Overcoming Self-Sabotage: The Key to Permanent Transformation
Let me know if this has ever been you: You’ve been making progress on your health goals. You’re staying on top of your meal plan, getting those workouts in, and you’re seeing the weight drop little by little. But then, you go on vacation for a week, or your friend gets married and you throw the meal plan out the window for a long weekend. When Monday comes, you feel bloated and “fluffy.” You know you haven’t lost any weight, but you weigh yourself anyway. Your heart crumples when you see an extra four pounds. “I worked so hard to lose those pounds, just to gain them all back again??” you think. “It’s useless. I won’t ever reach my goals.”
I see this happen ALL the time. The Warrior Fit program lets clients weigh in once a week to monitor changes. However, after a vacation, holiday, or just a bad week, I always tell my clients: DON’T weigh in this week! At best, watching that number go up won’t be constructive or helpful at all. At worst, it will only add fuel to the fire of shame that can come after a period of not sticking to your plan.
Why do people do this? What is going on here?
In short, this is an example of self-sabotage.
Self-Sabotage: The Sneaky Enemy
What is self-sabotage? This is tricky to answer because first off, self-sabotage is sneaky, and there are lots of different ways it can manifest. Most of the time, we’re not even aware we’re doing it. At its core, self-sabotage is when we act on behaviors that are rooted in limiting beliefs about ourselves.
I’m going to be real vulnerable with you for a moment. One of my deepest limiting beliefs is, “I’m not enough.” I’ve gone through a lot of hard, long-term work to even become aware of that belief about myself, before even starting to learn how to battle the self-sabotage that stems from that belief.
Your limiting belief(s) might be different from mine. It might be something like, I’m not capable, I’m a disappointment, I’m not worth it, I’m a screw-up, I’m stupid. It might be something else, and there’s a large chance that you aren’t even aware of your limiting beliefs.
Why do we have these limiting beliefs about ourselves? Where do they come from?
In my experience, most (if not all) of our limiting beliefs stem from our formative childhood years. It could be how we were raised, the overflow of our parents’ own limiting beliefs, a traumatic even or events that shifted our perception of ourselves, or the culture in which we were born into. Self-sabotage is so sneaky because many of these beliefs have been subconsciously internalized since a young age.
The Effects of Self-Sabotage
As I said before, self-sabotage can manifest in any number of different ways. Here’s a short list of ways I’ve seen it manifest in my own life and in the lives of my clients:
Weighing in, even after a week of being on vacation
Setting unrealistic goals
Letting a “cheat meal” turn into a “cheat weekend”
These behaviors negatively affect your transformational journey and simply set you up for failure before you even get started. Imagine you’ve started your journey to healthier eating. You start eating healthier and working out more consistently. The problem is, you still crave junk food and end up binge eating potato chips at 11 o’clock at night. The next day, riddled with guilt, you resolve to do better and to eat less calories to “balance out” the extra calories from the night before. The problem is, work brought in donuts for everyone, and you’re SO hungry from your small breakfast that you can’t help but eat one or two. Feeling defeated and frustrated, you label yourself incapable of having self-control and give up on your dreams of living a healthier lifestyle. It’s just not for you.
What’s really going on here? First, you believe that you have to “earn” food, and if you “fall off the wagon” you need to punish yourself to make up for it. This type of thinking perpetuates shame and guilt surrounding food, and leads to episodes of binging followed by episodes of severe restriction. The truth is, everybody deserves to fuel their body well. The truth is, there is no “wagon”, there's just the next choice right in front of you. The truth is, self-control becomes less of an issue when you learn to take care of your body out of love rather than punishing it and limiting its resources.
Warrior Fit’s mission is “To permanently transform one's identity, lifestyle, and routine (without restrictive diets) to gain health, happiness, and a body healed by proper nutrition.” In order to achieve this permanent transformation, we know that our clients need to understand the ways in which they self-sabotage and how to overcome it.
That’s why we hold weekly accountability calls, daily check-ins with coaches, and have our own mindset coach. We also encourage our clients to invest in their own personal therapist to dig deeper into their limiting beliefs and where they originate from in order to gain tools to overcome.
Permanent transformation requires so much more than meal plans and workouts. It demands careful introspection and personal growth in order to understand and overcome these areas of self-sabotage.
How to Overcome Destructive Patterns
One of the most powerful tools I have learned on my own journey to overcoming self-sabotage is something called “Catch & Release” and is made up of three parts: Catch, Release, and Replace.
Catch
The first step is to “catch” or to become aware of the self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors. For example, one of my self-sabotaging behaviors was to tear myself down whenever I saw my reflection. I’d experience thoughts such as, “I’m so fat, I’m so ugly, I look disgusting, I wish I didn’t have that spot,” on and on and on. It is so easy to let these thoughts spiral bigger and bigger and take root in my mind. But with catch & release, as soon as I recognize these thoughts, I “catch” them and stop them in their tracks before they have a chance to take root.
Release
Once I’m aware of these thoughts and behaviors, I can usually identify the limiting belief or the lie from which they stem. For me, a lot of these thoughts stem from my limiting belief that I am not enough. After catching these thoughts, I release them and release myself from the lie that I’ve internalized.
Replace
The last step is to replace the self-sabotaging thoughts with a positive affirmation or truth. In my case, looking in the mirror, I take a deep breath, smile, and say things like, “I am loved. I am worthy. I am enough. I am more than my physical body. I am strong. I am capable. I am kind. I love myself. I care about myself.” All of these things are true, powerful statements that take the wind out of the sails of my limiting beliefs, and remind myself of who I am and what truly matters.
Embrace Self-Awareness and Growth
Overcoming self-sabotage does not mean I never have these thoughts or destructive behaviors anymore. Overcoming means I have done the work to become aware, and to internalize the tools I need to combat self-sabotage before it takes over and destroys my progress, my mental health, and my relationships.
If you are struggling to make any progress toward your own transformation and often feel frustrated, burnt out, or overwhelmed, I would encourage you to try and increase your awareness of your own limiting beliefs. Get outside help in the form of a holistic health coach like our amazing team at Warrior Fit, or invest in a counselor or therapist. Practice Catch & Release whenever you identify these destructive thoughts or behaviors. Above all, remember that although permanent transformation and overcoming self-sabotage takes a lot of time, energy, and work, it is worth it and you can be free from these limiting beliefs that are holding you back!
If you want help on your journey, myself and my amazing coaches are always willing to talk! Book a free discovery call on the calendar to find out how Warrior Fit empowers amazing women like you to live their best lives while feeling great in their own skin!
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