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Six Steps From Sabotage to Success by Sheri Olson Zampelli May 22, 1999 Do you feel uncomfortable with new changes? Have you lost the same 10 pounds over and over? Did you "accidentally" forget to set the alarm clock the night before you began your new job or the first day back to college? Have you pushed relationships out of your life and then wondered years later, "What ever happened to that wonderful person I was dating?" It's normal to resist change but that doesn't mean we have to be victims and stay stuck in undesirable situations. The following Six Steps From Sabotage to Success can help you to begin accepting and maybe even embracing resistance. You can learn how to push through the resistance and get the rewards that wait for you on the other side. Awareness Is The First Step Of Change If you are aware of the fact that you have been sabotaging yourself, that is positive, because when you know you're resisting change, you can do something about it. Many of us realize that we sabotage ourselves by looking back in time but we need to heighten our level of awareness so we can learn to identify and stop sabotage before we engage in it. In the interim we can catch ourselves in the middle of sabotage and change our actions before we do any serious damage. If we know that we are eating Baskin Robbins ice cream because we want to sabotage ourselves, we can stop in the middle of eating it and put it away, thereby doing less damage than we would have if we finished the whole thing. What's familiar is comfortable, even if it's unhealthy or self-defeating. When you experience resistance, it's a good clue that changes are occurring. If things were staying the same, there would be no reason for resistance. Don't berate yourself when you engage in self-defeating behavior because that just gives the sabotage more power. When we sabotage ourselves because we don't believe we deserve good things, beating ourselves up reinforces that idea which is counter-productive to our goals. What You Say is What You Get Many of us sabotage ourselves out of fear and fear starts with a thought or idea. One way to make changes in your thinking and eventually your self-defeating behavior, is repetition of new ideas. Affirmations are a positive start towards gearing up your mind to accept the new changes you want to make. Below are some affirmations that can help you. It requires repetition and reinforcement to make these new ideas a part of you. You can do this by writing your key affirmations on an index card and reading them every day, many times a day, starting an affirmation journal or listening to positive affirmation cassette tapes. Eventually the positives will sink in and you will see miracles happening in your life. See it, Believe it, Make it Real There will be many times in your growth process when you will experience pain and confusion. You will tell yourself that you can live a perfectly happy life the way you are and you will try to convince yourself that it's not that important to change. You may compare yourself with other people and tell yourself that you'll never be able to measure up. It's at times like these that you need to focus on the end result you desire. Focus on what it will be like to be thin and healthy, to be in a healthy relationship, to have a job you love. Focus on how good it feels to accomplish goals and to have self-esteem. Don't lose sight of your purpose. A couple of tools you can use to help you focus on positive end results are: a future diary and a visualization board. A visualization board is a collage that contains words, phrases and pictures that remind you of your desired end result and a future diary is used to write about your day as if it was in the future and went exactly the way you wanted. You can also make a list of 10-20 good things that will happen as a result of changing. These are the points you will want to focus on every day. Write them, read them, record them on a tape and listen to them but don't forget them. Success Breeds Success Any little baby step you can take towards achieving your goal counts. If you are afraid to strive for a better job, start by updating your resume. Since you will need a resume to apply for a new job, getting it done is important. If you have been wanting to start an exercise program but you don't feel you have the time, begin by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, park your car farther away and walk to your office, walk to the grocery store or post office instead of driving. If you want to go back to school, start with filling out the application or having your transcripts sent to you. If you want to communicate better with others, start by practicing with non-threatening people or visualizing yourself as a successful communicator. If you want to change your eating habits, start by cutting one food item out of your diet, when you are successful at that you can strive for a different goal. It is also very important to track your progress in a notebook and reward yourself for a job well done. The negative voice in your head will try to tell you that you're not doing good enough and that it's not worth it to try. Don't listen to that negative voice. Get out your notebook and look at all the positive things you have accomplished then give yourself credit. Part of resistance is not acknowledging successes as they happen. If you only acknowledge your failure it will be easier to quit and to feel justified in doing so. Reward yourself by taking time out to do things that you enjoy or setting aside money for a new outfit or a vacation. One woman I know saved all her cigarette money and took a trip to Cancun. Perhaps you will be more motivated to stick to your goals if you have a fulfilling reward to look forward to? Stop Settling and Start Living Your current beliefs are limited by your experience. Breaking out of your comfort zone means being willing to see all possibilities, not just those that support your existing belief system. If you keep doing the same things over and over you will always get the same results. Just for fun, try changing the things you "always" do and the things you "never" do. Sit in a new seat, eat at a new restaurant, order something you've never had before. Try changing your perception. Imitate the beliefs of someone you admire and see what happens. The positive payoff for breaking out of your comfort zone is that you just might get the job you want or the relationship you want but regardless of the outcome you will probably experience a boost in your self-esteem from walking through fear and trying something new. Quitting is the Only Way to Fail Change is slow but we are constantly changing whether we see it or not. Despite outside appearances, there is no such thing as an overnight success. There is no such thing as instant change. Think about how many years you've had the particular problem you are trying to solve and compare that to how long you've been working on changing it. We live in a society with a quick fix mentality. T.V. fosters addict mentality with all of its quick fixes and cures. TV dinners, get rich quick plans, instant oatmeal, over the counter drugs, Slim-Fast and skin products that offer instant results are just a few examples. Yet quick fixes rarely offer permanent change. When you are trying to learn a new way of doing something, it takes persistence and patience. If you've lived your entire life thinking negative or feeling inferior or being punished for not being good enough, that's the language you know and relate to. So in a sense, you are learning a new language which means you have to forget everything you've learned up to this point and be willing to see it in a new way. To change, you must reinforce your new language daily. You must read books, listen to tapes and practice positive self-talk out loud and silently. You need to immerse yourself in this new language daily. You will forget what you've learned unless you apply it. Here are some ways to keep yourself immersed in your new language:
Finally, the best medicine to cure sabotage is to make yourself do what you're resisting. This may seem scary at first but it can be very empowering and will give you the confidence to break through resistance the next time. Fake it 'til you make it, and you will make it as long as you don't give up.
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