth that you don't want to hear, that means it's relevant. And that means you need to look at it a little bit. Okay, now let's get into signs that self-sabotage is about to show up in your life. And I'm gonna tell you right now that I have definitely experienced some of these, some of them are more my nervous systems and my mind's default than others. And so it'll be interesting for you to think about well, whoa, what happens for me? What are signs for me? The first one is resistance that feels disproportionate. And I'm gonna be so honest. Sometimes I am really resistant to recording a podcast episode, like really disproportionately resistant. Like I don't want to do it, and I get an attitude about doing it, and I feel like a child almost, which is crazy because I'm like a 41-year-old woman. I'll be 42 here in three weeks. So maybe by the time you guys listen to this, it'll be like two weeks that I'll be 42. But it's crazy. I legitimately feel like a child who's protesting that she doesn't want to put on her shoes and her clothes. She just wants to sit in her pajamas all day. Like it feels like that. It's like normally you could do something. Normally, there was something to do in your business and you're totally fine with it. And then all of a sudden, it's like there's this massive resistance. And then maybe other things actually start to happen. Like all of a sudden, things almost start conspiring with you to make you go, yeah, this is actually 10 times harder today. And it's like there's a resistance. Another sign that self-sabotage is about to show up is you have this loss of confidence. Like you're feeling so confident, you're feeling so good. And then all of a sudden, one day now you're like, uh, who do I think I am? And maybe you start to get into the like, who do I think I am? Like, why do I even think I can do this? What the I'm crazy. Like, I am losing my mind. Like, I have just maybe been on some crazy manic episode or something to even think that I could go and grow my business and do this next goal or step into my power more. It's really funny. We do. We will doubt ourselves. And no, you're not bipolar. Just it's just the nature of growing and expanding. It's the resistance. You think about stretching an elastic band. If that elastic band could talk, it would probably say, Oh, this is actually really uncomfortable. Let's shrink back down for a bit, reset ourselves, and then okay, and then we can stretch again. It's kind of like that. The urge to disappear, the urge to go away, and all of a sudden we want to retreat. We just want to hide, we want to hibernate. That's a sign that self-sabotage is about to show up. But it's also cool because these should also be reminders that whoa, I'm actually stepping into something big and powerful. So it should be like a bittersweet thing where it's kind of like, oh, okay, self-sabotage is kind of coming up. I'm not feeling so great about some things. I'm kind of feeling like I kind of want to give up or throw in the towel or I'm doubting or I'm questioning. I don't feel so confident. But then it should be a reminder, hey, you're actually gonna step into something really powerful. This is another one. Oh, this happens to me. You're thinking a decision that you've already made, and now you're second guessing it. Now you can't sleep at night. The anxiety, the racing thoughts. Oh, should I have done that? Should I have done this? Should I have said that? Should I, why did I do that? Now you're thinking and overthinking and over guessing and second guessing. That's another way you can tell a self-sabotage is about to show up because what comes after the overthinking, the backpedaling, the self-sabotage, emotional volatility around your business. So, like you're angry, you're frustrated, you just feel irritable for no reason, none whatsoever. This has happened to me. The maybe I should just thought. So maybe I should just restructure my business or rebrand or restart showing up right before you're about to do something. Those questions, those little thoughts in your head that maybe I should just. Maybe I should just do this one little one just one more. The one thing, just the one thing that that little voice in your head, that is the beginning of self-sabotage. And then all of a sudden you feel confused. It's like you were so clear before, you were so confident before, you were moving forward, you're making decisions, you were a boss lady, boss babe, you felt so good, you were networking, and then all of a sudden, now you're confused. I don't know. I am like, sure. Am I sure about this? And like confusion about things that you understood. And now you're you're not so sure that you understand them. Like you totally understood how your marketing and advertising should work, but now you're really all of a sudden unclear. It's like, how did that happen? You were there mentally, and now all of a sudden you're not. These are ways that your mind, that your body will start to give you little signs that hey, maybe self-sabotage is coming. So growth, discomfort, and self-sabotage feel nearly identical from the inside, and the difference is one moves you forward and one keeps you exactly where you are. Now, why does self-sabotage show up? I mean, the obvious thing is that the brain is trying to protect you from something, but what is the something? What is it trying to protect you of? Well, the first thing you might have a fear of success. And that sounds so counterintuitive, but it's true for a lot of women. Because if I'm successful, what does it mean? It means more visibility, it means people having eyes on me that didn't before. It means more judgment from others, more scrutiny, more responsibility, more money, more problems, more success, more problems. Not more problems, different problems, different problems. And I always say, what kind of problems do you want to have? Because you're going to have problems every day of your life. Do you want to have problems of being broke and not knowing if you can house and clothe and feed yourself? Or do you want the problems of who do I hire? Who do I fire? Do I go into this market? Do I expand over here? What problems do you want to have? So, yes, with more success comes more kinds of challenges, different kinds of challenges you didn't have before. It's the same as you have to become a different person than you were before the success to have the success that you want. It's just different. Consider it like you're going to a new country. It's a whole new set of customs, a whole new culture, a whole new lot of everything. And you have to decide, do I want those problems or do I want the problems of being broke and stuck and not enjoying the work I do and going back to working a nine to five? What problems do you want? But that is a reason why self-sabotage comes up. So we have a fear of success. What it means, being visible, more responsibility, problems, challenges, scrutiny. There's way more to lose. Then identity conflict. So your current self-concept doesn't match the version of you that succeeds at this level. And that gap in between who you are now and who you have to become can feel really, really, really uncomfortable. So sometimes we unconsciously close that by pulling back. Let me give you an example. Years ago, I had somebody who I was friends with. We are no longer friends actually because of what happened, but I agreed to start coaching her and helping her. And we worked together for about three sessions. And after the third session, she sent me this long email that completely picked my approach to coaching apart. Now, when I coach people, I have great success with them. And it's one thing I've heard time and time and time again is that you are an excellent coach. You are excellent at doing what you do because I'm good at getting results. I'm really good at getting past the BS in people. But if you're not ready for that, and I actually warned this person, I said, just so you know, coaching is uncomfortable. You will have to face things about yourself that you haven't faced yet. So I prepared her because I understand the process. And her boss, even prepared her and said, Have you ever worked with a coach before? And she had not. And he said, Be prepared to grow, be prepared to be uncomfortable. And as soon as it got uncomfortable, she decided to attack me and my process. But my process is what gets the results. And sometimes, as soon as we realize that we have to become somebody completely different, it forces us to look at who we are right now and all of the things about ourselves that we don't necessarily like and that we know are not working, but we're not ready to admit it yet. We're not ready to admit because the ego is so attached to our identity that we've built until now. And when you smash that ego's identity, well, what does the ego do? It doesn't want to die, right? The ego doesn't want to have to give up its control. The ego has been in control forever, and it doesn't want to have to give up who it is. So you freak out, you panic, you realize, oh my gosh, there is a really big gap between who I want to be, who I need to be for the success of my business and the growth versus where I'm at today. And so you self-sabotage and anyone that's trying to help you, you attack them. It's just it's a fear. It is a fear of holy shoot, this is who I have to actually become. Another reason it comes up, self-sabotage. We don't feel worthy. We don't even fully believe that we are worthy of it. Now, maybe we've made some bad decisions in the past, you know. Women listening to this podcast, women that I work with, like maybe you're coming from addiction. Maybe you're coming from a bad childhood. Maybe you're coming from poverty. Maybe you're coming from you dropped out of high school. You didn't even have your GED. Maybe you made bad decisions in the past. Or maybe you never really felt loved. Maybe you never saw success around you. Maybe that all felt like some foreign concept that maybe only really wealthy people ever actually got to experience. And so now here you are, you're like, I'm gonna build this thing. I'm gonna grow my business. I'm gonna earn my first million. I'm gonna earn my first six figures. No one in my family has ever done that before me. I'm gonna do it. But yet on the inside, you don't even feel worthy. If you're so honest, you would admit I don't feel worthy of this. And that's not your fault. And that's not something for you to feel shame about. But that is why we self-sabotage sometimes. And you still think that you need to prove that you're worthy. If I just do more, I'll be worthy. And I'm going to tell you right now, there are coaches who teach, just do, just do. Don't get into the mindset stuff. The mindset that'll keep you locked in it forever. I don't believe in getting stuck in the fluff and the feelings and the emotions of it all. But sometimes we do need to challenge, question, and change our own belief system and our mindset. Because if we don't, it's just going to keep pulling and sucking us back like an undercurrent or an undertow. And we're going to keep trying to move forward. And that mindset and that belief will just keep us going back and back. And we can chase and we can do all the actions. We can take all the super successful actions that we think that we should be taking, and maybe even we should be taking, but we will spend our entire lives chasing and running away from something as opposed to it just addressing it. So let's deal with that unworthiness. Another reason why self-sabotage comes up is we have a loyalty to old stories. Women in my family don't succeed like that. I've never been good with money. People like me don't build businesses like that. Whatever story we have about our identity that we're still attached to, those will hold us back. And that will allow the self-sabotage to come in and help us write out so we don't grow. Fear of outgrowing relationships. Now, this is a lot because a lot of times we have family and we have friends that we're afraid to outgrow because then all of a sudden, who can we hang out with? We'll be lonely. What does it mean to be lonely? So if you level up, who do you become? And who is going to stay when you become that version of you? Because on a subconscious level, we know that we have to become a different version of ourself in order to achieve the success that we're working on achieving. And there is a subconscious part of us that knows that not everybody is going to like the version that we become. And the reason that they won't like it is not that you're going to become a bad person. Because I've said it before, I'll say it again. Becoming successful in business will force you to become the best version of yourself. And it will be the biggest personal development course that you will ever take. So it's not that you're going to become a bad version. Whoever you were before you became successful just almost becomes amplified. It just becomes refined. And so when you become that version, you will naturally shine a light on people who are insecure about where they're at with their life and they're not yet ready to face that insecurity. And so they will look at you and they'll think, well, you've changed. And it's not that you have changed in such a way that's painful or hurtful or bad towards them. It's just that by you stepping fully into your power, it highlights for them how little they've stepped into theirs. And that pain is again too much for some people. The gap between who they are and who they're capable of becoming, that gap is sometimes too painful. The last reason that we self-sabotage, and this is a big one, is that we have a financial thermometer. Every single one of us, we all have a financial thermometer. Millionaires have it, billionaires have it, poor people have it, middle class people have it. Everybody has a financial thermometer. And a financial thermometer is simply the set point at where your nervous system feels okay and safe with earning. Everybody has a baseline for that. And as soon as you start to go over that, then all of a sudden your nervous system starts kind of freaking out on the inside. And you might not recognize it because you might be on such a high from the fact that you've hit the income level or the financial level that you want. But that's when the self-sabotage will happen. You'll overspend, you'll make bad decisions in your business, you'll make bad investments, you'll get involved with the wrong people, you'll spend your money on things that you know you shouldn't. Everyone has this internal set point for how much money, success, and visibility feels safe and normal. And when you start to exceed that set point, even if it's a in a positive direction, your subconscious will treat it as a threat and it will pull you back into familiar ground. Now you might be able to sustain that success for a little bit of time, but then you'll start backsliding. It's why you'll have a 20K month and then immediately you'll have a slow month after that. It's why you you land a big client and then you underperform. It's why you raise your prices and then you freeze on the marketing. Your financial thermometer is regulating you back to what feels safe, not what's possible for you. And in order to reprogram that, you have to do two things at the same time. You have to do the mindset and identity work to raise that set point. And then you have to take consistent action at the new level long enough that it actually becomes the new normal. And the body and your brain need evidence and repetition to accept it as a new baseline. You don't just think your way into a new financial identity, and you don't just keep doing your way into a new financial identity either. You need both. And I would even suggest and have suggested to people, even doing EFT, which is tapping, because that's going to help you as your nervous system starts to want to backslide. Okay, now let's get into the cost of self-sabotaging because everything that we do, it has a price. There's always sacrifice. If we grow our business, we have to sacrifice something. Maybe we don't sit and waste time on useless TV shows anymore because we don't have that kind of time if we want to grow a successful business. Everything has a sacrifice in life, everything. There's an equal or greater offset to whatever it is that we want. And so self-sabotage isn't free, right? It might look like it is because we don't initially see it, but everything has a price tag. And a lot of women haven't considered what that actually is. There is a financial cost to self-sabotage. If you were to look at what are the ways that you've self-sabotaged, was it underpricing? Was it discounting? Was it not launching the thing that you wanted to launch? Was it over-delivering without charging appropriately? What is it that you've done? How much does that cost? Imagine this situation. Let's say you have 20 customers, okay? Let's just talk service-based business here. So you have a service-based business and you worked with 20 clients in the air and you undercharged on average. Let's just say on average, because maybe some you charged, undercharged $200, $700, $1,000. But let's say on average, you undercharged by $500 per client and you worked with $20. That's $10,000 out of your business. It wasn't lost. You didn't lose the money. You literally gave it away. You gave that money away. And then what did that cost you? Was it additional interest that you had on borrowing a line of credit? So then now there's an additional cost. And then you have the time cost. So how many hours did you spend over consuming content or redoing things or trying to make sure that it was perfect or it was good enough? Or staying up late nights and thinking about the decisions that you made and second guessing your decisions. You can't get back time. This is not like share. Opportunity costs. There is an opportunity cost. So the clients that you didn't sign because you didn't show up, or the course that you didn't launch, or the product that you didn't launch, or the networking that you didn't go to because you decided to sleep in and retreat and isolate yourself. The audience that you didn't build, what was that cost? How many potential clients did you lose? Or customers did you lose? Or brand awareness did you lose? Or potential brand deals did you lose? What about confidence? Confidence and self-trust. These are two big important things. We have confidence and we have self-trust. And self-trust is so important. I just did an episode on it. Having trust in ourselves is incredibly important. So every time that you don't follow through, every time that you break a commitment to yourself, every time you allow self-sabotage to win, you're eroding trust with yourself and you're actually creating a new habit. You're creating a new habit of giving up when the going gets tough, or giving up right before success happens. You're actually affirming for your brain and your nervous system that this is what we do when success is about to happen. And then there's the compounding cost. Self-sabotage doesn't just cost you today. It's going to cost you momentum that would have been built had you just stuck with it. And that's why when I have my moments where all of a sudden I feel irritable and I feel angry and I'm not wanting to work on my episodes or on the things that I've got going on, it's 10X. Like it's disproportionate to what I actually have to do. And even when that happens, I don't force myself to work right away. I usually kind of give myself a little bit of time. I call it out for what it is. First of all, I recognize it and I don't allow myself to believe the lies that it's telling me, which the lies are usually that this isn't self-sabotage. It would almost be like a burglar coming into your home and they are dressed all in black and they're wearing a belly clav and they're like, I'm not here to rob you, I'm breaking. And it's like, no, that's exactly what you're here to do. You are here to rob me. You are here to break into my house and you are here to rob me. That's what you are doing. And it's kind of like that. The self-sabotage is costing you in the future, but the lies that it will tell you is that it's not actually self-sabotage. That the little procrastination, the perfectionism, oh, this isn't actually self-sabotage. That's not what it is. The version of you that you keep putting off, she's not waiting forever. And every season that you delay is a season that that version of you does not exist. Think about that. And the world needs that version of you. It's kind of like in the movie Michael, where Michael's in the pool and his brothers are about to go out and they are all disappointed because he's not going to go out with them. And he says, I'm waiting for the creator to give me my new idea so that he doesn't give it to Prince. So it's kind of like that. It's like you're delaying becoming and having who it is that you are meant to become and what you're meant to do every time you put it off. So now let's get into how do you deal with self-sabotage and how do you just stay on track so that it doesn't get the best of you. First of all, when you recognize it, like I said, just name it, recognize what it is. That's what I do. It's like I call it out. I'm completely aware of when it's starting to show up. I wasn't always, it just took time to recognize. It took personal development and time and figuring it out and figuring out what my patterns are. So name it, call it out, and don't feel shame about it. It's like almost laugh at it, like it's comedic. Oh my gosh, here we go again, right? Because the second that you call something out, the less power that it has. It's like a pattern interrupt in your own brain. And the second thing is to build pattern awareness, not just moment awareness. So pay attention to when the resistance shows up. Is it right before launches? Is it right after the wins? Is it when you become more visible? Is it when you get more attention? Is it when your income goes up? Knowing when your subconscious will want to start to self-sabotage is key in helping you even become aware of paying attention to when self-sabotage is about to hit or attack or when certain thoughts, behaviors are coming up and recognizing that they're self-sabotage. It's not that you're just sick, it's that that's your nervous system's way to protect you because you just had some massive shift in your own awareness and your own business growth. And so now your nervous system is coming in to protect you. Pattern interrupt. I just mentioned that when you call it out, you're pattern interrupting. You're up your own mind. So when you catch yourself in that pattern, when you catch yourself in the self-sabotage, you need to have something else that you have decided on that's going to be your physical or your behavioral interruption that breaks the loop before you actually do it. So it could be like an elastic band on your wrist, it could be the physical action of standing up, going outside, or changing your environment. Or years and years and years ago, a friend taught me this. He said, I just say thank you for sharing. Interesting. And then I was listening to some Kabbalah studies the other week, and they said, when you have a challenge in life, just say my pleasure. Great. Those are pretty cool. So when something comes up, my pleasure. When a self-sabotaging thought or behavior comes up, my pleasure. So it's like you're taking the power away from it when you say my pleasure, or thank you for sharing. Again, you're taking away the power of the self-sabotage. Because every time we feed the self-sabotage through believing that it's real, believing that there actually is some kind of threat or something that needs to be done, then we're giving it more power. We're just feeding it. Then you want to make sure that you have some kind of action in place so that when you feel the urge to procrastinate or be overly perfectionistic, to disappear, to over-research, or to discount, or restart, or come up with a new idea, that you have this pre-decided idea about what you're going to do instead. So eliminate the in-moment negotiation because in the moment your fear will win. So you kind of have to decide like, what am I going to do when self-sabotage does start to come up? How am I going to act? What's the action that I'm going to take? For me, there's something I love to do. I have a song and I listen to the song and it pulls me back into my why. It pulls me back into my purpose. It pulls me back into staying focused. So for me, it's a song. Maybe for you, it's a video or a meditation or going for a walk or reading a certain scripture from the Bible, or maybe it's reading some quotes that you've got written down to just remind you, or maybe it's going back and reading your own mission. Okay, so the next thing that you want to do is make sure that whatever the next thing that you have to do, make it smaller, make it easier for you to do. Because when we get stuck into that fight, flight, freeze response, what ends up happening is that we become overwhelmed when we try to bring ourselves back to doing the thing that we need to do. So we want to shrink and make smaller as much as possible the next thing that we have to do. If you have two podcast episodes to record, or if you have a massive estimate that you have to get out to a customer, why not just break it up into chunks? It's still going to get done and it's a heck of a lot better than you letting self-sabotage win, but make it smaller and more manageable. And then you want to start tracking. You want to track your numbers, your data, your results. Because if you don't understand what your metrics are, your numbers are, your finances are, how can you change them? How can you manage those things? How can you deal with them if you don't even know what they are? It's a way to create accountability for yourself. And then you need someone, not a friend who's just gonna let you off the hook, but you need somebody like a coach or a community or somebody who's also in business who's going to help hold you accountable. Not the person who doesn't really care about your dreams, not the person who isn't achieving any goals herself. You want a community, a peer or a coach that's going to help you be accountable to yourself. Because then that's also just mentally a poll of right, I'm going to have to tell this person. Sometimes when we start letting ourselves down, because we stop honoring our own word, the only person that we have to report to is ourselves. Really, sometimes there ends up being external parties that are affected and we have to report to, but really it's ourselves, which is how we end up getting stuck in feelings like shame, guilt, unworthiness. Like we're not valuable because we actually break promises with ourselves. But if we have somebody else that we're accountable to, we're more likely to follow through because we have to remember right, I'm gonna have to show up to them and I can't pretend to be somebody else. I actually have to show up as I am. The next thing is work on your identity. You have to start seeing yourself as the woman who does honor her commitments, who does grow, and who does build the successful business. And your behavior will follow everything that you believe in that you think about yourself because you can't sustainably act above who you believe yourself to be for long before the rubber band actually snaps back to who you are. So you have to do that deep identity work. The last thing, stop waiting to feel ready. You're never going to feel ready. I said this in other episodes. You're never ready to get married or have a child or do any of the things. Sure, there's always better timing, but ready is subjective. It's not objective. It's dependent on what you believe and what you value. It's dependent on how you feel and how you think. So stop waiting to feel ready because it comes when you just take the action. You will never be ready to be the woman that you are working to become by building the success in your business that you are working towards building. And self-sabotage doesn't go away just because you understand it, it goes away because you stop letting it make your decisions. All right, everyone, we are nearing the very end of this episode. And, you know, every single woman who has been listening to this has done at least five things on this list in the last 90 days. I can guarantee that. And that's not failure, it's just information for you. So the question for you isn't whether you self-sabotage, the question is whether you're willing to be honest enough with yourself to see it before it costs you another season, another lost client, another brand deal. So let me leave you with this. What is the one move in your business that you've been circling for months, maybe even years, and what has it actually cost you every month that you have waited? And maybe you won't even know that value until you actually start taking the action. All right, everyone, that's it for today's episode, the Overcome Her Podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Noel, and you've been listening to episode number 16, which is all about how self-sabotage shows up in sneaky ways. Feel free to join me over on Instagram at Samantha Noel Co. And you can also join my Facebook group, Built for Profit, which is for female entrepreneurs who want to build their business successfully and overcome the obstacles and the blocks that are keeping them from achieving that success. And you can also email me any of your suggestions for the show to the overcomeherpodcast at gmail.com. Again, it's the overcomeherpodcast at gmail.com. And it's been great spending this time with you. I hope that you guys have an amazing day, continued success in your business, and we will see you guys soon.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

We made I can't believe we really made it was a long road to get night wasn't good, but we made the tomboy girl who couldn't wait to fade down by the river, running through the fields of hay.