Do you often get in the way of your own dreams, ambitions, and best intentions?

For example:

• Do you have a habit of starting creative projects but never finishing them?
• Maybe you have a pattern of ending relationships as soon as they start to get serious or complicated?
• Or perhaps you tend to give up on personal commitments like diets or exercise regimens at similar points in the journey?

If so, it could be that you are self-sabotaging, which simply means that you tend to undermine your own goals.

And if this is something you struggle with, the first step to breaking the cycle is to understand why you do it and what’s causing it.

1. Limiting beliefs

Limiting beliefs are irrational or unhelpful stories we tell ourselves that hold us back from success and happiness.

For example: If the story you tell yourself about money is that only greedy people work hard to get it, is it any surprise that you tend to self-sabotage your financial goals?

The stories we tell ourselves shape how our own story unfolds.

If you want to undo these limiting beliefs and the self-sabotaging behaviors they produce, the first step is to confront them.

Now, this often takes great courage because confronting your limiting beliefs means facing up to how much you’ve lost and held yourself back from as a result.

So start small: Begin by cultivating a healthy skepticism and curiosity of any thought or belief you encounter.

Play with it, examine it, poke it a little.

Once you get used to questioning your smaller thoughts and beliefs, you’ll have more confidence to confront the bigger ones that are holding you back.

“Don’t believe everything you think. Thoughts are just that — thoughts.”

— Allan Lokos

2. Judgmental self-talk

I’m always amazed at how people can describe in painful detail the nature of their self-sabotaging behavior, but have almost zero insight into what’s going on mentally when they’re self-sabotaging.

Specifically, there’s often a flood of self-judgment and self-criticism leading up to the moment of self-sabotage that most people are barely conscious of. This is unfortunate because in many cases that’s exactly what puts people over the edge from challenging obstacle to self-sabotage.

Feeling bad is hard enough without feeling bad about feeling bad.

See, most people underestimate their capacity for dealing with challenging situations because they don’t know what it’s like to deal with a challenging situation without the whole extra layer of emotional pain and baggage that comes from a habit of self-judgment and criticism.

But it turns out, when you respond to challenges with self-compassion and kindness — the same way you would with a friend who was struggling — your capacity to deal with your challenges is far greater than you realize.

“Words matter. And the words that matter most are the ones you say to yourself.”

― David Taylor-Klaus

3. You don’t know what you want

One of the most underrated reasons why people self-sabotage is a lack of clarity about personal values.

Let’s say you struggle with self-sabotage with sticking to a diet.

How much work have you done to really understand and clarify the why (or value) behind your goal of dieting?

On a superficial level, it might be to lose weight, look better in a swimsuit, have more energy, etc.

But why do those matter?

Why is it personally meaningful to you to have more energy?

What will that help you achieve or feel or experience?

It’s a lot easier to resist the things you don’t want when you have a clear vision for what you do want.

Self-sabotage happens when we get pulled into unhelpful behaviors by our emotions at the expense of our values.

In order to resist the pull of those unhelpful emotions, you need to strengthen the pull of your values. And the best way to do that?

Clarify them, make them specific, juicy, palpable!

Because the clearer and more specific your values, the more likely you are to stick with them.

“Man cannot stand a meaningless life.”

— Carl Jung

4. Perfectionism

One way to think about perfectionism is that it’s an addiction to unreasonable standards.

For example: You constantly tell yourself that if you can work harder on your business you should.

While that sounds superficially motivating — and briefly alleviates your need for control — it’s actually a recipe for self-sabotage and failure.

Perfectionistic striving feels motivating in the short term, but it’s a setup for self-sabotage in the end.

If your expectations are constantly unreasonable, you’re inevitably going to fail to reach them, which is a setup for chronic disappointment, frustration, and even hopelessness.

And boy, you can only take so much frustration, disappointment, and discouragement before you throw your hands up and quit or start unconsciously giving yourself a way out of all those painful feelings by sabotaging the whole project.

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”

― Michael J. Fox

5. You’re afraid to be assertive

Assertiveness means asking for what you want in a way that’s respectful of other people and your own wants and needs.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are indoctrinated by society to think that standing up for yourself or asking for what you want directly is rude, manipulative, bitchy, etc.

As a result, many people end up chronically ignoring their own wants and needs for fear of upsetting or disappointing others.

Obviously, this poses a problem for achieving our goals…

How can you hope to meet your goals if you’re unwilling to ask for what you want?

If you want to stop self-sabotaging, do the work to understand the basics of assertive communication, get over your FODO (fear of disappointing others), and start going after what you want with confidence.

“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

— Greg McKeown

6. Chronic worry

If you’re stuck in the habit of chronic worry — catastrophizing and imagining the worst, for example — you’re going to feel chronically stressed and anxious.

And if you’re constantly stressed and anxious, you’re not going to be able to perform at your best with whatever ambition or goal you’re working toward.

For example: How are you going to be able to focus deeply and work at full capacity on your creative project if your concentration is constantly being broken by worries about what people will think of it or whether it will be successful?

Chronic worry is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ultimately, worry is a way of avoiding the discomfort of some kind of anxiety — usually a lack of control or uncertainty.

But in the long-run, it solves nothing and makes you incredibly stressed and anxious, which can’t help but sabotage your goals.

If you want to stop letting anxiety and stress sabotage your goals, you must learn to control your worry habit.

“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.”

― Kahlil Gibran

7. You don’t enforce your boundaries

A lot of self-sabotage stems from a lack of confidence and self-respect.

For example, I worked with a client once who had a long pattern of starting businesses successfully only to virtually abandon them just as they were getting traction.

Turns out, while he had a lot of confidence starting business, he was terrified that he couldn’t handle the responsibility of running them once he had employees, investors, etc.

So he would end up self-sabotaging.

But what’s key to realize is that a lot of our lack of confidence and self-respect comes from unhealthy boundaries.

It’s hard to respect yourself when you don’t respect your own boundaries.

Think about it…

What are you teaching your brain if you’re in the habit of setting boundaries with people then constantly giving in or not enforcing those boundaries?

You’re teaching it that what you want isn’t really important — or at least, it’s not as important as what other people want.

So is it any surprise that you don’t feel confident in your abilities?

I mean, how can you respect yourself and act confidently — and avoid self-sabotage — when you’re unwilling to stand up for yourself and enforce your boundaries?

“If people keep stepping on you, wear a pointy hat.”

― Joyce Rachelle

Because anger isn’t a very socially acceptable emotion, many people end up masking it.

And sometimes they’ve been masking their anger for so long — and are so good at it — they don’t even realize they’re angry anymore.

But here’s the problem:

No matter how good you are at hiding your anger, it will come out one way or the other.

 

As a psychologist, I regularly work with people who insist that they’re not angry, only to realize that many of their most unhelpful tendencies and habits are the result of unexplored anger.

Being angry isn’t a bad thing.

But if you’re not self-aware enough to acknowledge it, the side effects can cause a lot of suffering for you and the people in your life.

Here are 5 signs you might actually be angrier than you think and a few suggestions for dealing with that anger in a healthy way.

1. Chronic Anxiety

Many people end up chronically anxious because they’re so afraid of their anger that they’ll take on any amount of stress in order to avoid it.

On the face of it, people who are chronically anxious look the exact opposite of angry.

If anything they come across as meek, unassuming, or even pushovers.

But here’s the thing…

Just because you don’t look and act angry doesn’t mean you’re not feeling angry.

Anger is a natural human emotion we all feel as a result of injustice or boundary violations.

For example:

• If a bully steals your lunch at school, it’s natural to feel angry about it.
• If you watch a news report of some innocent person being abused or taken advantage of, you’re going to feel angry about it.
• If your spouse sarcastically criticizes your outfit, you’re probably going to feel angry about it.

And more than just a sign that some injustice has been committed, anger is also fuel for rectifying it…

• Where would the civil rights movement be if no one got angry about slavery and racism?
• Where would democracy be if no one got angry at tyranny and fascism?

But a lot of people fear getting angry — or making others angry — so much that they take on huge amounts of stress and anxiety as a result of avoiding the anger.

For example, take the little boy who grew up with an alcoholic and abusive parent…

He learned quickly as a kid that expressing his own anger and frustration only got him hurt and abused.

So now, even though he isn’t physically in danger anymore, he’s in the habit of ignoring his anger.

As a result, he never stands up for himself…

• He takes on way too much work in his job which keeps him stressed and anxious. All because he’s afraid to express his anger about giving too much work.
• He remains in a verbally abusive relationship because he’s afraid of his spouse’s anger and the conflict that would ensue if he stood up for himself. So he’s always worried about upsetting his spouse.
• He even has a hard time disciplining his children when he needs to because he’s afraid of his anger and theirs. So he’s constantly stressed and anxious about the way his kids are growing up.

Anxiety is the price of unacknowledged anger.

I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.”

― Gavin de Becker

2. Rumination

Just because you’re not angry with other people doesn’t mean you’re not angry.

Self-directed anger is a real thing too — with plenty of destructive consequences if left unchecked.

A lot of people assume they’re not angry because they never get angry with other people.

They’re nice, friendly, tolerant, empathetic, and even quite patient when it comes to other people.

And because they rarely get angry at others, they almost never look visibly angry:

• They don’t shout or scream
• They don’t act out or get aggressive
• They don’t lose their cool when things go wrong

But looks can be deceiving…

Some of the angriest people I’ve ever met look like absolute sweethearts to everyone else — even to the people who know them well like spouses or parents.

How is this possible?

For many people, their anger is self-directed and manifests as an extreme type of negative self-talk called rumination.

Rumination is the mental habit of intensely negative and unproductive self-talk about mistakes or errors in the past.

For example:

• An offhand comment by a friend at dinner triggers a memory of a mistake you made in the past and you spend the rest of your evening dwelling on that mistake and all the negative consequences in your life that came from it.
• Your manager at work gives you some specific negative feedback about a recent piece of work and you spend hours distracted by thoughts and of how you could have done better and why you’re always such a screw-up.

The key insight here is subtle but important:

While rumination often leads to sadness and shame, it’s usually fueled by self-anger.

Because most people identify with the consequences of their rumination habit, they don’t realize how important a role anger is playing in their life.

Remember:

• Just because anger isn’t externalized or directed at another person doesn’t mean it’s not there.
• And just because your anger isn’t leading to destructive behaviors with others, doesn’t mean it isn’t leading to destructive behaviors with yourself.

If you struggle with rumination, self-criticism, or perfectionism, there’s a good chance that becoming more self-aware about your anger will help you escape the cycle.

If you had a person in your life treating you the way you treat yourself, you would have gotten rid of them a long time ago…

― Cheri Huber

3. Passive-Aggressive Communication

People become passive-aggressive when they experience intense anger but are afraid to acknowledge it.

When people are passive-aggressive it means that they act in an aggressive way in order to get what they want but try to hide it in order to avoid taking responsibility for the consequences of their aggression.

Here are a few examples to illustrate:

• Chronically being late for appointments or meetings but always having some excuse or another ready to explain it.
• “Having” a stomach ache right before you were supposed to meet up with that friend you don’t really like but feel like to have to hang out with occasionally.
• Doing work poorly around the office so that someone else ends up doing it.

The problem with this habit of passive-aggressive behavior is that it doesn’t really work — not in the long run…

• Eventually, you begin to be perceived as flaky, unreliable, and irresponsible by key people in your life. And as a result, your relationships suffer and you feel more and more isolated and alone.
• What’s more, on a deep level you perceive yourself this way too. The result is chronic low self-esteem, shame, and self-loathing.

The only way out of this cycle of passive-aggression is to practice being more assertive.

This means learning to acknowledge your anger and frustration and act on it when appropriate.

But to do it in a way that’s both honest to your own wants and needs but also respectful of those of others.

Becoming more assertive doesn’t mean denying your anger.

It means acknowledging it and validating it so that you can deal with it in a healthy way instead of it “coming out” in unhealthy ways.

Assertiveness isn’t about building a good disguise. It’s about developing the courage to take the disguise off.

— Randy Paterson

4. Venting

Venting, complaining, bitching, whining… call it whatever you want.

But at the end of the way, if you’re doing it a lot, you’re probably more angry than you realize.

Do you vent a lot with friends, family, or coworkers?

If so, that might be a good indicator that you’ve got a lot more unacknowledged anger and frustration in your life than you realize.

See, for a long-time, the way psychologists thought and talked about anger was that it was a kind of toxic substance that had to be released or else it would be harmful.

As a result, the idea of “venting” your anger became popularized and encouraged by a lot of therapists, counselors, and advisors.

Unfortunately, turns out the whole cathartic theory of anger is a complete myth.

And worse than that, simply venting your anger only intensifies it in the long run.

The healthiest way to deal with anger is to acknowledge it, validate it, act on it assertively if you need to or just let it be if you don’t.

This means that if you’re the kind of person who vents a lot, or if you would label yourself a chronic complainer, the better strategy is to A) get better at acknowledging your anger or frustrations, and B) Either do something about them or let them go.

We like to vent because it gives us the illusion of working on things.

But it doesn’t actually address the issues making you frustrated in the first place.

And even though it might feel good in the moment to vent, it only keeps those flames burning longer in the end.

Remember it’s perfectly healthy to feel frustrated and angry.

But how you deal with those feelings can be very unhealthy.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is… When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”

― Eckhart Tolle

5. Hypercriticism

Many people mask their anger by expressing it in the form of coolly intellectual criticism of others.

If you tend to be overly critical or judgmental of other people, that might be a sign that you’ve got some unacknowledged anger to explore.

Here’s how it works…

• Often people feel bad about themselves in some big way — maybe they’re afraid to make a big life-change, for example, even though they know it’s the right thing for them to do.
• This pain or inadequacy hurts, of course. But over time, what’s even worse, is the guilt and shame they feel for not doing anything about it even though they know they should.
• Eventually, this guilt and shame become self-directed anger and resentment. But still, they feel stuck…
• So in order to temporarily alleviate all of this negativity, they resort to criticizing or judging others as a kind of coping mechanism for their own low self-esteem.
• Because when you criticize someone else, you implicitly communicate that you know better, which temporarily makes you feel good about yourself.
• Of course, in the long-run, this judgmentalness becomes one more thing to feel bad about yourself for.

The thing is… many people who are in this habit of being judgmental of others, look the opposite of angry — they seem cool and detached in an intellectual or hyper-analytical way.

But here’s the thing…

This cool intellectual criticism of others is often just a mask for our own insecurities and self-directed anger.

You can only deal with your insecurities and self-anger if you are aware of it and are willing to explore it.

And your habit of being critical of others may not subside until you address this core motivator for it.

 

The self-righteous scream judgments against others to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets.

― John Mark Green

All You Need to Know

There’s nothing wrong with being angry.

It’s a normal human emotion and has a great many important functions.

But if you’re in denial about your anger that’s when you can get into trouble.

These 5 signs are useful indicators to help you explore the role that anger may or may not play in your life:

• Chronic Anxiety
• Rumination
• Passive-Aggressive Communication
• Venting
• Hypercriticism

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Thanks for reading,

— Nick