Why you self-sabotage: Competing Commitments

0:04 This is Crappy to Happy and I am your host Castunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappy to Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Hello, Hello, and welcome to another solo episode of Crappy to Happy. I would like to talk to you if you are one of those people who is really frustrated with not making progress towards your goals. So I talked to you last time on my solo episode about what is it that you really want and getting really clear about when you set goals on your struge having to achieve anything in life, really unpacking what is that about, and what is it that you think that the goal is going to give you and checking in that that is a goal that is really genuinely authentically important to you. Having established that, let's say that you do have something that you really do want to achieve in your life. Goals are good.

1:21 I've established that goals are good. But on the outside, you say that this is what you want, but then all of your behavior is in the opposite direction of that. You are not doing anything towards achieving this goal. Now, I have coaching clients who are in this position, So this is I know, really relevant to a lot of people, and that's why I want to talk about it today. Now, even if this is not something that you are dealing with in your personal life and the goals that you have set for yourself, if you're a manager in an organization, then you might notice this with employees as well. It might be that people are saying that they're committed to achieve something, or to grow something, or make a change, or lead a project or step up take on more responsibility, but the behavior that you're seeing is not consistent with that, and it can be really, really frustrating, not just for you, but for the person who is also stuck and wondering what is going on. And that's the key thing about this kind of behavior. It is just as frustrating for the individual because they know what they want, they're clear about what they want, and they can't, for the life of them figure out why they just cannot get any momentum and cannot take really decisive proper action towards that goal.

2:38 So sometimes not all the time, but sometimes what is going on here is a thing called competing commitments. Maybe you have heard of this, and this is a timely reminder for you to be aware of this phenomenon. This could be what's going on. If you've never heard of this, well, then you might be really interested. A competing commitment is essentially what it sounds like on the outside. With your conscious mind, your thinking brain, you are very clear about what it is that you want and where it is that you're headed, what it is that you want to change or achieve somewhere else. At an more of an unconscious level, perhaps there is a force within you that is firmly committed to an agenda that is in direct opposition to what you say you want. There is a part of you that is acting in service to an opposing agenda. To give you, like a really simplistic example, I say I want to grow my business. I say I want to be more successful and make more money.

3:41 But some part of me believes that growing my business and becoming more successful and making more money would create a whole lot of stress in my life. That would mean I would have to work more hours. I'd probably have to hire more people. I don't know how i'd go with hiring more people. I wouldn't know where to start. It all just feels too much. It all feels too complicated and overwhelm. So therefore, all of my behavior, no matter how much I say I want to grow, and what I want to achieve, and how much money I want to make, how successful I want to be, all of my behavior is just wheel spinning. I do nothing to actually take action in the direction of my goal, because unconsciously there is this commitment to staying where I am because I'm afraid of the consequence. This shows up in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of goals.

4:28 I think I've talked on this podcast before about Bethel Vandercock's work. He wrote The body keeps a score, obviously, and he refers to a particular large study looking at obesity and finding that people who stayed on this program for a period of time they lost all of this way. They were really happy with the results, and it got to a certain point where people started to just inexplicably put weight back on and they couldn't work out what was going on. And then one day, just by accident, they found out through an interview with one of these participants that she had been sexually assaulted and that she had a deep fear that if she were to lose weight and become more visible, more attractive, then that was dangerous to her. So overweight meant being overlooked, and that meant being safe from unwanted attention. So that's another example of a competing commitment. On the outside, we think we want this thing, we're working towards it, we say we're working towards it, but then we're not making any progress.

5:27 And it's because underneath, and it is often unconscious. And that's the key, right, It's not in your conscious mind, it's often buried underneath. And so I want to share with you a way that you might be able to work through this yourself. It could be something that you want to work through with a coach if it's something that's causing repeated problems for you and you're really feeling stuck and frustrated, but you might just do some exploration around this yourself and see what you come up with. So one way that you can uncover this is by first of all, getting very clear about what is it that you want? Obviously you have to start from what do you want? What's the goal, what's the change you want to make, what do you want to achieve? Where are you going? And you may have already done that, you may want to think about that right now. And then sometimes a question that I will ask my coaching clients quite early on, in fact, ano that I think about it, I haven't asked it for a while, but one thing that I used to ask pretty regularly with my coaching clients was after I've asked them, how great is this going to be? What's all the positive benefits that you perceive, how's life going to be different, what's going to be amazing? You know, really engaging all of those emotions so they get really invested in this change that they want to make. It can also be really helpful to ask and what do you think the negative consequences will be? What are the negative consequences of achieving this thing? And often people will be a bit stumped initially because all they're thinking about is the positive consequences of achieving a goal, But sometimes they can quite readily come up with, you know, given a minute to think about it, they can quite readily come up with, Ah, well, yeah, I might get busier, I might get more visible, I might take on extra responsibility. It might involve time away from my family. It might involve having to make some sacrifices,

6:59 you know, to get to the goal that I want to achieve. Some of that's really obvious. Oh, I want to run a marathon, I'm going to have to give up pizza night and alcohol and all of the other fun things and sleepins and partying. So some of it's really obvious, but we're mostly we're really talking about the stuff that's buried a little bit deeper than that. So what are the negative consequences? Can be a useful question, But what is probably a more interesting question to ask people is, now that you are clear about your goal, what are you doing or not doing that is keeping you from achieving it. If there is something that you've committed to at work, if there's a project that you've said that you're going to lead, if there's a change that you've said that you're going to make, or something that you're goingt to develop, what are you doing or not doing which is keeping you from making forward progress?

7:47 What behaviors are you seeing in yourself. Is there a lot of wheel spinning, procrastination, coming up with excuses and justifications, busying yourself with other things, changing your mind, deciding oh, actually maybe I don't want that goal, we want some different goal, do I really? You know, staying up on your head and coming up with different stories is jumping from a goal to goal that. I see that with some of my clients as well. So we've already established in establishing the goal, that there is a commitment there. Right, So on the one hand, I am committed to X, then what am I doing or not doing that is keeping me from realizing that commitment. And then the third thing is, now, if you imagine doing the opposite of that. So let's say what I'm doing is spending endless amounts of time creating business plans and marketing plans and strategizing my website without actually calling up a client or doing something that's going to have a direct impact on my business.

8:42 If you imagine doing the opposite of that, do you detect any discomfort if you actually were to do the opposite of your sabotaging behavior, if you were to actually take a forward step, and this really requires you to slow down and tune in. The answer to this can't come from your head, from your conscious brain, because your conscious brain is all no, I'm all in, I don't know what's going on here. You have to slow down yet, really still and actually tune in to the physical sensation, tune into something that's a little deeper. If I did the opposite, if I took a step in the direction of my goal, do you sense any discomfort, any worry, any fear? What comes up? What do you sense? So, therefore, by avoiding doing the thing, what is the negative consequence do you actually committed to preventing from happening? How you keeping yourself safe? It often all just comes back to some form of safety, whether it's emotional safety, you know, psychological safety, just security, certainty, stability, comfort, staying in your comfort zone. This way, by tuning in, by slowing down and really asking if I did this, if I were to do the opposite of my sabotaging behavior, if I was to suddenly be free of this and I was actually taking a step in the direction that I want to go, what am I worried about? What is the negative consequence that I'm fearful of? So, therefore, what am

10:16 I avoiding. Now that in itself can be really useful. That can provide some really key insight into what's going on. For some people, just the realization, just realizing what is going on can be enough to just flick a light on. Flick the light switch on and realize that something that has been unconscious or out of your conscious awareness essentially comes into your conscious awareness and from that place you can actually examine it rationally. Because as long as it's out of your conscious awareness, you can't see it. It's driving your life. It's like the software that is running your programming, running all of your behavior, but you're not fully aware of it. So that's why it's so frustrating.

10:59 As soon as you shine a light on it, you become aware of it, then you can do something about it. Sometimes that in itself is enough because you immediately can start to question or challenge or look for, well, how could I accommodate this, or how could I come up with a contingency plan so that I don't have to deal with this negative consequence necessarily. Sometimes you need to do a little bit more work than that. But the first thing, the most important thing you need to do, when you recognize what that competing commitment is what is the negative consequence that you have been unconsciously seeking to avoid. It's like you realize that you've got one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the break. That's how it feels like. I feel like I want to go in that direction, but there is a part of me that is just jamming on that break and not letting me move forward. So once you realize that that foot on the break is in the service of this other competing commitment, I'm committed to keeping the peace. I don't want to disrupt my relationships. I really want to have a healthier lifestyle and all of that involves, but I don't want to disrupt the dynamic in my friendship group where what we do is we get together and we eat a lot of pizza and drink wine. Oh. I don't want for people to think that I think that I'm better than them. I don't want to grow in my career because I like the loyalty and the dynamic of my team that I work with. I am fearful that I would have to manage conflict and I don't know how I would do that. I would have to go into debt if I were to grow my business, and that scares me because I saw my parents lose a lot of money. I would love to be in my own business. But my dad, he was in his

12:30 own business and it practically destroyed him. You know, he worked around the clock, and I don't want that. Sometimes what you realize is these assumptions that you're making, or this competing commitment that is running the show. It sometimes comes from way way way back. It comes from old, early experiences that have landed in your psyche. Basically, you've created all of these associations which are then leading you to make these assumptions which you're not even necessarily aware of in your adult life, and you're just running. You know, you're doing life without even realizing that this programming is there and that it's running the show. So this is why it could be really useful to really dig in and just check in. What are the assumptions that I'm running here? What am I assuming about this? What am I assuming about success or becoming a leader or stepping up or having more money or having more responsibility? Where am I acting as if this is true? Before I've even given myself the opportunity to test that out where am I getting in my own way and sabotaging my success because of some old story or some old condition to believe that I haven't even yet brought into my conscious awareness to even question or challenge or examine rationally.

13:44 What are the assumptions that I've made, or what's the conditioning that I've grown up with in terms of my place in the world or what we are capable of in our family or of the town that I came from. What were the jokes that we made in my family about a certain type of person? And why might I not want to be that type of person? All sorts of old stuff is kicking around there, potentially getting in your way. So when we have a competing commitment otherwise known as competing values or competing desires you might have heard those terms. One of my values is, yeah, I want financial freedom. I want to grow my business and be financially successful. But my other value is time with my family and being there for my kids and being able to do school pickup. And in my mind, these two things don't go together. I can't run a multiple six figure business and also be there to pick up my kids from school. In my mind, these things don't.

14:36 They don't go together being a business owner, a CEO and potentially having a team and lots of responsibilities, like that's going to be massively time consuming and would take all of my time away from my family. So it's not true. It's an assumption. But if at any level that's what's running that this thing is going to take away my abilities to have that thing competing values, then they're going to just You're just going to slam those brakes on and not make any progress. So we examine the assumption. We look at the assumption, and then we can actually question the assumption. But the first thing to do again, like I said, we slow down and we look at how has that assumption been running our life in other areas. So we've established that we've got this idea that being a leader means having to not be anybody's friend. People are going to not like you, you can't go for team drinks anymore, or you know, being a fit person means people won't like you and you won't be able to go for drinks with your friends anymore, or you don't have to give up everything that's fun in life. Whatever it is, right, So you examine the assumption, and then you have a look at where else have I been running that story, Like what other aspects of my life has that been infiltrating. That could just be useful too, because sometimes it's not limited to this one particular area of your life. And then the next thing is to look for the counter evidence. So look for where this is not true, look for specific examples of where this is not true. Because here's the thing. When you have an assumption about anything, there is a thing which you're very familiar with, which is called confirmation bias.

16:04 So when you have an assumption you believe something to be true at any level, than your brain is very busy always looking for the evidence to support that belief. It will discount, dismiss, deny, just filter out any examples of where that is not true, and it will filter in and highlight and focus on all of the examples of that being true. So it is your job and it takes effort to actively look for examples of where this is not true to challenge that assumption. You just need to have some sense of the possibility that this might not be true. You don't have to completely dismantle this idea because there may be some examples where it's true some CEOs are very busy and never spend time with their families. All you want is it's just a few examples to open your mind to the possibility that this doesn't have to be true, that this doesn't have to be the reality for you. So we start to just shake up, loosen up the grip of that belief.

17:04 We start looking for some examples that maybe something else might be possible. And then what we do is we take that insight and we turn it into action. So then we start setting up an experiment, if you will, where we with curiosity, with an open mind, we decide to take an action to test our new assumption, to test the idea that maybe this is not true. Changing a belief is going to come from our lived experience. So what we have to do is we have to create opportunities for ourselves to do the thing we're afraid of, to take the step to just test out is it true. Did my worst fear become a reality? Was I able to put things in place to ensure that that didn't happen.

17:50 Maybe my assumption was just completely off the mark and it was just grounded on nothing. Then you start to take small steps in the direction of where you want to go. You reality check your assumptions, and slowly, over time, with your lived experience, you create a new set of beliefs which sets you up for a new reality to be able to go forward, take that foot off the break, and to be able to move forward in the direction that you want to go knowing that there is no longer any internal conflict or internal tension that is keeping you stuck. And if you do notice any sort of resistance coming up, if you do notice your wheel spinning saying you're going to do something or not doing it, well, then maybe you can come back and revisit and check in what else is going on. But competing commitments otherwise known as competing values competing desires, very very useful. If you are looking to make a change or work towards a goal, it can really derail your progress. It can be so incredibly frustrating. It's one of the main reasons for self sabotaging behavior. So I think it's really useful and I hope you found that helpful. Just a reminder that next week, the twenty third of July, I am running my confidence workshop for free. Feel free to come up.

19:00 You can register on my website cast don dot com. You'll see the sign up at the top of the website. My emails are glitching at the moment, they're not working, so if you don't get a confirmation that you have registered, it is just because emails aren't working at the moment. Hopefully that will be resolved really soon. Hopefully even by the time you listen to this podcast it might be resolved. But if not, send me a note and I can check that you are definitely registered. And hopefully it will all be resolved before the workshop next Tuesday, because I will be emailing you a reminder. That is it for me for this week. I hope you are all doing well. As I mentioned last week, send me a voice note go to cast don dot com Forward Slash Podcast. I love to get your voice memos and I can't wait to catch you next week for another episode from Crabby to Happy