The Elephant in the Room: Self-Sabotage
Imagine you are embarking on a great journey.
You have prepared, planned, and are now executing.
Things are actually going great! You are learning new things, and experiencing things you didn’t expect. The scenery is beautiful, you are able to camp out in amazing places, catch some fish, and the weather, as if conspiring to help you, holds out so it’s never too hot or too cold.
Then you take your shoes off and burn them. [I know. What!? Stay with me]
Afterward, you continue your journey. Only now you are complaining about the lack of shoes, the persistent pain in our feet, and are very quickly coming up with reasons in your mind why your journey is a bust and that you need to quit.
My example is extreme, but on purpose. It’s ridiculous. Who would do something so crazy!?
People. People would.
We do it in many different ways and to this day psychologists are still struggling to understand why.
“So… what was your mindset when you took off your shoes and burned them?” the psychiatrist asked.
Growing up, my father would allude to this self deprecating behavior, in his own way. In rebuking my older siblings, he would often say, “Don’t mess up a good thing.” As a young child, I didn’t understand this at all. Why would my father tell my brothers and sister not to mess up a good thing. It was like being told not to put your hand on a hot stove, or in the garbage disposal when its turned on (as I eagerly tried to break my toys by slamming them into the floor).
As the adage goes, with age comes wisdom. I certainly get it now!
As a former leader of Soldiers, I saw first hand young men commit the act of self-sabotage on nearly a weekly basis. In the U.S. Army, Non-Commissioned Officers are charged with counseling their troops every month. These essentially serve as a professional and often times personal development sessions that help vector the soldier towards career advancement. However, time is often spent addressing negative behavior.
“The mission is hard enough without you taking a s#!t in your own boot!”
How I would tell my Soldiers not so self-sabotage. And how I still address self-defeating organizational behavior in the civilian world.
I remember one Soldier who was extremely smart. So smart that they immediately saw a flaw in any plan, which can be a good thing. But for those of you who are familiar with the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP), there is a specific time to account for and address planning flaws. This particular Soldier, had the mental fortitude to make a great leader one day, but he struggled with the physical fitness standards of the U.S. Army.
He was a Specialist [Enlisted Pay Grade 4 (E-4)], looking forward to promotion to Sergeant. Having seen this movie before, I pulled him aside and we created a plan that would help him get his nutritional house in order. I briefed my leadership, got approval for my course of action with him, and we executed. Done and done. Things were going great. He was losing weight and performing better on physical fitness tests and in tactical training exercises.
Then, for some unknown reason, he decided it was wise to start indulging in late-night food runs and playing video games well into the night, knowing that he would have to report for duty at 0530. The weight came back and his performance declined. Then he failed a physical fitness test and was considered ineligible for promotion to Sergeant.
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand it. He was on the fast track to promotion. He was showing the dedication to work towards self-improvement to obtain his goal (promotion)… and then… he set his damn shoes on fire…
“I loved my house so much I set it on fire,” he told the fireman. “But now you are homeless,” said a bystander.
Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D, clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, argues that there are six major reasons people self-sabotage:
Self-Worth: The individual feels undeserving of the success or happiness they have achieved or are experiencing. Because of this, people conduct acts that undermine their situation. As Dr. Hendriksen puts it, “If it feels bad to fail, it feels even worse to succeed.”
Control: People who have negative outlooks on life may find it prudent to self-induce failure. Like our traveler above, the intentional act of setting their shoes on fire is in essence controlled failure. In their mind, it’s better to set their own shoes on fire rather than their shoes performing an unlikely act of spontaneous combustion.
Perceived Fraudulence: Closely connected to self-worth, the person feels they are only in the positive position due to “faking it until you make it,” also dubbed “imposter syndrome.” In exercising control, as defined above, the person intentionally sabotages their own success by making decisions of acting in a way contrary to what got them to the position they currently enjoy.
Scapegoating: This may surprise you, but this is not the scapegoating of someone else, it’s of the action. The individual understands the failure, but lacks the ability to place the blame squarely where it should be. Our traveler above may say, “Of course I wasn’t able to finish my journey, my shoes burned.” However, they would omit that it was them that burned them.
Familiarity: This is also closely aligned with control. The individual, despite hating failure, is more mentally comfortable in that space. Thus, they do things that enable them to settle there, manifesting the negative outcome they would openly say they don’t want.
Boredom: It sounds unbelievable but its true. Sometimes a good situation is actually boring to people. They are unable to be content with happiness and success so… they burn their shoes because this introduces conflict or drama. In conflict or drama, there can be excitement and resolution. Some people actually like the feeling of resolution better than consistent prosperity.
One thing that sticks out to me about self-sabotage is that it speaks to something about people in the modern era. We lack the ability to understand when something is good enough. If someone tells you that a Hollywood actor/actress is abusing drugs, it may not surprise you. What would is that later, after the actor/actress went to therapy, they told everyone they were abusing drugs because they weren’t happy. To the average Joe/Jane, we scratch our heads because these people live in mansions, travel to world when they want, have ridiculous amounts of money, and are ‘beloved’ (supposedly) by millions of people. So much so, that many people spend their entire lives trying to emulate their favorite entertainer.
In my experience, it’s easy for people to lose appreciation for the little things. What we have is never enough. For those camping enthusiasts, you never know how great it is to be able to take a long hot shower until you have spent several days out in the field. A bed never feels better than after you have slept on the ground for a week. Hot food is never appreciated more than after you have had to eat cold food for a week straight… or haven’t had food at all for a while.
For those of you that are on your own homesteading or financial independence journey, I beg you not to burn your shoes.
If you are working towards financial independence, rushing out to take to finance that new 2021 vehicle is probably not the wisest decision… even if it can dispense your fancy coffee from the muffler.
If you are establishing your homestead, it may not be wise to destroy your chicken coop and use it for firewood because you haven’t had a bond fire in years.
These things may sound silly, but when viewed in the context of self-sabotage and our new cursory understanding of why people do it, it’s more plausible than we may like to admit.
I am almost certain that you know someone who engages in self-sabotaging behavior in their lives and it baffles you. You don’t get it and you don’t get how they don’t get it. You have probably preached at them to be happy with what they have, appreciate how good their situation is, that they deserve that promotion, not to undermine their relationship OR to leave one that is toxic.
In closing, let’s all remember that while on your journey, whatever that may be, fire and shoes don’t mix.
