Self Sabotage

What causes a world-class soccer player to get himself booted out of a game? In World Cup Soccer it means he not only misses the game he is playing, he also misses the next game. The stakes are so high and yet it doesn't seem to matter. With potential success right around the corner, the players still do really stupid things to ensure they can't be part of that success.

Most of the acts of digression are quite small; pulling on someone's shirt or inapproriately using their body. Though this won't give them a red card, two of these will give them a yellow cards and cause them to get thrown out of the game.

I have seen many people in the game of life do something similar. They might not be all-star athletes, however they do have attributes that make them a star in their own fields. This self-sabotage is more common than you can imagine.

Think about your life and if there is any time you might have self-sabotaged yourself from reaching your goal. I read somewhere that 75% of American's are on a diet at any given time. I have seen many of my friends start diets with a sense of optimism with their weight loss goals. A month or two into their diet as they are about to reach their goal, they suddenly give up and start eating foods that will cause them to gain all their weight back quickly.

I find myself doing this when I am on my yeast-free/sugar-free diet. I did it once for 3 months 5 years ago and it had tremendous benefits for my health. And yet, knowing how successful it can be, I can't seem to stick to it for any lenghth of time. Half-way through I sabotage the whole plan and go back to my previous way of eating.

What is going on? I ask myself this all the time and I am sure some of you do the same. Not just with eating of course, but with other areas on your life too. People self-sabotage with their work-life, love-life, home-life and especially their financial life with overspending.

It can stem from a lack of self worth. We somehow don't believe that we deserve success and by purposely causing our demise, we ensure we don't get it. I have trouble believing this is the reason for my own diet self-sabotage since I think I have a high degree of healthy self-love. However, somewhere deep in the trenches of my psyche there has to be something holding be back. My goal the next few months is to figure out what that is. I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, you might ask yourself if you have ever self-sabotaged or even if you have found yourself in that pattern. If so, you might go on the same journey with me.

Additional Reading:
Overcoming Self-Sabotage

Overcoming self-sabotage requires looking inside

Your Own Subversion:
Overcoming Self-Sabotage

Self-Improvement: Overcoming Self-Sabotage