Dear readers,

Have you ever wondered why all your days are as bad as usual ?

No matter how much you did, there's still a lingering feeling that you can't change anything for the better.

But even if you do get better, it feels awkward and weird that you feel better, as if the feeling doesn't belong to you.

And then you start crippling yourself with worry, fears, and pessimism that ultimately brought you back to where you started.

It's like a self perpetuating cycle of dooming yourself to not ever getting back up, even though you are acutely aware that this shouldn't be OK in the first place.

And if this sounds a lot like you, let me take you on a trip exploring the psychology behind my self limiting behaviors and the following actions to address it.

The psychology behind self sabotaging

Often times, our low self esteem are always to be blamed for our negativity towards self. When we feel like we don't truly deserve something or that everything good happens to us is dumb luck, we would actively refrain from them, and stay in our own comfort zones.

As we don't like to experience regret, disappointment and ambiguity, we've come to value certainty and safely above all else. Not even success can make us feel whole, if we think it brings unwanted changes to our lives.

Approaching a girl you like in the office next door sounds appealing, but the fear of embarrassment took over your mind (Sadly I still feel like this.)

Working on your favorite side hustle can rejuvenate you after a long day at work, but the thought of overworking and burnout keeps you at bay.

Judging from my own experiences, we are all psychologically wired to strive for consistency in life. In other words, we think to ourselves that anything that doesn't fall into our routine, like going on a date, or being proud of yourself for the little good things you achieved, subconsciously sounds like bad news to your brain and you'd prefer shutting yourself off of them.

Perfectionists can also relate to this experience as well. They (sometimes me included) tend to be dismissive of incremental improvements (like improving yourself just 1% per day) and to adopt an all-or-nothing approach to life. All of this restrictions we perfectionists put on ourselves are also causing us to do the same thing as self saboteurs.

The outsized damage of self sabotaging

Self sabotaging is easily the worst thing I've done to myself. And believe or not - it kind of took over my early adult life, without me even knowing.

In high school there were a handful of girls wanting to date with me. One of them even asked my friend to say hi. The other one teased me with her best bantering skills.

I was awfully close to my first love, but as I was going through a difficult phase, I distanced myself from them, thinking that I'd be doomed if they discovered how unworthy I was as their date.

Fast forward to college, and I had my first job as a part time worker in a convenience store. The job was taxing but nevertheless a fun experience, but there's one major problem.

Growing up in a hypercritical environment where your family correct every single thing you do, I lost the ability to stand up for myself and ultimately quit the job in order to escape the bullying and abuse from coworkers.

And so I never worked a contract job again throughout college, for fear of becoming a laughing stock and a pushover.

Combined this with other things I'm not ready to talk about, I'd have become the meekest boy in town, if there was a Guinness record for such title. And it's not surprising to see how I manage to become single, dependent and have less than $2000 in my bank account.

In short, my college life is a hot pile of dumpster fire, thanks to my inability to seize opportunities.

How I avoid further self sabotaging

Honestly it was hard to describe the emotions from knowing the extent of the damage. I even thought that I've prepared myself to fail as much as humanly possible.

More and more I was convinced that I was a loser in life. There didn't seem to be a way to deny this fact or to contradict it.

I began to hate my family and jealous of people around me.

I blamed my mom for her blatant ignorance and lack of responsibility. Her dumb conservatism came a long way f***ing my shit up.

I quickly grew jealous of my successful friends who had pretty much everything I lacked - respect, romance, riches.

It's also hard to watch people holding hands outside, or drink with friends in the coffee shops. Almost as if they are taunting to my face that you lack substance.

At this moment, it was incredibly tempting to become a perfectionist and go on a crusade to overcompensate myself.

But I said - f*** it.

By blaming my mother and over-perfecting myself I was essentially putting myself back in the same destructive loop. The heightened sense of self righteousness makes you feel good about yourself without making any actual progress.

And so I took a self compassion route, where I see myself as merely a struggling person who just wants to create value in this unforgiving and messy world. My mom herself was going through traumas from her own, without taking it out on me in violent and other abusive ways.

Through this, I came to relearn the maladaptive coping mechanisms that reliably hinders my potential. Only then did I stop trying to be productive for every waking hour and instead focus on healing from my early difficulties, not fixing nor compensating for it.

Learning lessons in life shouldn't be embarrassing or shameful.