How to Stop Self-sabotage at Work

Last updated September 23, 2021

Self-sabotage is when we have unhelpful thoughts or take actions that undermine ourselves, making us feel stressed, miserable and out of control.  

There’s a fable in coaching guru circles about the good wolf and the bad wolf. In the story, a grandparent tells their grandchild…

"There is a bad wolf and a good wolf inside of each of us fighting a battle for survival. The bad wolf feels guilty, inferior and sorry for itself. It's also angry, proud, greedy and dishonest. Whereas the good wolf is loving, peaceful, hopeful, joyful, kind, shows empathy, speaks the truth and has compassion for others."

When the grandchild wants to know which one wins the battle, the grandparent wisely answers, "The one you feed."

 This story is a good way of understanding self-sabotage; it's the bad wolf at feeding time. 

5 common ways we self-sabotage at work (and feed the bad wolf)

1. Self-sabotaging by trying to read other people's minds

Despite what those magicians will have you believe, mind-reading is something we all do far more often than we might realise. It happens when we assume we know what other people are thinking or how they will react. We let this justify our beliefs that an email was passive-aggressive or that a passing comment was a snide remark without understanding the full context. 

Generally, this kind of thinking is never accurate or positive. It usually involves assuming that others are thinking badly about us or that they'll react negatively to anything we might say or do.  

When we let ourselves fall into this trap, we find ourselves stuck and fearful; our levels of stress increase and our relationships at work suffer. We mistake other's intentions and paint pictures of our co-workers that just aren't true. And all because our imagination took us down a path of low trust and fear. 

2. We let our emails run the show

When we constantly check our emails, team chat or messages, we self-sabotage ourselves by becoming distracted and putting things off. We tell ourselves it's much more essential to keep on top of the constant demands from emails over and above our ever-mounting to-do list. 

This self-sabotaging behaviour is because we’re afraid we're not good enough. At the same time, we tell ourselves that it's not due for quite a while, and we have plenty of time, only to end up scrambling at the last minute to meet the deadline. 

The problem is that when we constantly fail to deliver our scheduled tasks, our reputation suffers, which may result in poor reviews and negative feedback. 

3. We think we aren't good enough

Have you ever experienced that feeling of worry that your work isn't good enough and never will be, or that somebody will find out and expose you for this? Or have you ever been worried that people at work just don't like you? 

Worries like this lead us to live in constant fear of failure or of not measuring up. We compare ourselves to others, and it's this kind of fear-based thinking that undermines our confidence. 

We end up believing we need to work extremely hard to produce perfect work. And even though we work incredibly hard, our quality of work might be impacted by this lack of confidence. This creates a feedback loop of failure reinforced by our negative self-perception. 

4. We normalise busyness

In today's environment, more and more of us feel overwhelmed as we're pressured to be productive and constantly on and on top of things.

Our language is filled with words and phrases like:

'There's just so much to do,'

'I don't have the time,' 

'There are too many conflicting priorities.'

When we're stuck in the 'busyness' mindset, we give off messages that may lead us to be passed over for opportunities. This means we might miss out on exciting projects or take on work that could lead to more enjoyable job roles. 

Plus, too much self-sufficiency at work can lead to the perception that we're not good at working within a team, creating a sense of isolation.

5. We fear things will be worse than they are

Catastrophising (thinking that things will turn out badly) is a significant cause of unnecessary anxiety and stress. It may be the fear of change or the inability to think positively about the future. We become afraid that if we do go for what we want, we will fail, and that failure will be catastrophic.

So instead of taking action, we spend our time trying to work out a plan to avoid disappointment. The problem with this is that we cannot predict what will happen no matter how well we plan.

We get stuck when we go round and round, planning and replanning, never taking the step to move forward. So we stay in our comfort zone and fail to take action to create the work-life we want.  

How to feed the good wolf (and stop self-sabotage)

Overcoming self-sabotage is a journey to becoming more self-aware and self-reflective. 

An excellent place to start is mindfulness, the habit of being present and aware of what we are thinking, feeling and doing. All self-sabotaging thoughts take us either to the past or the future.

Developing this habit brings us into the present by asking ourselves, 'Where am I? When am I?'.

This enables us to focus on the job at hand, helping to reduce stress and give us options for what we would like to do next.

Ruminating over the past or worrying about the future will change very little. Whenever we catch ourselves engaging in self-sabotaging behaviour, we can use the habit of self-reflection.

That is, taking time to look back on our day and learning to celebrate what we have achieved, reviewing what went well and what didn't go as well as we would have liked and considering how we would approach these things if and when they happen in the future. 

This practice helps us feel good about our achievements. When we get into this habit, we develop essential internal self-approval and self-acceptance skills.

Combining these skills helps to show us that things are never perfect. They also give us a way of continually improving by using our imagination to practice how we will do things differently in the future.

I’d love to know if you’ve used mindfulness and self-reflection to feed your good wolf and break self-sabotaging behaviour. Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin.

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