Overcoming self-sabotage

0:02 A listener production. Hi, Welcome to Crappy to Happy with Tiff and Cass. Thanks for joining us in this series. We've been talking about how to be happy fit, how to sleep happy, how to set happier goals, how to have happier relationships, happier careers. But underlining all of this is something really important that comes up all the time, and it's self sabotage. So today we're going to take you through what is self sabotage and give you some tips to deal with it. Cass, how would you define self sabotage?

0:43 Self sabotage manifest in different ways, but it is essentially anything that you do that undermines your performance, anything that you intentionally do that actually gets in. The way of you performing to your optimum level. It's almost like building in an excuse if you fail. Okay, so I told you that I did a degree in French, right, yes, And every French class I'd turn up and say I hadn't sorry, I haven't read it, I haven't done it because I was so terrified of speaking French that I just say I forgot the book, I haven't done it. Is that the sort of thing like sabotaging. Yeah, so the term came out of sports psychology and talking about elite athletes, for example, who self handicap. So, in other words, by not giving a one hundred percent performance, they could always tell themselves that had they given a hundred percent performance, that they would have done better. So it was a protection of their ego. Really, if they happen to fail.

1:46 That makes so much sense to me because as a trainer, what happens people come to me for training. They're scared, they're scared they won't be able to do it. So they say, I've got a sort ankle, so I can't really go hard today, and I'll assess the ankle it's absolutely fine, and and they just set up from the outset. I can't do that. I can't do that, I'm injured. It's not me if I fail. Yeah, So it manifests in all sorts of different ways. It's going out and partying the night before your big exam or your big job interview. It's staying up too late, you know, instead of preparing for a meeting or coming into a meeting you know, or a class saying I haven't prepared. So what we know is that it's actually people tend to do it more when there is a risk of a public judgment, so they don't tend to do it so much privately. So in thinking about is it to protect their own self image or to protect their public reputation, it seems to be more about protecting how your reputation in front of other people and worrying about what other people think of you. So essentially what you're doing is that you are maximizing the opportunity to externalize failure. If I fail, it's not my fault. But if I do really well, and I awesome because I did really well even in the.

2:53 Face of this preparation. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so it. You know, we hear it all the time. You and I hear it all the time. So when it comes to people going on, you know, diets or trying to change their health and fitness or change their lifestyle, and every single week we say, has anybody got questions? Anybody issues? And the number one question every single time is what do I do about self sabotage? And why casts does it happen? When people reach their goal weight or they've been doing really well for a while, why do they self sabotage, because it doesn't really make sense, does it. Like I had a friend who was saving for a house deposit, and then she had to present all of her finances to her accountant, and the day before went shopping, just blew a whole lot of money. And I think it was the fear of a mortgage, fear of not getting a home home loan. Like, it was just really odd.

3:50 Why do that after such hard work? Yeah, well there's a big fear component there. So I guess there's a few different reasons why this happens. So we talked about the self handed as in protecting my reputation. I think there are other things that go on psychologically. For example, if you're aiming for a big goal, or if there's something that you perceive that you want to achieve, and that's in your conscious minds. So if we look at the mind being the conscious mind being kind of the tip of the iceberg, then underneath the water line is all of the unconscious. A lot of our behavior is actually driven and our choices are driven by our unconscious beliefs and our unconscious mind, and that stuff gets laid down really early on in life. I even pre verbally we're getting messages about ourselves, other people, the world, our self worth, our abilities, our confidence, you know, as children, as little children, and those things become kind of ingrained in our psychology. They're sort of core beliefs that we carry around with us and we really they're the filter through which we view the world and interact with the world, and they do they determine a lot of our choices and a lot of our behavi So, for example, if you're in your conscious mind, you say, I want to achieve this thing, whatever it might be the buy a house or loose some weight or get fitter, but there's some unconscious belief that that's not something that you're necessarily capable of or worthy of, or you know that's somehow unavailable to you. Then that can get in the way

5:21 because your behavior and your decisions will be. Driven by something else. It's like I can't I don't really think I can do it. That's a bit of it. Yeah. And the other thing is that if you have some kind of a core belief there that there could be a negative consequence to achieving your goal. So in your friend's case, there might have been some fear of what will happen if I get this mortgage, then I have to service this mortgage. For the last thirty years. So that could be if it's a goal to have a successful you know, blog or business or achieve some success, there could be beliefs about what people will think about. Me or crudentials and all of that. What might yeah, or I won't.

6:05 Like I'm thinking of an example now of being promoted from a line worker to a manager, and then I won't be able to go and have drinks with my friends anymore because I'll. Be more responsibility. Yeah, Like we can't be friends because we all get together and bitch about the boss. Yeah, I can't be the boss, yeah, because then what will happen? So there's that sort of what. About relationships cast because there's a lot of self sabotage in relationships, even when you're you find the perfect man or you've got a really good relationship, and then people do things to you. Know, sabotage. I've seen my girlfriends do that. I'm like, why would you send that text. Or act that way? When you've got a good guy. There's a whole other there's a whole other mind yeah, around relationships, because that comes to our attachment, early attachments, and our attachment beliefs and those fundamental beliefs and patterns that are set down about how relationships work.

6:56 Yeah, I mean we can talk more. Yeah, but it makes sense. Like my girlfriend said, oh. Well, in the end, I just didn't feel good enough for him, sabotaged like those sorts of value self value and worse. Yeah. Absolutely, And also what we all what we see is people being drawn to the wrong, like really unhealthy relationships and playing out behavior patterns of relationship patterns that they know don't make them happy. And that can sometimes come from, for example, in your early years. We're getting in a little bit into like attachment psychology here, but in your early years, your primary caregivers generally are your parents or whoever it is it's caring for you really teaches you about relationships and teaches you about your role in a relationship and whether your needs will be meant, whether people will be available to you, whether you know all of that kind of really healthy or not stuff, whether you people are reliable and dependable, and whatever is. Whatever you learn from that, again, you kind of take through life.

7:54 And so when you become an adult, your primary attachment, your attachment needs don't change. We all need to be kind of seen, heard, felt, valued, understood. But as an adult, your primary attachment figure tends to more so be your partner, not your parent. But these attachment relationships play out, so what you've learned about relationships, you will play out oh fascinating in your adult relationships because and even if that dynamic is really uncomfortable, even if it's really quite a painful dynamic, it's familiar. So you tend to you will always revert to what is familiar because it's like, well, I know what to do with that, I know how this works, I know what my place is here. And so people on the outside will say.

8:36 Well, what are you doing you? It? Is it better? But that will never resonate with somebody if they fundamentally don't believe that there is something better for them or they don't have any other way of relating to people. This is a cycle that people get into, whether it's relationships, career, money. Yeah, it's a cycle that can just make you feel so. Because then you go into self criticism about why I keep doing this to myself. I know I want to achieve this, but I just keep tripping myself up, what's going on? Everything we've been talking about self criticism, stress, cass. What are some other examples of self sabotage? I guess you know, in terms of that, the fear of the negative consequences that can play out in different ways.

9:19 So for example, when it comes to losing weight and achieving a particular especially for women achieving a particular body shape that they might aspire to, that can be the fear of the negative, negative not negative. The fear of. Attention, unwanted attention. And you know, we know that for some women, putting on weight, layering weight is actually in response to having received unwanted attention. Women who've been assaulted or whatever will often unconsciously like put on weight to layer up so that they don't get that attention. And it can work in the opposite way. So you know that it feels unsafe to be put yourself on display in a way that's going to attract attention.

10:03 Things about career success and fame, if you want to write a book or get yourself on you know, onto TV, gustart, being recognized in your field. The fear of you know, judgment and criticism or you know, being put into the limelight and having to perform and just impacting your privacies. You know, that's a big one these as a celebrity culture, there's no limits, so people will keep themselves small, like play deliberately play small and avoid going that next level up because of these perceived you know, potential negative consequences. But if you're not aware of. It, it's like it's this frustrating thing where why don't I just why do I keep getting them away? Procrastination is a classic self sabotage behavior, like just putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and then getting frustrated. Why do I keep procrastinating on this because you haven't actually uncovered why and recognizing what these fears are that are dry, I can recognize self defeating behaviors.

11:03 As you're talking, I'm thinking, you know what, It took me fifteen years to set up my own business because I was terrified of people saying, you're a good enough trainer, you don't know what you're doing, I don't like your style, maybe not liking me personally, and yeah, I did a bit of TV and all of that, but I was hiding in my family business. You know, in Melbourne and just that was my comfort zone. It was a way of sabotaging that. And I had offers and ways to set up my own business. I kept saying no one, no, no no for years and years and years, to the point where I would physically take contracts into state or whatever, so I couldn't set up my own business. And there was you know, barriers of bildographically barriers. And then finally found that confidence or I don't know what it was to start tiffxo dot com, but it was a long process of getting over that fear.

11:57 Yeah, that's a really great example tip. So can you tell, I mean, what actually changed for you, Like, what was it that was the tipping point that led you to actually setting up your own business. Well, I had just finished working on The Biggest Loser and I had really helped people to feel better about themselves and I love that. I was being contacted by people all over Australia and even internationally to train them, and all of a sudden, I was seeing a lot of unqualified people in the media and on Instagram who weren't trainers but they were health gurus and it started to really annoy me and I thought, you know what I'm qualified, I know what I'm doing, and I got this confidence to put myself out there, create a training system and to rely on a lifetime of experience, grassroots, and I just kept focused on service and helping people.

12:48 I didn't focus on you know, what will people say, will it be negative? I just thought I'll start with helping one person, two people, you know, a good training system, and it grew from that, but it was getting over that. You know, that's a great example, and that's a great tip, like getting out of your own way and out of your own ego into focusing on service. I think that's a really good that's a really useful strategy to use. And I think what we're talking about here is that, you know, we talked about with the athletes, you know, the fear of failure, that I put myself out there and I fail, I can't tolerate that. But we're also talking here about fear of success. And so you know, these are all really very normal human experiences and for each individual, in each situation, we just have to work out what is it like, what is that thing going on?

13:34 And in psychology talk about making the implicit explicit, because all of this stuff's going on. All of our decisions are being made, and we just need to recognize what they are and articulate them. And sometimes just doing that is enough to take the fear out of it. Yeah, you know. Otherwise it's just sort of kicking around in the back there and we're just getting in our own way all the time. But as soon as we say, well, this is what I'm actually afraid of, what would be the worst thing about that? The fear of success is such a big one. And I saw because my dad was an Olympic coach. I went to Sydney. I would watch the Olympics in taekwondo and you'd have fighters and you get one fighter they wear blue, one fighter wears red, and they do a big yell a ya when they begin the taekwondo fight.

14:14 And he'd always say to me, you can tell who's going to win the fight from that real powerful scream, who's the most committed Because that fear of success sometimes would come into it where a fighter couldn't deal with winning or giving one hundred percent like you have been talking about, and they would like throw the fight or something would happen, or they would blame the referee. Or you know, their coach, and it was fascinating to see that play out, and I just it's always in my mind that you really have to sort of like stone up and own it. Yeah, from the very beginning. Be committed. And I think it's also important to point out you're talking about elite athletes and there we probably come across this more with you know, everyday people trying to change their health and fitness goals. I think it's important to point out that not everything is necessarily technically self sabotage.

15:02 Sometimes they're interest. Sometimes there is just a case of losing motivation for your goal, just falling off the wagon because you're trying to make changes involves discipline and commitment, and that can be a process. And I think we often hear, oh, gosh, I keep self sabotaging, when really it's just a case of. Yeah, discipline is a process. I've kind of just lost my mojo today and I really just felt like eating that thing. And you're never going to have those perf We've talked about perfectionism. Yeah, one perfect day after another, it doesn't exist. It's sort of you're going to have a little step back and then you'll go forward to good days. It's just the way life is. It absolutely is. And we talk about the change process, you know, I talk about this a lot, the cycle of change, which involves all of these various stages that people go through, and once they're in that, I don't think we need to go through all the stages, but once they're in that action stage of actively working to change a habit or change of behavior, then inevitably there will be a slipper.

15:58 People go have these and then hopefully they get straight back into the action again, and it doesn't have to be a full blown relapse and a complete undoing of everything that they've done. But this is perfectly normal. Right, So how many stages of change are they just quickly? Okay? So we start with pre contemplation means means when you're not even aware that you need to make a change, so you're not even on the circle. When you get onto the circle, that's when you get into contemplation like. Ah, should I do this or should I not? I'm not sure, I'm undecided it. Should affect in my life. Maybe I should. And then we move into preparation. Once once I've decided that yes, I do need to make a change, we move into preparation, gathering resources, looking for how I'm going to do this, what's going to be the plan for me?

16:44 What will I how will I make this happen? And then once we've gathered all of our resources and we're ready to go, then we move into action. But during that action process, it's not linear, like you don't just then make a change and away you go and you're in maintenance for the rest of your life. People trip around this circle many, many, many times before they make a permanent change, and that's you know, yes there is a slip up, but it doesn't have to be a complete you. Know, diseasreves back to where you were. I think that's important to recognize and that it's perfectly natural to lose motivation. The ambivalence comes back in all the time when you're in the action stage. And that doesn't mean that you you know, you should stop, or that you know there's some kind of you know, underlying psychological thing that you've got to get to the bottom of.

17:28 It just means that you're a normal human being that's struggling to sustain a change in your lifestyle. And sometimes we have lazy days. That's Okay, so exactly. Yeah, I think that's really important to point out that change isn't linear. Yeah. Absolutely, you're listening to Crappy to Happy with Tiff and Cass. We're going to take a quick break and then come back with some tips to deal with that self sabotage. Welcome back to Crappy to Happy with Tif and Cass. I have a question for your Cass, ye is self sabotage more prevalent in women than men? I. To be honest, am not exactly sure what the research says about that or you know, because self sabotage does manifest in different ways. I would say I think that women do tend to play a smaller game. Women do tend to actively kind of work to keep themselves.

18:23 Under the radar career wise. I don't know about the health and fitness kind of stuff, but I do think, you know, we live in a pretty male dominated world, and I think women have got a lot of beliefs and get a lot of messages about their place which they tend to adopt, and you know that get ingrained in their behavior patterns, and so yeah, I do tend to think that they do some of that self defeating stuff for sure, a lot more of that self doth Yeah. Okay, well I really wanted to ask you, how do you gain the self confidence then to combat self sabotage? I think that you it comes from practice, I guess.

19:07 I think from you and I, you know, just thinking about you and you and I've had conversations about our own career trajectories and just pushing yourself out of that comfort zone bit by bit can help. The more feedback you get that you're doing a good job or that you actually are. Capable, Yeah, that helps. Yeah, every single person that says I lost weight on your program or I feel better or yeah helped me cast. It gives you that It reinforces that idea that oh, you actually do have something that you can that you offer that you Yeah. I think again, like when we talk about that fear of negative consequences, it helps to really identify and articulate what those are because if you don't do that, if you don't drill into what is really going on here, that is getting in the way.

19:50 What's the competing I call them competing commitments. One part of me is committed to achieving this goal, but there's this other part of me that's really committed to keeping me safe where I am. That makes sense, yes, yes, So if we can work out what the competing demands are or the competing like it's a conflicting values thing. Yes, I'm the one hand, I really valuate when to achieve this goal, and the other hand, I really value my privacy, I really value being emotionally safe. I really value you know. So they run counter to each other. So if we can work out what that conflict is, what that tension is, then we can try to find a way to reconcile them or to make them work. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

20:31 Like I have friends who have been at UNI for years, doing one degree after the other, moving on to their masters, never finishing it, and then getting down to just being one subject away from graduating. Well, and I think it's a fear of well, then what happens. What happens, I'm going to have to go for a job, I'm going to have to put myself out there. I've got all these degrees and yet I haven't got the confidence to go to an interview. So I think it's and. If you can I identify that, and then you can say to yourself, Okay, So what do I really want and what would be the worst thing about not getting a job? What would be the worst thing about putting myself out for this thing and actually failing at it or not.

21:13 Not after all that work? What would be the worst thing about getting my book published and you know, having to do media interviews? Can I live with that? Or is there a way that I can minimize the negative consequences that I am perceiving? Well, then you can actually tell your conscious mind and hopefully adopt that unconsciously as well that actually I've got a strategy for mitigating that or you know, overcoming that. So what we're talking about is being observant of our feelings and our thoughts. Again the mindfulness coming into that as well. Bringing the unconscious into the conscious, honest, and then with that you can work with that. Once it's in your conscious awareness, you've got something that you can actually work with.

21:53 Yeah, that's helpful. Similarly, that self sabotaging stuff we're talking about with old family beliefs or what you think you're capable of or not really that good at sport if you come from a family that's you know, never been to UNI or nobody's ever had a lot of money. You know, there's that thing about tribal shame. Have you heard of that? Elizabeth Gilbert Again, I referred to her once before, but Elizabeth Gilbert talks about I don't know if she came up with it, but she has a blog post about it on tribal shame and the things that we do to avoid stepping out of our tribe because they will work to keep us back in. That's so interesting. Yeah, I'm thinking of examples of like the one kid who's never been to UNI, or the one kid who goes to UNI when the family's never been to.

22:36 You, and they say things like I never went to UNI, I don't need a degree. I've done that, I don't have a degree. Yeah. Yeah, So some families might be very proud of that achievement, but there will be others that actively work against it to keep you. And that need to belong to a tribe in a community is so powerful that sometimes we will hinder ourselves and limit ourselves to stay connected to the tribe. And what's coming up for me is like financial stuff, money blocks and things like that, because if you grow up around you know, perhaps money is hard to earn and it's about blood, sweat and tears. And if you earn money easily, then it's looked at as being rich is looked at as negative money. It's not a big one, like it's a.

23:16 Bad thing to have wealth or sort of changes arrogant or something like that. You know, money beliefs are a big one. Yeah, So when we can identify what that is, and sometimes that you know, journaling, writing down, you know, childhood experiences, messages you've picked up. Depending on what your particular block is or what your particular sabotage is, you can, you know, spend some time exploring what were the messages you got when you were younger, you know, what you saw around you in your environment, and how you might have picked those things up and how they might become, you know, playing out in your behavior now. Again, it just takes a little bit bit of exploration to identify what some of those things are and then you can work with that.

23:58 That's really helpful. So dealing with triggers and being mindful can help with self sabotage. Going back to the money and the money blocking, I find that really interesting. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, I find that really interesting. Too. I suppose that from a self sabotage perspective, that's about this having an idea of you know, I guess self worth equals net worth if you have grown up in a family that hasn't had a lot of money, and you might have particular ideas about what it means to be wealthy or have money. You know, money's rootable evil, you know, rich people, you know, callous and cold, and you know, like there's a whole lot of stuff attached to money and beliefs about money that people carry, and that can again, that can subconsciously get in your way and it can limit people. So what I notice, I mean I'm probably a bit guilty of this even myself, is that money comes, money goes, even if you hold onto.

24:52 Money yeh, slips to your fingers. Yeah, and all this, you know, almost limiting what you're capable of earning, you know, all sorts of ways the money thing plays out. I find it really fascinating too, because money is money is energy, you know, and you can do a lot of really good things making money. It's not a bad thing, but for a lot of us, it's really sticky and icky, and it certainly comes up with this self sabotage thing, I think in a big way. Yeah, absolutely, so it really sounds like this self sabotage filters into all areas. Of our lives, our families, our relationships. Of our careers, everything financewers, and it can really make. Us feel crappy. Absolutely, yeah, it is.

25:33 It's a really big topic, and I think it's worth acknowledging that it can really have the It really has the potential to get in the way of whatever goals you're trying to achieve. So really being aware of it and trying to uncover what some of those either the unconscious beliefs or the perceived negative consequences, you know, really drilling into what those might be and working out what's driving that self defeating behavior has got to be the first step. So, you know, being mindful, but also being again a little bit of self kindness and self compassion, recognizing that everybody does this to some degree, and you know, it doesn't mean that you'll never be a success or that your options are limited in life. You know, it's just like step by step working through it, and you know, moving out of your comfort zone, tolerating that discomfort with mindfulness, and you know, pushing yourself a little bit further to achieve what you want to.

26:23 What do you want to achieve in life? Everything isn't it? Thank you, Cass, And that brings us to the end of series one. Crappy to have you with Tiff and Cass. Thank you so much for listening. But it doesn't have to end there. You can go to tif xo dot com and see Cass and I we combine meditations, mindfulness with meal plans and workouts. And also, Cass, you've got your own website. And it is Cassandra Dunne dot com dot a you. That's where you can find Cass. Cass, I've learned so much from you. Thank you. Oh You're welcome. And I've learned so much from you. Too, and we hope that you've learnt a lot from us. Listener, we can't wait to catch you next time. Produced by Daves Velenski, Audio production by Nick Later.

27:14 Listener