How many times have you “cheated” on a diet, skipped a workout, emotionally ate, or failed to follow some health protocol exactly… and then told yourself you’re just a screw up?

A failure.

A willpower weakling.

A self-saboteur.

There is a lot of talk about “self-sabotage” in the transformation industry. Self-sabotage refers to the ways you “botch things up” or more painfully “deliberately undermine a cause”.

This is so frequently the way we think and talk about ourselves when we fail to meet the standards or maintain the commitment we made to ourselves in regard to a goal or something we want for ourselves.

That somethings could be…

Growing your business

Writing your book

Stopping a habit

Following a diet

Training for an athletic event

The list goes on.

When we talk about self-sabotage, we call it out as a sign of personal weakness, as if there is some sinister and dishonest part of you that doesn’t want what the more enlightened part of you does.

Just take a moment and feel into the effects this phrase has on you.

“I sabotage myself.”

There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about it. In fact, doesn’t it make you feel a bit like it’s out of your hands, there’s nothing to be done about it, and you are a victim to it?

The idea of self-sabotage says, “I don’t trust myself”, “I don’t trust my body”, “I can’t be trusted”. It starts to pit us against ourselves because of that lack of trust, and this can lead to a longstanding fight.

And when we fight with ourselves, we always lose. There are no winners in a war of one.

So… what if self-sabotage wasn’t even a thing? What if it didn’t exist? What if it’s just another example of the toxic ways we’ve learned to talk to and about ourselves?

If we ever hope to change a pattern or make a lasting change, we have to let go of the idea that there is something wrong with us. We have to stop feeding the toxic belief that we’re broken.

We have to instead look for what is right and good and whole about who we are. Because judging and punishing ourselves into change NEVER works

It’s been my personal experience, and the experience of countless clients, that when we don’t follow through on something we say we want, or when we bail out of a diet or a workout, or when we reach for ice cream when we feel sad, or when we can’t make ourselves follow a health protocol to the “T”…

It’s for a good reason.

Underneath it all, there is something going on that needs our attention and care.

You do not sabotage yourself.

You procrastinate or “fail” to do something  because on some level you’re scared.

You emotionally eat to regulate your emotions.

You stay up far too late because your schedule doesn’t allow for enough free time.

You bite your nails because you’re worried or anxious.

You feel stuck because there is something that hasn’t yet been acknowledged happening inside of you.

It’s something you haven’t slowed down enough for yet to feel.

None of this has anything to do with self-sabotage. It has far more to do with how well you know how to regulate your nervous system, navigate your emotions as they come and go, and befriend your fears.

So please, join me in removing “self-sabotage” from your vocabulary. Because it leads to a feeling of being victimized by yourself and by life. There’s nothing helpful or true about that.

If there’s one thing that all my years of coaching and being coached have taught me, it’s that there is far more happening just under the surface than we can often see for ourselves.

It’s very easy to get stuck in a pattern of self-criticism and blame when we can’t figure something out on our own, or when the path forward isn’t as straight and simple as we thought it was going to be.

Instead of blaming, shaming and mistrusting yourself, let’s reframe the pattern you’ve been calling “self-sabotage”  as something that is calling for your attention.

Something that is showing up for you as a teacher.

Something that has been a brilliant coping mechanism up until now.

Something that might be asking you to grow into the next version of you that doesn’t have to do those things anymore.

Maybe instead of self-sabotage, it’s a message from life to you. A call to learn and grow into a new you that knows how to better listen to, honor, and be present with the uncomfortable things that life can bring our way.

What would become possible for you then?