3 Ways to Eliminate the Self-Inflicted Pains that Hurt Women’s Careers  

Self-sabotaging behavior creeps into a person’s life as a protective mechanism–a distraction or avoidance of something else. For some women, self-sabotage begins in childhood with the simple praise of others saying, “You’re a smart girl.” Studies have shown that women who have been told they are smart tend to live their adult lives trying to live up to that adjective. Sometimes, they avoid accepting responsibility or taking risks that might compromise their standing as “smart.”

Women who escape or dodge their own emotions via alcohol, drugs or comfort eating often are easier to recognize than women whose behavior isn’t as markedly harmful. Simple procrastination or extreme modesty can create long-term career consequences because they can keep a woman from advancing. In the moment, procrastination might be such an ingrained response that you don’t recognize the negative outcomes it triggers. Putting off starting a project until the last minute meant you had to work late. Working late meant you didn’t have time to cook dinner or hit the gym after work. So, ultimately, you ate fast food that you know isn’t good for you and missed another opportunity to relieve work-life stress by working out. Sound familiar? How much less successful might you be as an entrepreneur, employee, mother or spouse if you made small changes to your life to end self-sabotage?

In other words, how will you get out of your own way.

Pinpoint Self-Sabotage Activity
Self-sabotage is a shape shifter that takes on differing forms in each person’s life. Identifying which activities in your life amount to self-sabotage will enable you to learn new behaviors instead, potentially saving your career or your personal relationships. Self-sabotaging behaviors fall into several distinct categories.

• • • Fear of: failure, risk taking or mistakes
    • Inability to: admit mistakes, say “no” to others, utilize practical or critical thinking, to plan ahead or to be flexible and consider another position or course of action
    • Bad habits: procrastination, complaining, perfectionism, judging yourself or others harshly, worrying
    • Limiting: thoughts, beliefs or attitudes
    • Limiting thoughts keep us from making decisions or going forward in our lives or careers. They creep into our minds and discourage us: “I’m too busy. I’m not ready. I don’t know enough. I don’t know how.”
    • Self-Aggrandizement: opposite of feelings of inferiority, but no less destructive, are feelings of superiority that drive a wedge between you and the people with whom you work. You are unique, but you aren’t superior to everyone else.

Once you have identified the hallmarks of your self-sabotage, you can begin to examine each to determine what damage they are causing in your life. Some things are easy to determine. The inability to say “No” to food can easily lead to weight gain and visible changes. Other behaviors, however, are subtle and their effects are more difficult to see.

Uncover Triggers
Sometimes when discovering the behaviors that sabotage your career or relationships, you also will uncover patterns to those behaviors. For example, you may have fallen into the pattern of making self-deprecating comments when attention shifts to you in an uncomfortable way. Something is triggering that response in you. What could the origin be? Many women were raised to deflect praise so as not to appear self-serving or conceited. In adult women, however, such behavior comes across, not as the modesty one hopes to convey, but as a lack of self-worth.

Certain events, objects, people and situations will trigger predictable responses. Once you identify the triggers that cause a specific reaction, you can change your thinking to overcome your Pavlovian response to those stimuli. Your own beliefs could be limiting your potential.

Ask yourself these questions:

• • • What do I believe or how do I perceive this situation?
    • Is my belief impractical?
    • What would others think about this situation?
    • How else can I view this situation?

Do you find yourself thinking, “If I want it done right, I have to do it myself,” about too many aspects of your business? Do you, therefore, take on too much in an effort to attain some level of perfectionism that only you understand? If you are spending extra hours every evening muddling through social media for your business, but you aren’t an expert in social media, is that time well spent? Or are you afraid that someone else might not meet your expectation? Where is the idea that no one else can do the task as well as you coming from?

More often than not, our beliefs originate in our childhood. They arise from conditioned responses designed to keep the peace in our families. Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. explained in Psychology Today, “Most everything that’s psychologically dysfunctional has its origins in outdated childhood programs. These are programs keyed to your child self’s perception of how best to adjust to irrational family requirements or demands.” He called the adaptations we make to fit in or attach to our parents “survival programs” and that “in growing up it generally feels crucial to do all that’s possible to form a secure bond with your parents.” Sadly, these responses can be challenging to shake even as adults aware of the difficulties those very responses create. Challenging to change but not impossible.

Exchange Negative for Positive
How will you overcome your thoughts and behavior that amount to self-sabotage? Sometimes you cannot avoid the triggers—people, circumstances or objects–that bring about your survival responses. But you can learn to substitute a different, positive response for a limiting thought or an inappropriate behavior.

If you feel undervalued at your current job, and especially if this is the third job in a row at which you have felt undervalued or unappreciated, do some soul-searching to figure out what exactly will make you feel valued. Is there something that triggers those feelings? What does being valued look like to you? If you need daily praise in order to feel appreciated, it is unrealistic to expect that from any employer. A constant need for ratification of how awesome you are, indicates low self-esteem. Give yourself the praise you need.

When perfectionism makes you want to abandon a project because it isn’t turning out exactly as you envisioned, keep moving forward by focusing on what you have learned through your mistakes. Give yourself permission to fail, then practice realistic expectations such as mastering new skills with each project to make personal growth the focus, not perfection.

Don’t expect to eliminate self-sabotage overnight. Start by identifying the areas in which you might be curtailing your own success. Consider your behavior from another perspective and ask yourself, “Is there anything I would do differently next time?” Remember that most self-limiting behavior comes from a place of fear, worry or self-doubt. Challenge your own thinking. Jot down the negative thoughts running through your head as quickly as they come to you. Replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. Instead of assuming that you can’t possibly do something, list all of the skills and experience you have that make it possible, and even probable, that you will succeed. Unlock the shackles that sabotage your career and your life; only you hold the key.