Self-Sabotaging Habits That Keep You Stuck

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

And I don't know if I've mentioned that or not, but my mic was actually not connected. So this week I actually made sure a couple of times that the mic is connected. Fingers crossed is going to work, and that the quality is much better than last week.

So again, I apologize and I hope this week's going to be a bit different. So just jumping into the topic that I have today, and I think I wanted to record this episode because I have gotten so many questions about this in my Q&As.

You know, if you don't follow me on Instagram, you should, because every once in a while I post the question box where you can ask me a question and I try my best to answer. But I also need to um put out this disclaimer that this is not in any way, shape, or form uh a replacement for therapy.

So I cannot go into too much detail there. It's all very generalized, but I feel that a lot of people are benefiting from it. And I try to do this at least once a week. So if you're interested in something like that, you should follow me on Instagram.

Um, the handle is, as always, @saidintherapy. All right. So what's the topic today? Self-sabotaging habits. You know what? It's actually amazing that so many people have no idea that all of us on some level sometimes are self-sabotaging. And I think we need to clarify how this happens, because you will never be able to fully, you know, get rid of these habits or change them.

But at least when they when they happen, you can go into the awareness that right now you're doing, you know, you're self-sabotaging yourself, you're self-sabotaging your progress and your growth, and you actually work against what you want to achieve.

So it's actually very simple because I will narrow it down to the three most important habits that all of us have, you know, one way or another. And there's actually, you know, the only way to step out of these habits is to be very and fully aware of these and to recognize that in some way we all suffer from that, at least sometimes.

So let me just start. I don't want to, you know, talk too much about it. I will just give you the essence. So here it goes. The first self-sabotaging habit is setting impossible self-rejecting expectations of yourself. So that's quite a lot.

I know I will repeat it again and then I explain it. Setting impossible self-rejecting expectations of yourself. What does it mean? You know, when we have a vision of what we want to achieve and who we want to be and what we want to represent, we often look at, you know, impossible standards.

Maybe we look at someone who has 20 years of experience and you want to be something like that, or you look at what people tell you, like, but you should do this or you should have done this by now.

And sometimes we have pictures of ourselves that is, let me just say, okay, you're 16 years old, and you want to be a very famous and successful surgeon. Now, I'm not saying that this is impossible to reach, but when you're 16, you should first focus on, you know, getting your high school done and then entering university and then studying medicine, you know, one step at a time.

And the problem is when you're 16, for example, and you're not a doctor yet, it's very easy to start hating yourself just because you're not a doctor yet. I hope I made myself a little bit more clear, but I'm trying, I will try to explain this a little bit more.

We all need to learn to love ourselves the way we are right now. Sometimes we are in a very sad and rough phase in our lives where not everything or hardly anything goes according to plan, and where we are actually not feeling the most authentic or the most content with ourselves.

It is crucial to not hate on this vision because sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we actually human beings are capable of you know doing very bad things, and sometimes that's the case, and we are overall very negative. But if you start hating on who you are in that moment, it is again not about acknowledging your mistakes and how you have conducted yourself and how holding yourself accountable, it is about you hating yourself for being a certain

way. Safe hatred is actually very, very destructive and it's not very productive because it will not help you to get out of whatever you're in, and it will not help you improve in any way. So we need to somehow start loving ourselves the way we are.

And I think sometimes loving is too much to ask, but at least, at least, at least start accepting where you are, what you do, and build on that. If you keep saying, but I should have done this by now, I should be this person by now, you will not be able to feel any joy or any happiness, or you will actually, you know, destroy the motivation for yourself to get where you want to be.

To strive for unattainable standards is not what will make you reach success or be worthy of success. So be you, the authentic you, whatever it is right now that you are, be that. Ask yourself, who am I when I have nothing to prove, no one to impress, and nothing to earn?

This is who you are when you're actually the most comfortable in your skin. So the second thing is I always say this, but I will repeat it again, comparing yourself to others. Now, I firmly believe that comparison is the thief of joy because we will never get the full picture.

Whatever you see on social media, whatever you see someone else in your environment has what you don't, it's not the full picture. We all have baggage, we all have problems, we all have situations that are difficult. And even if you catch someone in a situation or in a phase where they are actually having a somewhat good life, it doesn't mean that they weren't struggling before that or that they are not going to struggle after that.

So comparison is the thief of joy. You cannot look at other people and think, oh my God, how come I'm not like that? How come I'm such a loser? How come they were able to pull it off and I'm not?

The reality is we all have different time frames, we all have different mindsets. Sometimes we take a little longer, which doesn't mean that we are less successful or less worthy or you know, less intelligent. It just means sometimes we need a little bit more time to get ready to achieve something.

You know, a lot of people tell me, predominantly men, who are on a very competitive level, especially when it comes to their profession, they look at other people and think, I want that. I want to be exactly like that.

And competition is motivating me to become better. And I thrive to be better by seeing someone else doing things, and I want to do the same. Now, I think I need to highlight here that competition is a little different, even though I don't fully agree on the concept of competition itself, because you should only compete with yourself, meaning you should strive to be a better vision of yourself every day without hating on who you are and

what you are in that present moment. So if you compete with other people, you're also competing with skill sets that you might not have and that you might never achieve, not because you are stupid or not able to achieve anything, but sometimes you just don't have the same abilities and same talents as other people.

It doesn't mean that you cannot learn them, it just means maybe you will never be as good as them. I don't want to make this sound too bad because at the same time, you know, if you put your mind and soul into something, you will achieve.

If you take one step at a time, you will achieve. But here the motivation is different. The motivation is there is something that you would like to achieve, and you're working on it hard and you work on it every day, every day a little bit more, and eventually you will get there.

But if you look at someone else who is doing things completely different based on their character, based on their gender, based on their based on based on who they are, what their starting um points were, because sometimes people, other people are more privileged than you in terms of money, in terms of options, in terms of just where they are in life.

So if you keep comparing yourself to those people, you will have a hard time attaining what you want to attain, because sometimes it is simply not the right comparison to make. So yeah, it's not your friend. Comparison is a thief of joy.

Last but not least, and this is the last thing, and I think this is maybe one of the most important things, letting fear make choices for you. So, what does this mean? Whenever you make big moves in your life, they come along with fear.

Whenever you are starting a new job that you really, really wanted, but you know, everything is quite new, everything is just difficult for you to understand just yet because you haven't been in that space long enough. That comes along with fear.

Now, fear can tell you, you know what, you're not good enough. You have to leave this space, you cannot succeed here. Look at everyone else around you who is so much more intelligent, so much more you know successful.

But this is actually not how it's supposed to be. All of these people you have seen, all of these people you're comparing yourself with, they have started somewhere. And at some point, they have started where you are, or they were where you are, but they kept going.

So don't let fear make decisions for you. It's simply, you know, sometimes when you know you need to go somewhere, and maybe you're afraid of meeting meeting certain people or doing certain tasks simply because you have never tried them, or maybe because you have tried them and you still feel that you're not good enough.

All of this is fear speaking. I want to highlight something that I find extremely important. You know, when you meet someone that you actually really admire, that you have followed for a very long time, you love their work, you love the way they conduct themselves, you love how they speak, you love how they, you know, just the personality.

I want you to remember this. This person is still a human being. And a lot of my patients actually laugh when I say this out loud, but all of these people actually go to the bathroom and have to do number two.

So it humbles them, even in your sight. There are still human beings, there are still people who need, you know, to improve themselves every single day, and maybe they have mastered an expertise. It doesn't mean that they have mastered being a human being.

So whatever you think of people out there, and whatever makes you afraid to be like them, remember on some level, in some way, they have areas in their life that they have to still work on and succeed in.

It's not that simple. So don't let fear tell you that you cannot do something just because you see someone else who's already better than you. I hope that these points can clarify a bit more on how you can stop self-sabotaging, be more aware of the you know, self-loathing and self-critical thoughts that you have, and maybe you can work against them just by simply doing the things you want to do.

Trust me, when I sit here, I think for myself, you know, to myself, oh my god, why would I record another podcast? There are already so many podcasts out there, but then I remember who cares at the end of the day, who listens and benefits from it?

That's a plus for me. And whoever doesn't want to listen to me, that's fine too. But trust me, you have to overcome this fear and the comparisons to other people, and you also need to be patient with yourself because sometimes the picture you have of yourself of what you should be is not an accurate one.

Start where you are with what you have and take it from there. All right, guys, this is it for alrighty. Take care. Bye. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in, and hopefully, you will tune in again next week.

It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.