There are times in my life when I’m feeling great and have a good balance of exercise, stretches and meditation…and then I stop. I feel good and so I stop doing all the things that were helping to make me feel good. I’ve repeated this cycle for years. I know friends who are on medication, start to feel better and then stop taking the medication that was helping them. We do this to ourselves. We self-sabotage.
Reasons Why We Sabotage Ourselves
There are many reasons why you might be self-sabotaging your health including procrastination, getting too-busy, and feeling like you don’t deserve to be healthy. Sometimes, it’s hard to get started on a healthy routine. Sometimes, when you stop doing your healthy routine for a day or so, you have an “all or nothing” attitude. Instead of doing a little and keeping the routine jogging along, you throw in the towel on the whole project. Sometimes, due to past trauma, you might feel like you don’t truly deserve to be healthy.*
Investigating Why We Do it
Self-awareness is a good place to start when investigating the causes of self-sabotage. Allaya Cooks-Campbell, in How to stop self-sabotaging: 5 steps to change your behavior, suggests:
Start your inquiry with the sentence we framed earlier: “I want to achieve (goal), but I keep doing (behavior).” Once you have identified the goal and the behavior that’s “blocking” it, you can start to understand what the negative behavior is actually telling you.**
I started by wondering what I choose to do instead when I suddenly drop those healthy habits. The common excuses I give myself are that I’d rather be doing something else with my time, and I’m too tired to do the exercises.
Not Settling For The Easy Excuses
Then, I dove deeper and I wondered if that was really true. My exercise routine does not take all my spare time. I have time to do other things. That excuse is not true. If I got more rest, would I go back to the self-care routine that I know works for me? Honestly, I don’t think so. I’d wait until my hip was stiff and my back was sore and then I’d return to those exercises and movements that I know heal me. It’s like I don’t want to admit that I need to do this all the time to stay pain-free. After all, I didn’t need this amount of exercise for my body to work when I was younger…
And, there it is. The real reason: resistance to aging.
Remembering My Age
Not being able to admit that my older body needs more consistent care than my younger body did, is causing me to self-sabotage. I guess it’s time for a few positive affirmations about being older to help my mind accept reality:
“I’m older and wiser and know how to take good care of myself.”
“My older body deserves special care because it’s looked after me for a long time.”
What’s sabotaging your efforts to stay healthy? Comment below.
*https://www.betterup.com/blog/how-to-stop-self-sabotaging
**https://www.betterup.com/blog/how-to-stop-self-sabotaging
Learn more about self-sabotage in this book:
Retired, And Now What? 