007 - Are you sabotaging yourself? Ask yourself these 3 questions to end the sabotage | With Sarah Marie Liddle

You’re listening to the Pleasure Rising Podcast Episode number 005. 

Pleasure seekers we all know that going after our dreams, creating a business and life that we love is not as easy as simply setting and sticking to goals. 

Today I want to focus on self sabotage and how to move through sabotaging yourself.

So I’m going to tell you three questions to help you move through sabotaging behaviours and finally create the business, life and pleasure you desire. 

But before we dive in. I’d love it if you could head to Itunes, search Pleasure Rising Podcast and leave a review. Each week I’ll be sharing the top review on the podcast. It would mean the world to me to let me know you’re listening in and what you’re loving about the show. 

Now, before we get into todays show, I challenge you to take a screenshot of you listening in and share on your instagram stories. Let your friends know you’re tuning in and tag me. I share your tags on my instagram stories! 

Okay, here’s the thing. 

I have a natural tendency to sabotage my career and health. It’s not nice, because I take some giant steps forward only to end up taking self imposed, unconscious none the less, steps backward. I am not the only person that feels this way. Sabotaging ourselves and the achievement of our dreams, goals and yes even our pleasure is more common than you would realise.

There are different reasons as to why you may self sabotage. For me, here are a few of my reasons:

Boredom. 

Fear of success. 

Fear of failing. 

Low self worth.

Feeling like an imposter. 

Fear of the unknown. 

As you can see, there are many different reasons as to why I sabotage something. But, I am less concerned with the ‘why’, and more concerned with becoming aware of when this behaviour shows up and seeking accountability for when it does show up.

I know, this is going to sound lame but just hear me out. 

For a while now I have wanted to create a cohesive instagram feed, where the grid is consistent and the colours don’t change. 

When ever i make progress, and the grid looks great I go ahead and think about how I can change it. There is always a better way to do things, I say to myself, so I actively seek out ways to make it even better. I get bored with the routine of it, and so I change it or think about changing it. 

It’s at this point I stop myself, because I am familiar that in my career I sabotage so I am very aware of my actions or inactions. When a thought comes up in my mind of ‘this isn’t working, I need to change it.’ I just stop. I don’t do anything. I simply observe all the thoughts I am thinking.

Is there a particular area in your life that you self sabotage? 

If you are unsure, I suggest you write a list down, of all the activities large and small that you will be doing this week. Whenever you feel triggered to sabotage something, ie, not do it or rebel against it, come back to this list and write down what you wanted to rebel against. For example: You may have written down, eat healthy but throughout the week you find yourself eating extremely unhealthy. That’s a little sign to let you know you’re sabotaging that area - your health. 

Whenever my sabotaging tendency came up I would take time to observe those thoughts, but not act upon them. 

I then had to do some inner work here to really move past the sabotaging behaviour all together. Here are the three questions I ask myself:

In my ideal life, the way I want to live each day, would I be doing this activity at all?

If I would, how would I be doing it differently so that I enjoyed it thoroughly? 

If there is no way to enjoy this activity, what would I rather be doing?

Let’s unpack this a little.

For me, Instagram is my little sabotage item.

I could go through and ask each question from the above list.

In my ideal life, would I be doing this activity. - My answer to this, is YES! 

How would I be doing it differently so that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I would, however I would not invest as much energy or emotion into it. I would also have strict boundaries around using my phone. No phone in the morning, within the first hour and no phone at night within the last hour. I know, I am extending it here to the phone generally but when I am on my phone I am generally on Instagram. 

And obviously question three does not apply! 

When answering these questions, I suggest for the first question you revisit the miracle question within this book, and for the later two questions take your time to explore, create and invent what you would like. Do not limit yourself by what is or is not possible. 

So, that’s what I did. I started putting less emotional intention on instagram and setting boundaries toward it. 

Those bad habits will begin to lesson as you make the changes necessary to feel good about the thing that you want to have, be or do. The questions that I have mentioned can be adapted for every situation. 

The minute you make your life consistent with pleasure, is the minute you stop sabotaging yourself. And, the chances are, if you’re struggling with pleasure, it’s probably because the thing you are doing is not what you really want to do on a heart level. 

Lastly, to close it off. I always recommend hiring a coach or getting support when it comes to sabotaging behaviours. To have a buddy you can lean on, or reach out to, when you feel those old habits creeping back and those old thoughts sinking back in, it is imperative to have support when breaking the cycle.

If you’re tuning in, thank you so much, share in on your instagram stories tag me and I’ll share it on my instagram stories.

Thanks for tuning in pleasure seekers!