5 Tips to Handle Self-Sabotaging Behavior

Self-sabotaging behavior is when you do things that might be harmful to you. You could be missing out on some great experiences as a result. How you can tackle the destructive behavior is discussed below.

What Are You Doing?

The first step is to identify the self-sabotage that you’re doing. You may have a pattern of leaving relationships when they’re about to get serious, or leave jobs right before the year-end review.

Loved ones can help. They’ll be seeing your behavior up-close, so they would be aware of self-sabotaging traits you didn’t know you had.

What Triggers You?

For a lot of people, what leads them to the destructive behavior is specific triggers. Make note of your daily activities and thoughts in a journal – you should be able to find out what’s triggering you when you look at these.

A lot of the time, fear is the primary driver of self-sabotage. Maybe you have a bad memory that you’re scared of reliving? Being mindful of the trigger would help you overcome it.

Get Comfortable

The destructive behavior may be causing you to avoid a lot of experiences. Many of the experiences you’ve missed could have been some of the best of your life. Realize that it’s alright to fail, feel hurt or get rejected. Get comfortable with the fact that things can go wrong.

Talk About It

One of the best things you can do is talk about your fears. You might be in a relationship with the partner of your dreams, but you could be afraid that your cycle of self-sabotage would ruin things. Get the fears out of the way by discussing them with your partner. He or she would help you realize that what you’re doing is not good. And they would be able to stop you whenever self-sabotaging thoughts flood your head.

There are experts you can speak to as well. They can get right to the root of your behavior, as well as how you can manage it. Don’t just work with any psychologist in Calgary, go for one that has a lot of experience dealing with patients who have this problem.

Understand Yourself

What do you want in life? Self-sabotage may be taking place as you want out of the situation you’re in – you could unconsciously be unhappy with it, which is why you’re bunking all of your classes at college. Getting to know what you want in life would help you avoid situations that you try to ruin.

Your destructive behavior is probably due to fears and irrational thoughts. You’re holding yourself back from situations as a result. By analyzing the thoughts, you’ll be able to overcome them. You can do this by speaking to loved ones or seeing a professional. There are countless psychologists to help, but you’d see the best results by going to one that has expertise in treating patients like you.

Getting comfortable with the fact that things can go wrong in life would be great too – you’ll stop running away.