BLOG: How Self-Sabatoge Shows Up

In the New Year, many of us create a reset. We recommit to health, wealth, relationships, or whatever else we've identified as the key to happiness.

My personal choice was recommitting to yoga. For quite a few years I made a commitment to practice twice a week, and did, to everyone's benefit.

With that practice I felt good and right in my body. I felt strong, present, and grounded. I was more mindful throughout my day, patient and kind. I was light and joyful. 

Quite simply, I was the person that I want to be.

And then, fifteen months ago, I stopped.

I was tired of the logistics of arranging babysitters so I could go find some bliss. I was tired of spending money. I figured I could go it alone.

Surely, I could maintain my glow after all those years of practice on the mat. Surely, I could take all that I'd practiced there and live it off the mat, consistently.

Of course, to everyone's detriment I couldn't. But at least I wasn't mired in logistics or spending money!

So this New Year I recommitted to my yoga practice.

In weeks one through three I started out strong, I was absolutely committed. No matter what, I made it happen. I was clear and protected the time slot.

This was an investment in myself for the benefit of all.

It all felt amazing, the commitment, the restarting, the practice itself.

This is who I want to be.

And then week four, I missed the practice because of an important meeting. No big deal, I'll just start again next week.  

Week five I was pulled off course, again.

And so it begins. Insidiously. 

The Faces of Self-Sabotage

There are two big ways self-sabotage shows up. Either something else always seems to be more important (that's what happened in my practice), or someone pulls us off course.

Sometimes it's that we have an important meeting, or it may simply seem as though that project we've been ignoring, those filthy windows, lets say, CAN NOT WAIT ANOTHER MOMENT.

And so we delve headlong into the window cleaning project, a noble, if not precisely necessary project, thereby missing the opportunity to do that thing we committed to do this New Year.

Or it may that a friend, partner, or one of our own selves pulls us off course. Come, they say, just this once come with me instead of doing that thing you committed to do.

And under that for them may be, "Don't leave me. If you change and I don't, where does that leave us? Me? I don't want to feel bad about myself"

Or it may be we who have one set back, maybe two, and exclaim: What's the point? With a whisper of I won't be able to do this, we throw in the towel.

And that's how we start to move away from honoring our commitment, with the result of staying in the same place.

The silver lining is that we can achieve lasting change by:

Reconnecting

Recommitting 

Prioritizing

Finding support

Doing

Reconnecting with the WHY. Why are we doing this in the first place?

Recommitting to the practice, but most importantly to YOURSELF.

Prioritizing it, putting it on your calendar and NOT SCHEDULING over it. Or putting sticky notes everywhere to remind ourselves of the commitment.

Finding support, an accountability buddy, to keep us moving forward or helping us to recommit.

And finally, doing. Just doing. 

When you find that you've fallen off, let it go. Don't judge it, simply recommit and start again. 

Commit to simply recommitting. That is the practice.