How to Stop Self Sabotage

Today we’re going to take a closer look at what stands in the way of unleashing more of our potential. 

A Common Problem: 

This sounds counter-intuitive, but achievers on all levels (high, average, and under achievers) stifle their potential for greater performance and well-being when they push themselves instead of inspiring themselves. There are many ways our "pushing" shows itself, but here are three examples:

Judging ourselves: “I should be further along in my career by now.”
Criticizing ourselves: “Why can’t I be more assertive?” 
Having unrealistic demands: “I know I’m sick, but I’m going to push through my normal schedule anyway.”

You might think high achievers don’t limit their potential in any way, but the truth is, many limit themselves in the ways described above. They use these three behaviors to “motivate” themselves without any awareness of the damage it does. By the time they get to me, their self-judgment, self-criticism, and unrealistic expectations have made them easily irritable, cynical, anxious, burned out, or depressed. 

These three traps also explain why we see so much average and under performance around us. As illustrated by a senior manager’s recent comment to me: “The problem with average and under achievers is that they don't expect enough of themselves. They have all these reasons explaining why they can't perform at higher levels.” 

This manager's thinking isn’t unusual. Many managers think that way—and many individuals who are average or under performers think that way as well. I had a former client who was a solid (but average) performer in his company when he began working with me. He told me in the fourth coaching session, “Alan, I think you’re too easy on me. I want you to push me harder.” 

The Solution:

Truthfully, he didn’t need me to push him harder. He also didn’t need me to tell him he could be doing better. What he needed was to learn how to inspire himself into greater performance, not put more pressure on himself. As a coach, I am quite capable and willing to challenge my clients, to expect more from them, and to give them uncomfortable feedback. However, I can only do that if we have a relationship that allows it.  

And that’s where we often fall down. We want to get more out of ourselves, but we don’t have the relationship with ourselves to do that. We’ve criticized, judged, and made unrealistic demands on ourselves too often—and we're often oblivious to that. What about a manager who tries to help an under performer do better, but who doesn't know how to connect with and communicate with them effectively?

We need to learn how to inspire ourselves and others instead of judging, criticizing, and making more demands of ourselves. Leaders and managers need to learn how to inspire their teams instead of pushing them. The fact is, we can't demand potential to be released, we have to inspire it to come out.

- Alan Allard, Executive Coach