Self-sabotage.

What do you understand by Self-sabotage?

Many of us might have not come across this word as it is rarely used by people, what comes to your mind when you hear the word self-sabotage? When I first heard the word self-sabotage I was curious to know what it is as it was my first time hearing that word so I had to make a research what the word means here's what I found;

Self-sabotage can be defined in simple terms as physically, emotionally, and mentally hindering your progress by your actions and behaviours.

Every wrong action you take today makes you self-sabotage yourself, for example, you intentionally pour water on the fall and later on you slip and fall on the ground that's self-sabotage as we did the wrong before by pouring water on the ground and later on you slipped and fall due to your actions of the past.

We self-sabotage ourselves when we;

• Trying to be perfect.

• Compare ourselves to others.

• Lack self-worth.

• Giving without receiving anything in return.

• Saving and re-reading messages that hurt us.

Trying to be perfect.

Nobody is perfect they say, scientists make mistakes and so everyone is bound to make mistakes though we strive to be perfect it can't happen as humans are bound to make mistakes to learn from them so they can know the areas they are making mistakes so trying to be perfect makes us sabotage ourselves.

The more we try to be perfect the more mistakes we make and those are lessons for us to learn from so on our next trial we'll know what to do so we won't fall into such mistakes, sabotaging yourself to be perfect won't work out as even those successful people we see made mistakes which they learned from and continued striving.

One thing we should note is mistakes are part of the process but learning from those mistakes to be better is a road to attaining perfection.

Perfection isn't supposed to be a struggle but a realisation and state of mind.

"As we try to be perfect, we are bound to make mistakes"

Compare ourselves to others.

Image source.

Comparison can affect us both positively and negatively, lets's take a look at both of them for a better understanding of how it can affect us in those ways I've listed above.

Positively.

Comparison motivates us to be like others which makes us strive harder and harder so it is helpful in terms of motivating ourselves to be like others, comparison cheers us up in one way or the other in a positive way and can also be a guide to make us focus in life, let's look at the negative side of the comparison.

Negatively.

Comparison can be damaging and harmful to us in a negative way which would make us look down on ourselves and become jealous of others' success which leads to self-sabotage.

Comparison can be helpful both positively and negatively but one thing you should note is that we should disengage from comparison as it might motivate you at the very beginning but also make you look down on yourself and think that you're not good enough and others are better than you.

As comparison can be a motivation to one it can also make you feel you haven't achieved anything in life and thereby hurting yourself to be like others, we should stop comparison so we won't feel down on ourselves.

Lack self-worth

When we lack self-worth we tend to sabotage ourselves and lose confidence in whatever we are doing, when you are not confident in whatever you are doing you would lose your self worth and would also do things which would hinder us from bringing out our full capability.

We need to build up our self-worth and be confident in whatever we are doing even if it doesn't work out the way we want it but at least should try to be confident in whatever we are doing and know our worth.

Giving without receiving anything in return.

Giving also makes us sabotage ourselves when we give things out in expectation of receiving something in return but it turns out we didn't receive anything, this hinders our progress if we hold on to giving in expectation of receiving something.

Giving goes both ways but one thing we need to take into consideration is not giving in expectation of receiving something in return, it might not work out the way we want it to be so all we need to do is to give from our heart and expect nothing in return this would keep us going and won't allow us to sabotage ourselves.

Saving and re-reading messages that hurt us.

We just need to let go of most things that hurt us in the past or present as it would only hurt us more when we keep saving any message that hurts our feelings and re-reading it would make us feel sad and depressed.

It's ok to let go of any painful thing that has happened to us instead of saving it to re-read which would harm our feelings when we take a look at it, we just need to let go of past feelings and things that happen and focus on the future.

• Cover photo; designed using canva

Thanks for reading 🥰💚👌.