This might make you slightly fidgety.
But I promise, if you stick with me here, you could feel clearer than you ever have about knowing what you want most in life.
I’ve made an observation: If you poll 100 people and ask them what they want most in life – their overarching goal – the vast majority will say unhesitatingly, “I want to be happy.”
If you follow up with another question, “Are you happy?”, those same people will likely say “No.”
Why is this?
A lack of Intelligence? Laziness? Indecisiveness? Fear? Self-Doubt? Too Little Motivation?
In my 3+ decades of working with people from all walks of life, and at various levels of social status, income, education, and opportunity, one of the main deterrents to happiness that I’ve seen is this: people say they want one thing, but they are locked into actions that take them in the opposite direction.
What do I mean?
Take Tara, for example. She really wants to date (and hopefully marry) a well-established, professional man with whom she can enjoy a lovely lifestyle.
Who does she actually date? Men who have difficulty holding a job, have no savings, and look to her to foot the bill for dinners and even weekends away.
Or Makena, a content creator in her 30’s who wants to start her own marketing business.
What she actually does: Clings to the comfort of what she knows: a nearly toxic work environment where she is both underappreciated and undercompensated. She consistently finds excuses to delay taking action, using every weekend to socialize instead of putting time into a business plan.
Shawn wants to get himself financially stable enough to one day purchase his own home.
What he actually does: Makes impulse purchases, dines out frequently while picking up the tab for rounds of drinks for his friends, and charges expensive vacations to his credit card instead of creating a plan to pay off debt and save money,
Lizette wants to find a good partner, settle down in a long-term relationship and start a family.
What she actually does: Engages in casual dating and hookups, prioritizes physical attraction over emotional connection, and avoids vulnerability.
And finally, Monica. She wants to leave what she describes as a “loveless” marriage of 11 years. Marriage counseling revealed that her husband has no interest in working on the relationship and explicitly said he wasn’t going to change anything on his end.
What she actually does: Holds onto this relationship while contemplating having an affair with a married coworker. She has yet to realize that her deepest fear is her fear of being alone. Under that fear is the belief that she is unlovable.
If you have ever found yourself wanting something deeply, but for “some reason” worked against your own desires, you’re not alone.
Self-sabotage – or the result of being at cross purposes with oneself – is a sticky and confounding phenomenon where individuals unconsciously undermine their own success, happiness, and well-being. This paradoxical behavior can show up in various aspects of life, as described in the examples above, from relationships and career to health and personal growth.
These scenarios illustrate the disconnect between our conscious desires and unconscious actions. But why do we engage in such self-sabotaging behavior? And do we do so purposely?
The short answer is well, … yes.
*Unconscious Fears and Motivations*
No one sets out to sabotage themselves.
Often, however, self-sabotage stems from unconscious fears, past traumatic events, or ingrained negative patterns. These hidden motivations can drive us to behave in ways that contradict our conscious goals. Interestingly, we may not experience these fears as fears. They may seem like ordinary, rational reasons for not taking action. But on a deeper level, our resistance to happiness has a purpose, a mission. Here are three:
* Fear of failure. This might unconsciously cause some people to procrastinate, ensuring they never have to face the possibility of not meeting expectations while consciously telling themselves they just don’t have enough time to get things done. Fear of rejection ties into this. If we don’t take a risk to pursue our dreams or goals, then we never have to risk standing out; we protect ourselves from feeling judged.
* Fear of Success. Another unconscious fear, this one manifests as a worry that success will feel overwhelming and simply too difficult to maintain. If we feel the price of success is a loss of personal freedom or autonomy, we’re more apt to shrink away from it and call our circumstance “bad luck.”
* A deep-seated need for control or a fear of intimacy might cause an individual to sabotage relationships by keeping others at an emotional distance, maintaining an invisible wall or unconsciously recreating familiar patterns of conflict or abandonment. (Yes, we do this. We recreate what we’ve lived.)
*How to Break the Cycle of Self-Sabotage*
1. Recognizing the paradox of self-sabotage is the FIRST step.
When you have a goal, notice whether your actions are bringing you one step closer or one step further away from achieving that goal. By being willing to gauge which direction you’re moving in, you will more easily be able to redirect your attention away from distraction and toward intentional action.
2. When you notice yourself veering off or going in reverse, ask yourself: “What’s one thing that I can do right now to move closer to my goal?”
3. Pay attention to where your attention goes. Get used to thinking about how you think.
4. Monitor your need for external pleasures. Notice when you feel the urge to engage in them and ask yourself: “Could I be using this (fill in the blank … scrolling, shopping, watching mindless streaming, eating when you’re not hungry, drinking, etc) to avoid doing something that is in the service of showing up for myself?
The road to overcoming self-sabotage is unique to each individual reading this. By acknowledging the fascinating complexities of our own mind and behaviors, we can begin to identify the patterns that interfere with our happiness. In doing so, we can experience more alignment – our actions are in sync with our desires – and therefore much greater happiness and satisfaction.
You do not have to be one of the 100 people who deeply crave happiness but shy away from it. You can be one of the people who actually embody it.
*Reflection Questions:*
* What are my core values and goals?
* Are there areas in my life where my actions have contradicted my desires?
* If I were to guess, what unconscious fears or motivations might be driving this?
* What would it look like if I aligned my choices with my desired goals?
Take the first step toward greater self-awareness and empowerment. Explore these questions and begin to uncover the patterns that might have you at odds with yourself.
