Me: I’m going to start my own business.
Saboteur: I don’t know anything about finances or taxes. I would have to go to college, and I can’t afford that.
Me: I’m going to establish a routine so I can accomplish my daily goals.
Saboteur: There just isn’t time today. I am really tired from work and I just need to unwind for a little while, then I’ve got to do…I’ll start tomorrow.
Me: I really want to start making meals at home and eating healthier foods.
Saboteur: We’re low on groceries, there’s no way I’m doing a whole grocery shop first, then cooking, and then eating. I’ll just heat up a pizza and eat healthy after I grocery shop.
If you had these conversations with a real live person, everyday, how long would it take for that person to stop believing you will actually make these changes? Now for the question that really matters. Do you believe, down in your very soul, that you’ll actually make these changes? I’ve started a ball of transformation rolling in my life, and I need it to pick up speed and strength. Maybe that’s where you’re at too. How do we keep it from falling apart, sputtering out? Let’s dig a little deeper here.
Why The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry
What is happening when I make these plans, and fail? In my mind, I am deciding on a shift in my behavior that will have a positive impact on my life. Makes sense; my brain likes it, no problem. My heart, on the other hand, doesn’t feel very optimistic. We are limited in our ability to achieve anything beyond what our self-esteem thinks we can do. A lack of that valuable resource, in our past, causes a history of failing to achieve success to the standards our logical brains think are reasonable. This history, of course, gives us as much reason as we need to doubt ourselves.
Now there is discord in our body. Our brain thinks we can do it, and that we should. Our heart feels like it’s impossible for someone as incapable as us. When the brain and the heart do not agree, our will becomes impotent. How can you make a decision, and support it with strength when you think one way and feel another?
A Recent Example from the Life of Yours Truly
I decided that I want a position at my work that is monday-friday, daytime hours…a regular schedule. In order to put out a positive intention to attract such a position, I decided to start getting up at 4:30am every day, no matter what. If I need more sleep on any given day, I will go back to bed after a couple hours filled with meditation, and working on my goals. The idea behind this is to open up the space in my life for that position to fit. How can the universe bring it to me if I am living my life contrary to what the position requires, by staying up late and sleeping in?
It started off great. I would get up at 4:30am, and I would stretch, pray, and set to work on getting this blog set up and working on posts. I started making changes to give myself more time on the mornings that I worked early. I wrote a blog post about it because it was going so well. But then I got interrupted. We had a house guest, and for a few nights in a row we had a blast hanging out, staying up late talking, drinking. I told myself I’d get back to getting up early right away. I didn’t. My mind wanted to buy my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I fell off the horse, and I went from feeling energized, excited, and awesome to tired, cranky, and hopeless.
What happened? The house guest? No. That’s an excuse, not an explanation. Here’s where we have to really dig deep to understand ourselves. Here’s where we start exploring the unconscious mind, the aspects of ourselves that we have never faced before, and haven’t wanted to. What was significant enough about a good friend visiting for a few days that could stop cold a new routine designed to contribute to my financial success and personal happiness?
A Slightly More Well-Known Example
When Jesus caught up with his disciples by walking across the Sea of Galilee during a major storm, they got real freaked out, and then Peter in a moment of faith stepped out onto the water as well. Jesus told Peter not to look down, but to focus on him. Peter didn’t. He looked away and saw the wind and the waves. I can hear his thought perfectly in my own head at this point. “Oh crap, what am I doing? I can’t walk on water!” Plunge. (Story can be found in Matthew 14:22-33 of the Bible)
The Parallel
Peter and I both stepped out on faith. He had faith in Jesus, and I had faith in my judgment, my logic. We made the decision, and took the first steps, still riding that high of faith. Then came the moment of doubt, and the convenient excuse. Peter could blame it on the wind and the waves and I could blame it on a special circumstance, a visitor.
The problem wasn’t the waves, and the problem wasn’t my guest. The problem was believing we couldn’t be better than we ever have before. We’ve been sabotaged. Peter. Me. You. By who?
Enter The Saboteur
We all have in us a saboteur. Every change we attempt in life will soon catch the attention of this archetype and without fail he will spring into action. Often times the saboteur will do so when we reach the point where we are just starting to feel like we are accomplishing the change in question. I had just started to reflect upon how well my new schedule was going, and then the saboteur struck.
Why He Sabotages Us
The majority of us don’t live every day to our fullest potential. We generally operate at a level that is within an established range of comfort. We have goals that we’d like to achieve some day – career changes, pursuing passions, weight loss. We have personal traits we’d like to improve – shyness, arrogance, insecurity. We are not usually living life as the best version of ourselves. When we make a change to improve our life, we are choosing a path that requires us to be our best self. The day to day me does not have the drive and confidence to start a successful, income-generating blog, but the best version of me does. To achieve success, I must make changes that shift my day to day attitudes and habits to those that my best self would employ. Stop and think for a second of how daunting a challenge that is. I’ll wait.
…
OK. Now that you’ve thought about it, does it begin to make sense how choosing to do something that you really want to do can be so scary? If you’ve decided to lose weight, you should want to eat right and exercise. You understand that. You may not have understood why you always seem to fail, why you always seem to sabotage yourself. It’s because in order to accomplish that feat, you have to be the best person you can be on a consistent, everyday basis. You don’t make that decision once. You have to make it every day, multiple times a day and the worst part is, you don’t have a long history of being the best person you can be to draw strength from. None of us do.
The Saboteur’s job is to exploit that moment of doubt, that fear of failure, and provide an escape hatch. It is truly a survival mechanism. When faced with the stress of feeling overwhelmed the saboteur gives us a way out.
How He Sabotages Us
My saboteur took advantage of the circumstance of having a house guest, and staying up late to enjoy visiting with our guest. He gave me a chance to back down from the challenge of maintaining the version of myself that is disciplined in keeping my schedule and making progress towards my goal every day.
How does your saboteur operate? Here’s a few possibilities:
- You announce your intentions or progress and someone criticizes you, crushing your enthusiasm. Your saboteur says “See? You know you can’t do this. You’re just embarrassing yourself.” And you stop. You may even blame it on the person who criticized.
- You initiate your new routine, but after a few days you have an insane day at work. You come home tense, tired, and stressed out. Your saboteur says “You can’t do this today. It’s been too crazy. You just need to take today to relax. You’ve been doing well and deserve a break.“
- Things are going well and then you get sick. “You don’t have to do anything while you’re sick, just take care of yourself. Worry about that later.“
Sound familiar? Often, our saboteur uses very logical reasoning to convince us to take a break from our self-challenge. What you are really taking a break from, is being the best version of yourself, the version that can accomplish your goal. It’s a test. We will always be tested when we try to improve ourselves. The initial test is the single most important moment in your journey. It’s a chance for your soul to see if you’re serious or not.
How Do I Defeat My Saboteur?
Step 1: You don’t. The saboteur is your ally. He is trying to protect you, however misguided his means are. The saboteur is not an aspect of your personality that you have to change. It is a mechanism that fires every time you face a challenge, like a computer pop-up menu asking “Are you sure you want to perform this action?” Just because it pops up doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the action. It doesn’t mean you can’t handle it. It’s just a safety measure. Step back for a moment from the criticism, illness, chaos that is threatening your ability to be consistent and ask yourself “Where is my saboteur in this?” It is often helpful to me to stop and ask for spiritual guidance, for understanding.
Step 2: Once you’ve identified his actions, thank your saboteur for trying to help and explain to him why it is important to you to carry on with this change. The benefit to this exchange is that you reaffirm to yourself, in your greatest moment of doubt and fear, the reason why you want to accomplish your goal. You acknowledge your fear and by recognizing it as the act of an archetype, not as your true self, you take away much of your fear’s power, and gain significant mastery over it.
Step 3: Rededicate yourself. For some time, making significant change will require you to rededicate yourself to it more than daily. It is never more important to do so than at this very point. Recognize your saboteur, communicate your desire for change and your reasons, and rededicate. This act at this moment in time lends incredible strength to your will because it aligns your heart and mind to the same purpose. Now you are acting with real power.
Step 4: Do it one more time. You’ve decided, now do it. Don’t worry about all the times you’ve failed. Don’t worry about doing it for the rest of your life. Just do it one more time. It will be the toughest moment in time that you have to take this action. Because you’ve preceded this attempt with the above 3 steps, you will be taking action from a greater stance of power. Your saboteur is quiet and you’re focused on your goal. Follow through at this point and you have succeeded in the most significant challenge on this particular journey.
What If I Fail?
You’ve recognized your saboteur, and you let him get to you anyway. Now what? Are you a failure? Is it impossible? No. No. No. Give yourself a break for a second. Give yourself some perspective. You’ve just spent a lifetime building this pattern of allowing yourself to be sabotaged so you don’t have to face your fears; it is not an indication of a lack of mettle if you fail again upon the first recognition of the pattern of your saboteur. The important thing to do when you’ve let yourself be sabotaged is to admit to yourself “I could have done this. I could have. I am a good/talented/creative/strong enough person to have done this. I chose not to be my best self this time.” When you admit that you could have, but chose not to out of fear, you empower yourself. It’s empowering because it puts the situation back in your control. You’re not born a loser, and nobody can make you fail. Success or not, it’s under your control.
What’s Happens Now?
Your saboteur isn’t going to go away. At some point you will decide on a new challenge in your life. Your saboteur is going to perform his function again, without fail. The good news is you’ve changed history. You now have a critical moment in history, recent history at that, to look back on and say “I can do this.” Now, of course, you have a greater reservoir of strength and self esteem to draw upon when you face your next test. This could be in the same area that you’ve already mastered your fear. A new situation of stress could trigger a repeat episode of doubting yourself. Just remember to stop and ask yourself “Where is my saboteur in this?”
***I learned the concept of the Saboteur as an archetype in our lives from Caroline Myss’ book The Language of Archetypes. It is a remarkable work from a remarkable woman. If this concept resonates with you, it would be well worth your time to dig in to this further. You can also expect to see future posts about our other 3 universal archetypes, the Child, the Prostitute, and the Victim.***
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Thanks,
Carlos
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This is a great post filled with helpful information for becoming who i truly want and know I can be. This is an article that I will come back to time and again when I need to remind myself who the saboteur is and when I need some encouragement. I know several people who would be blessed to read this and will pass it onto them. Thanks for the inspiring words.
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@Trish Pogue: Thanks Trish! This post was a big deal for me. Once I started to understand this concept, I started seeing it in my life in a lot of small ways. I think we sabotage ourselves way more than we realize. Thanks for your comment. I’d be interested to know any ways you’ve recognized the Saboteur in your life and how you end up dealing with it.
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The Saboteur interferes in several areas of my life; in my relationships are highest on the list. He does exactly what you said, he lies to me.
Here’s an example many people can identify with. My by friend canceling a lunch date, my friend has other things to do that are more important than me. This speaks volumes to my heart and causes distance between me and my friend. I feel lonely, left out and unimportant. When these thoughts pop up in my mind, I ask myself why would I believe it and who is trying to make me to believe it. It has taken me years to work this out and I have one name for him, Satan. Who else but the devil himself would want me to feel bad and would want my relationships fail. The Bible says that Satan is the prince of lies.
So, I stop the thought and analyze it. I know who sent it. Is there any truth to it? No. So, I’m not going to believe it. Instead I choose to believe that God cares about me, He doesn’t want me to feel alone – He is always with me, and He wants me to have strong, loving relationships. That feels so much better than Satan’s way. Don’t you agree?
Trish Pogue´s last blog ..Book: On Becoming Baby Wise
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Carlos, this is a really, really good article.
If you can find any material from Tony Schwartz, read it. He teaches learning one habit at a time.
I’m doing it this year: 1 hour in the morning for writing only during January.
In Feb, I am going to add some exercise for after the writing.
In March, I will add something else.
Tony says it takes about 30 days to build a habit. I am starting to believe him now. I will let you know how it goes.
My hunch is that the Saboteur will work for you when you have the correct habits: “If you don’t write every morning for an hour, you will be a failure!” Etc etc etc.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Top 3 Social Media Bookmarking Services – Don’t leave home without them
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@Dave Doolin: I have reserved an audiobook by Tony at our awesome local library, thanks for the recommendation! glad you liked the post too. there’s going to be more about Archetypes on this blog (like today’s post).
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@Trish Pogue: Wow Trish! that is a very good application of this principle. I think those kind of thoughts all the time when friends, or whoever, don’t respond the way I want them to. I feel doubt, and resentment toward them, and it can definitely drive a wedge between people. That is definitely the Saboteur at work giving us the opportunity to bail on a friendship. Thanks for the insight!
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