***Overcoming Self-defeating Behaviors

written by Pamela Tudor

As you practice ramping up your self-awareness regarding your moods and emotions, and particularly how you react to them, you might notice some self-defeating behaviors.

Self defeating behaviors (SDB’s) are automatic or chronic behaviors which you engage in without much thinking that foil your deeper goals in return for temporary relief. Wanting to stop drinking and making plans to meet a friend for a beer is an example. Wanting to get promoted at work but being an interrupter (sure to get people rooting against you), or gossiping too much and harming your reputation is yet another.

Dr Mark Goulston who wrote “Get Out of Your Own Way at Work” says about SDB’s:

(They) are distress relievers. Stress and distress are different. Stress occurs when your mental, physical, psychological and emotional faculties are under pressure from a challenge, a setback or some other adversity. Stress actually helps you to grow, sharpen your skills and perform increasingly better under pressure.

Distress occurs when the pressure in any of these areas is so overwhelming that your focus switches from pursuing your goals to seeking immediate relief. All SDBs relieve or distract you from being distressed, but derail you from achieving your long-term objectives. Don’t want to buckle down and work on a project when you have a three-day weekend to do it? What harm could it cause to save it until the last day?

Why do we engage in SDB’s? For some, it’s what we learned as children, for others, it is poor impulse control, and for yet others it is personality proclivities. Whatever the causes, what’s most important is to bring them to consciousness if you would like to curtail them. Not curtailing them often results in feelings of shame, defeatism and self-loathing.

What do you know about your own self-defeating behaviors?

Here are some examples:

Procrastination! Being stressed about doing something – perhaps because you don’t feel as competent as you’d like to in that area, or that it takes a lot of energy to accomplish it, or that it’s boring, is often the “reason” for procrastination. But if you wish to fully claim your adulthood, achieve many of your goals, and feel good about yourself, it is time to say goodbye to “reasons”, or at least see them for what they are- excuses.

With procrastination, bills can pile up, (and the interest on them as well), deadlines can pass, commitments can be unintentionally broken, reputations at work or in the community suffer, and your health can fail, to name just a few by-products. This SDB can have very damaging consequences. We think it buys us time, but in reality, it buys us more stress, perhaps distress, and even misery, while postponing the inevitable.

So let’s go back to the journal. List your self-defeating behaviors and see if you can discover the mood you were in when you procrastinated, interrupted, blurted, overate, didn’t delegate etc _________. (Fill in the blank.) And further, see if you can discover your reaction to that mood – stress, distress, denial, poor self-esteem, a negative story you tell yourself, etc.

And speaking of writing things down in your journal, I strongly suggest keeping yourself in balance with frequent, written gratitude’s. Each day, or as often as you get to your journal, list at least three things you are grateful for, and why. There will be more on this in future posts.

It is hard to deal with self-defeating behavior’s, and you might encounter self-control exhaustion. Balance that with conscious thoughts of what you are grateful for, and see what happens!

You may respond to Pamela in the “Leave a Comment” section below or email her at ptudor@boomer-living.com and visit her website at www.tudorconsulting.net .