Many of us have goals we wish to achieve – lose weight, get fitter, start a new business and so on. The enthusiasm at the start gives us the motivation to take the first steps but at some point, you may stop taking the actions you need to, maybe revert back to old habits. The cause of this could be self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is a term used to describe why we stop ourselves from reaching our aims. You may ask why on earth would anyone do this? There are many reasons – maybe you fear failing at your goal, or even being too successful. Maybe losing weight means you’ll get noticed more and can’t hide yourself from others?

Our subconscious mind holds a myriad of self-limiting beliefs put there by our parents, peers and ourselves over the years. It’s like an attic, where unwanted fears, concerns are dumped and forgotten about. We then try to reach a goal and wonder why we never achieve it.

Self-sabotaging behaviours can be things such as:

• Procrastination – putting it off until tomorrow (which never comes!)

• Negative self-talk – what is your inner monologue? Do you put yourself down, say you haven’t got what it takes to achieve your goal?

• Lack of belief – do you believe at your deepest level you can attain your goals and even deserve to achieve it?

• Comfort eating, drinking to ignore emotions and thoughts.

To overcome self-sabotage you need to become conscious of your behaviour, almost as if you’re looking at yourself from the outside. You become introspective – looking within to find the causes. For example,

• Procrastination – why do you keep putting off that task – is there a fear behind doing it?

• Negative self-talk – who told you that you didn’t have what it takes, that you weren’t worthy of achieving this?

• Self-esteem/self-worth – do you feel you are worthy or deserving of your goals and if not, why not?

Write down your innermost thoughts, fears and so on about what you’re trying to achieve. There are many techniques out there to help you overcome your limiting beliefs and negative self-talk, such as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy. Once you realise for example that you procrastinate for a certain reason, you can take steps to overcome that or change your inner dialogue to be more positive.

The solutions are always within us. You just have to be brave enough to examine yourself, accept what you find and know that you can change it to achieve your goals.