Are You Sabotaging Yourself?

I often facilitate workshops on coaching for supervisors and managers. In that workshop, I often ask, “Do you believe you have potential you haven’t tapped into yet?” Of course, all hands go up, including mine. 

The truth is, we don’t really know what we are capable of becoming or achieving. However, if we have so much potential, why aren’t we tapping into it more of it? Why do so many of us struggle to make the changes we want, to being happier, to be more fulfilled, and why do so many of us struggle to create more of the success we want? 

Here are two reasons and two ways you might be sabotaging yourself:

You over-rate yourself:

You’d think that only narcissistic people do this, but you’d be surprised. Studies show that when individuals on teams at work are asked how much their contributions were involved in a projects success, the responses almost always add up to more than one hundred percent—and that’s just not possible! Whether it’s evaluating our listening skills or our driving skills, people have a tendency to over-rate how good they are. 

I’m not talking about over-rating your potential. I’m talking about over-rating your current “performance” at work or your relationships with family and friends. Are you as valuable at work as you’d like to think you are? Do you rate yourself a four or five (out of five) in your primary responsibilities at work—and do you have evidence to back that up? (What do your boss and peers say?) Do you listen and empathize with your significant other and close friends as well as you think you do? (What would they say?)

Here’s how to know if you over-rate yourself: The results we create in our life don’t lie. I can hear someone saying now, “You don’t get it. I really care about my work and my co-workers. I stay late, help others who are running behind and I ask my boss for feedback.” That’s all good, but if you’re not being recognized and rewarded like you think you should be, you’re not as good as you think you are in some key areas.

Caring about your work and your co-workers is important. However, it’s equally important you have the emotional intelligence to connect with others and are able to influence them on levels that they recognize and reward you. Perhaps you’re not nearly as good as that as you’d like to think. One way or the other, if you’re not happy with what you’re getting at work or in life, you have a blind spot and need to see how you need to change, improve or grow in some area.

You under-rate yourself:

Believe it or not, people who under-rate themselves can also over-rate themselves. That’s because they lack the self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of self-worth to evaluate self realistically and to look at the results they create. That’s too difficult for them, so they think, “It’s not me, people just don’t appreciate how great I am.” 

However, they don’t really believe they’re all that great either—not deep down. This is revealed in their self-talk where they’re both subtly and overtly critical of themselves. They have unrealistic expectations and push themselves too hard. Then they fail to achieve on the level they demanded of themselves and that reinforces their conclusion that they aren’t smart enough, good enough or strong enough to really shine in life. 

Here’s how to know if you under-rate yourself: Do you speak up, but not with confidence? Do you offer your opinion prefaced with “I could be wrong about this…” when you need to assert your knowledge and experience? Do you feel like you’re being aggressive or pushy when you’re just being assertive? Do you take steps towards your goals but then become discouraged when you don’t succeed fast enough or big enough? Do you give up when you have setbacks? These are all signs you are selling yourself short.

- Alan Allard, Executive Coach