Have you ever seen someone try to make a gadget work, and then when it wouldn’t work right,  end up breaking it due to their complete frustration? I have! I have seen a relative actually take a golf club after hitting a bad shot and break it right over his leg.  What we’re talking about there is an extreme and obvious example of self-sabotage. What this blog is about, though, is the more insidious form of self-sabotage, so insidious that sometimes those who do it are not even aware of it. Self sabotage first starts with the idea that we really cannot succeed at what we’re doing, or that we don’t deserve to. This attitude is usually held by those who were beaten down much of their life by those who raised them, or someone who dominated in their relationship. They were told that they couldn’t do certain things, or that “we don’t get to” do certain things. They acquired an inferiority complex through the teachings of those who raised them, who no doubt got what they taught by the same method. Defeatist attitudes are hard to snuff out, because not only are they taught, but they also relieve the person who learns them of the responsibility of trying to do their very best to get out of that rut of mediocrity. In a transformation challenge, the self-sabotage usually begins with failing to carve out the time to do the challenge effectively. The excuses are usually a flimsy house of cards. “I couldn’t find the time to do my shopping this weekend.” Or, “I have to work out at home because I have to be there with the kids all the time, and my husband didn’t give me the money to buy the stuff I need to work out.” Or even, “I can’t afford the book right now.” What a bunch of hooey! This person believes this junk, even though the bottom line really is that they chose not to bother to shop, even though there are a thousand ways to work out at home without expensive equipment, and even though they could borrow or check out the book from a library! The bottom line is that they don’t feel yet like they deserve to break out of this very small life they have constructed for themselves. Even if the transformation sputters to a beginning, our saboteur will usually manage rather quickly to get into arguments with spouse or other family members, and to rather quickly stop the challenge in a self-righteous huff! This accomplishes two subconscious goals–it sabotages the challenge and it keeps a major beef going with the spouse. Another great self-sabotage tactic is to try to coerce others into doing the challenge with you, subconsciously knowing that they won’t, and then when they resist our saboteur simply says that they’re quitting too!  Toward the end of the challenge, sabotage takes on an even more insidious nature. The saboteur decides that “I guess that this doesn’t work for everyone,” declares that he or she has absolutely worked their guts out, and quits even within sight of the end. This is the ultimate “victory” for a self-saboteur because it arms them not only with a good reason for quitting, but also with a good reason to go ahead and finish themselves off with weeks of gorging and laying around doing nothing—which is just another form of self-punishment in the end.  How do you get out of this? Recognizing it and calling it what it is usually does the trick. It’s a bit like the old fable of the King who wore no clothes. Once someone realizes that they are a self-defeating person, they become so convicted by this revelation that they begin to work out of it. The other exercise to avoid this is to make your goals in the forms of self-promises, and to make your over-arching goal a self-promise that you will complete a 12 week transformation challenge NO MATTER WHAT the outcome is.   The real beauty of beating the self-sabotage syndrome is that it breaks the cycle. Someone who has practiced self-sabotage, and then has been freed from it, no longer teaches it by their actions or their words. In fact, they inspire those who look up to them to do better—rather than avoid risks and miss out on rewards.