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Am I Self-Sabotaging? How To Tell and How To Stop

A frustrating day on the job can leave you wondering why things are so difficult. You might even wonder if you’re causing your own problems. Do you ever ask yourself, “Do I self-sabotage? Do I put myself in situations where I’m set up for failure?”

Self-sabotage is common, and for some, it’s a behavior and habit that’s hard to ignore, especially when it contributes to not achieving your goals or enjoying a happy, healthy lifestyle.

What Is Self-Sabotage?

You may realize you’re playing a part in your frustration or lack of progress, but you don’t have a name for it. Self-sabotage occurs when you create an obstacle that impacts your ability to reach a goal you’ve set. Some of the most common behaviors that could be classified as self-sabotage include:

  • Self-medication using alcohol or drugs
  • Procrastinating to accomplish tasks
  • Self-injury
  • Comfort eating
  • Making projects or tasks more complicated than they should be
  • Not taking action right away

Many people don’t recognize self-sabotaging behavior in themselves. But you may see the connection between your actions and behavior and the outcome over time. You might think, “If only I would have done it this way” or “I have to stop this!”

 

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Signs of Self-Sabotage: What Are They and How to Spot Them

Recognizing potential signs of self-sabotage can help you make better choices. If you’re actually engaging in self-sabotaging behavior, you can learn how to make changes to minimize negative outcomes. Here are some of the most common signs of self-sabotage:

Walking Away From a Problem

Some people become frustrated and give up instead of trying to determine what went wrong. This often means all the effort you put into a project is wasted. Look back on what happened. Did you put in the effort and follow the plan? Doubts about your ability could be a core reason you’re so willing to walk away instead of working on a solution.

Negative Self-Talk

One of the most common signs of self-sabotage is how you talk about yourself or the words you use when thinking about yourself. For example, statements such as “I don’t deserve this” or “I’m so stupid” often indicate a lack of faith and confidence.

Blaming Others

Quite commonly, people who self-sabotage blame others for what went wrong. It could be no one’s fault, but those who engage in this type of behavior often find someone to blame. Not being able to recognize your role in the situation and make healthier, better decisions in the future just repeats the pattern of poor outcomes.

Procrastination

Putting things off until the last minute is a type of self-sabotage. You might push a task or project to the side and look for other things that seem more important, or you may reach for anything as a distraction to avoid a difficult decision. Procrastination can be a sign of stress or worry, but it may also be a sign of doubting your ability or being unable to manage time wisely. Self-discipline isn’t an inborn trait; it’s a learned skill.

Boredom and Lack of Focus

In some situations, self-sabotage occurs for a very simple reason: You’re bored. You don’t like what you’re doing, it’s not intellectually or emotionally stimulating, and you can’t focus on it. It could be that you find someone on your team annoying. Maybe they’re pushing your buttons or not contributing, or maybe the task is just dull and boring. Regardless, not getting it done often means you’re self-sabotaging because you won’t finish the job or do it well.

How to Stop Self-Sabotaging

If you recognize any of these signs of self-sabotage, take a step back. You can fix this, and you can learn to master your ability to work through difficult situations to create a better outcome. Consider these strategies:

Stop Criticizing Yourself

Self-criticism doesn’t have an easy fix, but it’s critical to minimize it if you want to reach your long-term goals. Instead of saying or thinking negative things, spin them around into something good. You may want to say, “I am so bad at this.” Instead, say, “I don’t have the skills yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

Get More Confidence Through Education

In some cases, you’re unable to reach a goal because you lack the skills. Change that. Find a way to increase your skills, such as through a leadership course, or invest in a program that focuses on building confidence.

Master Procrastination-Busting Skills

It’s easier said than done, especially when your mind is going in numerous directions at one time. But stopping self-sabotage is all about becoming self-aware. When you notice yourself becoming distracted, stop, reflect, and get back on track. Use timers to help you zone in for a specific period to accomplish tasks. Stop thinking about what you have to do and force yourself to do it. It is possible to change your habits.

Build Confidence in Yourself

Imposter syndrome, as defined by Psychology Today, is often a form of self-sabotage. It’s the feeling that you can’t possibly do the job that only other people do, or that you’re a fake, a pretender. When you don’t feel the confidence to complete the project, manage the team, or run the business, ask yourself why. Do you need more training and development? Do you have evidence of past success that should spur confidence in your ability now? Remind yourself every day of what you’ve already accomplished.

Invest in Yourself to Overcome Limitations

Ask yourself this question and jot down the answer. “Do I self-sabotage?” If you’re setting yourself up for failure, identify the specific behaviors and change them for the better.

At The Eighth Mile, we offer solutions to help you reinvent yourself and achieve a better outcome. If you’re self-sabotaging, isn’t it about time to try something different? Reach out to us today and learn more about your best path forward.

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How to Apply Rupture and Repair Therapy as a Leader

The concept of “rupture and repair” is widely used in the fields of social work and community services. It has origins in attachment theory founded by John Bowlby (1958) and is well known in therapeutic disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, and contemporary trauma-informed practice disciplines such as neurobiology. It is also something you can adapt to your leadership practice with great benefit.

In simple terms, “rupture and repair” is about breaking, fixing, and improving relationships. Specifically, it is about a breach or disconnect in a relationship followed by the restoration and positive continuation of that relationship.

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My experience with rupture and repair comes from my work with children and young people with trauma/abuse histories. The majority of this population has been betrayed by their loved ones, and as a result, they have ongoing trouble forming attachments and building trust. By using the rupture and repair approach as a way to promote healthy conflict resolution, we could assist in their healing by showing them that they are safe and appropriate people in the world with whom they can communicate openly.

From a leadership perspective, this approach can be invaluable. Conflict in the workplace is inevitable. If a leader reaches across the divide to help reconnect their employees after a conflict, it can improve and strengthen relationships across the team.

How Professional Relationships Can Break Down

Let’s say you have received an email from a staff member. They are unhappy with a work policy and demand to know what you plan to do about it. Imagine that the employee’s tone is blunt to the point of aggression and very accusatory, attacking your abilities and competence as a leader. 

You may be tempted to match the employee’s tone by going on the defensive, matching their aggression with your own in an attempt to shut them down or “be right.” If you are experiencing additional stress in other areas (such as a looming deadline or a sick family member), that might further fuel your ire. The moment you hit Send, however, you have created a rupture in that professional relationship.

Repairing Professional Relationships as a Leader

Regardless of who is “right,” it is your responsibility as a leader to fix the situation.

To start the repairing process, take the following action:

  1. Reach out to your employee and apologize. Do not make excuses or try to justify your actions. What matters is that your poor communication caused the rupture. Ideally, you should do this as soon as possible after the rupture. However, make sure you fully acknowledge and accept your responsibility for the situation before you reach out. If there’s a chance you will return to a defensive posture, it might be better to wait.
  2. Let them know how much you value their contributions. This whole thing started because this employee was trying to bring a potentially problematic issue to your attention. That kind of proactiveness and concern is what makes them a great team member.
  3. Listen. Whether they need to vent further about the initial problem or they want to talk about how the rupture has made them feel, give them plenty of space to speak freely. They may say some things that are hard for you to hear, but hear them you must. It is your job as a leader to accept those critiques instead of thinking up ways to defend your behavior.
  4. Assure them that you will address their initial concern as soon as possible. You might even consider asking them to assist you, giving them an even greater sense of ownership and input over the resolution.
  5. Follow through. If you’ve told them you would have an answer for them by the end of the day, do it.

By addressing ruptures quickly with a desire to fix what is broken (instead of a need to win), you are more likely to come out of the situation with a stronger professional relationship than you had before the rupture. 

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Learning From Ruptures

At  Eighth Mile Consulting, we believe that mistakes are opportunities for reflection and improvement. Next time you experience a rupture, spend the extra ten minutes repairing things regardless of who you think was at fault. More than likely, you will both come away with a greater sense of trust and support. This could translate into improved performance and productivity down the road.

We also know that accountability and accepting critique doesn’t always come naturally–it takes training. If you’re looking for a straightforward lesson on how to face your mistakes head-on, explore our 8-week online personal development and leadership program or contact us for personalized coaching.

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The FASD Method: Improved Decision-Making at Work

Adults make over 35,000 decisions each day. Many of the choices you make are automatic and proceed without much conscious consideration, such as getting out of bed or the route you take to the office. Other decisions carry more weight and require additional time and thought before making a judgment. But what about making decisions at work? Do you have a decision-making method to determine the right course of action?

Most of us have never been formally coached on how to make important decisions. If you’ve had difficulty making decisions at work, or if the calls you’ve been making are resulting in undesired outcomes, there might be something wrong. Not necessarily with the decisions themselves, but with how you are making them.

What if you took a more methodical approach to decision-making? Decision-making methods do exist. In fact, the military wouldn’t be able to function without a system for making rational decisions we call the FASD method. Could implementing a similar decision-making method at work help you develop and hone your decision-making skills?

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What Is the FASD Decision-Making Method?

The FASD approach is a military decision-making method that provides a framework for making informed decisions. This method guides choice-making with a systematic approach. To use this method for making decisions at work, you first determine the possible courses of action. Next, measure each of the options against the four FASD principles:

  1. Feasibility

  2. Acceptability

  3. Sustainability

  4. Discernibility

Both the Australian and American military use a variation of these terms in their decision-making methods. Let’s cover each one.

Feasible

Is the course of action feasible? Meaning can it be done within any restrictions you may have, including physical limitations, access to resources, and so on? Consider the amount of time required, the location, and the manpower needed.

For a simple example, let’s say your company’s fax machine has broken, and you are trying to choose whether to repair it or replace it. Is one option more financially feasible than the other? Do you have the staffing capacity to spend time comparing and testing new models? What about physical space–would a new machine take up more room, and can dedicate the square footage to this piece of equipment?

If it passes the feasibility test, you can move on to the next parameter.

Acceptable

Take the time to do a risk assessment. If a given option plays out as you expect it to, what are the consequences? Define the risks and determine if they are more detrimental than doing nothing. Balance the cost of this choice, which includes the risk involved in relation to the potential gain.

Continuing with the broken fax machine example, are the consequences of replacing vs. repairing the fax machine acceptable? If you replace it, the cost will be more significant, but repairing it may only buy time until another breakdown. Which option is more acceptable to you?

Sustainable (or Suitable)

In other words, are you capable of following through with this decision and maintaining the outcome on a long-term basis? Also, take a look at suitability — does the end result effectively resolve the problem you set out to solve with this decision-making method?

Referring back to our example, will the company be able to absorb the cost of replacing the fax machine, or will it do irreparable harm to the budget? Or, if you repair it, how long will it last until it breaks down again, thus incurring another cost?

Discernible

Lastly, look at whether each course of action is discernible. If the options you have identified at the beginning are not significantly different from each other, then you aren’t really making a decision — or rather, you’ve already made the decision, and who knows if it was the right one? If this is the case, return to the beginning of the process and redefine your potential courses of action, making sure each one solves the initial problem through a distinct and differing result.

In this case, our example problem of replacing vs. repairing broken equipment might have the same outcome if all other factors, such as cost and downtime, are the same. If that’s the situation, you should consider what problem you are really trying to solve. Is your end goal to send faxes? Or is it simply that you need a secure way of sending documents to clients? Are there other ways of accomplishing that goal other than a fax machine? Can you pivot to electronic signatures via an online platform or email? Or would you benefit from in-person meetings to go over these documents? Now, instead of tying yourself to a “choice” where you ultimately up in the same place no matter which option you choose (still using a fax machine), you have three truly unique options to choose from (fax machine, electronic sending, or in-person meetings).

From there, you can take the options that have passed the FASD criteria and conduct a course of action analysis to make a better and more informed decision at work.

Why the FASD Method Is Better Than Most Decision-Making Methods

The FASD decision-making method gives decision-makers the steps to complete a thorough assessment and review before making critical calls. This approach to decision-making is better than most others for various reasons. To understand this, let’s take a quick look at some other common ways decisions are made.

Common Alternatives to the FASD Decision-Making Method

Some of the common decision-making methods used to make decisions at work today include:

  • Commanding: Making decisions on your own without outside input

  • Consulting: Considering input from a small group of peers to make a decision

  • Voting: A group consensus where the majority rules

Each of the above methods fails to include one crucial step that the FASD masters: setting up the game properly. To make truly informed decisions as a leader in business, you first need to develop feasible options to compare. Each option has to be able to stand on its own merit and be entirely different (not just a slight deviation from the same plan).

The FASD method ensures that you’re choosing from the right set of choices. Assessing each course of action against the four principles above provides clarity in two ways. First, it acts as screening criteria to ensure each option is thoroughly considered. This prevents proceeding with a decision that fails to meet one of the FASD principles. Second, it enhances problem-solving abilities by requiring a thorough understanding of the situation before making any rash decisions to solve the problem.

When you adopt the FASD decision-making method, you can find your true power as a leader by adopting a military-like approach to your business. Doing a thorough review of your options before you choose one removes subjectivity and impulsive conclusions from your process, thereby earning you more respect from your team.

Take Your Decision-Making Method to the Next Level

Learning the right methods for how to make decisions at work can be a daunting task. If you feel this way, you are not alone. Luckily, there is help. At The Eighth Mile Consulting, our goal is to work with good people looking to improve themselves as employers and leaders.

If you’re looking for lessons that will take your leadership to the next level, take a look at our 8-week online leadership course to see if it might help you make better decisions at work and become a better leader for your team.

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3 Things Anyone Considering Individual Coaching Should Do First

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that the articles here tend to focus on leadership, group dynamics, projects, resilience, and communication. This article is different. Instead of focusing on the team dynamic, we will shift our attention to the individual–specifically, to those who feel as if life is holding their heads underwater.

Recently there has been an incredible influx of people seeking our help and assistance in the form of individual coaching. In most cases, they have been triggered by a LinkedIn post, podcast, or article that has pointed out a deficit or dissatisfaction they have. The most common complaints we receive involve at least one of the following:

  • A lack of direction
  • An inability to maintain meaningful relationships
  • Frustration in determining what one’s priorities consist of
  • A subtle but consistent straying from one’s values
  • Resilience refocusing

In nearly all cases, the individual believes they have exhausted their own ability to fix their problems. They are seeking an objective, external force to act as a circuit breaker for their dysfunctional thought processes. Thus, they turn to the concept of individual coaching.

But that move might be premature. In almost all instances, the person has been operating within a suite of assumptions and beliefs that are not serving them (or the people around them) well. Adjusting some of those thought processes first will lay the groundwork to make any future individual coaching even more fruitful.

Before You Begin Individual Coaching

Prior to enrolling in customized or individual coaching sessions, there are three concepts you should get comfortable with first. For some of you, these three ideas might be all you need to get yourself on the right track. For others, the structured guidance of individual coaching might still be needed.

1) Be of Service

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

– Mahatma Ghandi

You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: Life is not all about you.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that frowns upon criticism, promotes a scarcity mentality, and accepts ‘the blame game’ and fingerpointing instead of demanding accountability. What this amounts to is disconnection on a major scale. So many people are without direction because all their energy is invested in service of themselves.

If you want direction, the easiest place to start is by finding a worthy cause. If you want to cut off the internal rehashing of your own problems, invest that precious time towards solving someone else’s. They might even return the favor one day, which could provide that outsider’s perspective you’re looking for.

2)  Own Your Decisions. ALL of Them.

Life is the sum of all your choices.

– Albert Camus

Every situation demands choice, and each choice will result in a different outcome. In some cases, our choices might include a decisive action (take a new job or not, stay in a team or not, go left or right). 

In other cases, though we might not have control over the action, we can still choose to reframe how we view it. 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

– Viktor Frankl

 

The moment we feel we are without choices is the moment we become truly powerless. But that’s the thing: no matter what the situation, we are never without a choice. You always have with you the tools that need to claim your power. 

Ironically, this can be a somewhat scary proposition. It means that you are where you are because of your previous choices, and where you go depends on what choices you make from here. If you have power over every choice, whether active or reactive, then you, and you alone, bear the responsibility for their results.

3) Prepare to Sacrifice

The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.

– William Arthur Ward

If you want to effect significant change in your life, you need to be willing to invest significantly in the outcome. Whether that is time, money, energy, or vulnerability, this investment will take commitment. 

Do not be lazy when it comes time to do the hard work. To make your self-improvement a priority, you will likely have to move other things down the to-do list. You might also have to endure some unpleasant things, such as:

  • Physically or emotionally stressful circumstances
  • Removing toxic people from your life
  • Learning new skills
  • Spending money on personal development (such as individual coaching)
  • Disappointing people if you determine certain projects are no longer in line with your priorities
  • Committing to late nights and early mornings
  • Being honest with others so that they might help you out of your rut

Whatever is needed or required for you to refocus your life, you are the one behind the wheel. Will you take the smooth, easy road, or will you venture into untraveled terrain? In other words, what comforts are you willing to give up in order to get where you want to go?

Next Steps: Individual Coaching with The Eighth Mile 

The areas of service, choice, and sacrifice can and should be custom-fitted to each person’s circumstances. However, based on our experience at The Eighth Mile, adopting a mentality geared toward service and accountability is a proven step in the right direction. 

If you feel you still need assistance in the form of individual coaching, please reach out to us and we will be happy to discuss your circumstances further. Other areas that often require attention include: 

  • Letting go of resentment 
  • Priority and goal-setting
  • Building rapport with others 
  • Communicating with empathy
  • Leadership skills 

If you want a training experience that mirrors the classroom but can still be conducted on your own schedule, then you may benefit from our 8-week online leadership training course, which includes several individual coaching sessions in addition to training modules and virtual workshops.

Whatever path you take from here, remember that no matter what the situation, you are never powerless. Whether through action or reaction, the choice is always yours to make.

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