Episode 33: Self-Sabotage

Success and failure both have the same determining factor - you! Today we're talking about one of the most common contributors to limited success, self-sabotage.

If you've ever found yourself on the brink of success, only to throw a wrench in your own plans, you're not alone. Join Kristelle and Jace as we confess our struggles with being our own worst enemies and reflect on the subtle ways our minds can trip us up.

Together we'll explore how recognizing and overcoming destructive patterns can pave the way for personal growth and lasting success. So, tune in to Stories, Success, and Stuff for an episode that doesn't shy away from the complexity of being human and the pursuit of a fulfilling life. And hey, while you're at it, swing by our YouTube channel and follow us on siarza.com for more transformative content.

A Siarza Production
Hosted by Kristelle Siarza Moon & Jace Downey
Executive Producer: Kristelle Siarza Moon
Producer: Jace Downey
Video/Editing: Justin Otsuka

Watch episodes at siarza.com/siarza-podcast
Follow us on FB, IG, TT, YT and TW @siarzatheagency
Follow Kristelle @kristellesiarza
www.misskristelle.com
Follow Jace @jacedowneyofficial
www.jacedowney.com

Transcript

Jace: 0:00

Even if we say I want this bigger life or I want this milestone or this success, if it's out of alignment with our underlying story and belief about ourselves, we will always find ways for our own stories to be true. ["the Last Song of the Year"].

Kristelle: 0:18

Oh, we're rolling. ["the Last Song of the Year"] ["The Last Song of the Year"].

Jace: 0:22

Is this one of the like? Oh hello, when did you get here?

Kristelle: 0:28

Wow, I didn't see you there. Welcome, no, I didn't. No, hold on, hold on, thank you. I didn't think we were rolling because he didn't have his monitor. Are we good to go? I was like I slated it up, Did we? Because my plan for today's episode was to start off with a British accent.

Jace: 0:48

Oh, by all means, by all means, but no, that's okay, I'll wait until the next one? What, Even more than that happening? I would very much like to know why. Why, in your head, you were like this is the plan. This is what I'm gonna do today.

Kristelle: 1:04

So I didn't. So here's the fun fact that many people may not know about filming the stories. Success and stuff is that we usually film two episodes. Sometimes even three. For really ambitious, we film two episodes in one day right, I don't know if I'm supposed to give away the same figures.

Jace: 1:22

I don't know why you're telling people this.

Kristelle: 1:24

But I say this because it's relevant to the sweater I'm wearing. I'm like Oxford, that sounds great. Let me just pretend that like, can you imagine if somebody was tuning in for the show for the first time and they hear a British, filipino person? They're like oh, that's really cool, that's exotic.

Jace: 1:43

So what I've just received from that is you're so confident in your British accent that a person would see the Oxford sweatshirt and hear your spot on British accent and their thought would be the only explanation here is that there's a British Filipina hosting this show.

Kristelle: 2:02

Absolutely.

Jace: 2:03

Was that it?

Kristelle: 2:04

Maybe I'd like to talk about some of the things that we have in the world today, including sub-Septatage.

Jace: 2:12

This is fantastic. Can we please always just randomly pick a different accent to start with for the show, at all times?

Kristelle: 2:18

There's no sense of professionalism when it comes to marketing anymore.

Jace: 2:22

Yeah, I was interviewing a pre-interviewing a guest recently and they were saying I'm just gonna have to take all of my energy to not curse and I was like, oh no, you can absolutely curse on the show. It's not that kind of show. And I was like we curse all the time. I'm like we're not all buttoned up and now we're like I don't wanna say.

Jace: 2:40

I would have said if I was gonna say but yeah, I was like no, we're not a buttoned up show, it's gonna be all right. You say whatever you want. Yeah, definitely. And you can say however you want, apparently in whatever accent happens to strike your fancy at the moment.

Kristelle: 2:55

I sometimes I just like to channel dough.

Jace: 2:58

That's all. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.

Kristelle: 3:00

Can I get a?

Jace: 3:00

few bars. Do you have like a song you like to sing?

Kristelle: 3:03

Don't give me hold on Now. You're now you're really excited and I can't sing karaoke right now.

Jace: 3:09

Okay, so today Get it together, be serious, we have a show to run. Get your shit together.

Kristelle: 3:13

Do you know how many times I have to tell myself that during the day? Get your shit together. Today's episode of Sorry, Success and Stuff is self sabotage. Don't feel like we've done that already. The inspiration of this fantastic topic of self sabotage came from self sabotaging myself on a regular basis Not with the accents, or you know do you? Ever? Yeah, do you ever have those moments where you say to yourself I think I just ruined my day?

Jace: 3:43

I maybe not, I don't necessarily go, oh, I think I just ruined my day. But I have the lingering anxiety of did I just ruin this thing, did the thing? I just say, screw that up. So it's more of not just like, oh, if I did and it's done, fuck it. I'm like, well, that happened. Or I'll say to myself, well, that's part of the day now, or that's part of my life now, and then I can move on, cause it's like it already happened. It's the dwelling anxiety of did I just fuck that up and what consequences are going to be there? Yeah, yeah, that just lives in my brain, rent-free sometimes.

Kristelle: 4:16

Rent-free, absolutely so constantly rent-free in my head. I think that it's important to mention, when it comes to success, leadership et cetera, that this is a. I feel that this is a topic that's not very talked about and talked about among other leaders, people going through major challenges. As our friend Mike from Black Digital says, to every win there's a loss, right, and so I think that self-.

Jace: 4:46

There's a loss in every win, loss in every win. It's not like there's a ratio of losses to win, but in every win there's loss.

Kristelle: 4:51

Yeah, there's loss, and I think that's a very careful phrase, that we have to stop and pause, because that can easily be the start of a self-sabotaging moment in anybody's head. So three things what is self-sabotage, why does it hinder success and what can people around us do to help us stop? So where is the inspiration for this topic for today? I have been going through an intense amount of therapy. Intense amount of therapy because I had a moment to myself where I said I'm not okay with the way that my brain operates anymore. It's not.

Kristelle: 5:25

I used to be this person, that and I still am this person. She's just kind of been suppressed lately, and by lately, I think, for like the last five to six years. I say that's very British of you, it is very British of me. So the person that I always have been that she comes out not as often as she used to is a person of positivity, a person of joy, a person of excitement and full of the carpe diem in me, and I felt recently that it has been gone and I didn't know why. So I went through this like mental. You know you're the expert, or at least always strive to be. I consider you the expert. You might say that you're not. I consider you the expert and it comes to self mastery, 100%, and one of the I took a page from your book and I said let's evaluate where I am.

Kristelle: 6:19

And I evaluated what does self-sabotage look like, or why am I self-sabotaging so much? It actually started to ruin my relationships, Not just the people here in this office. I don't know if it's transparent enough to say that it's ruining relationships here in this office. I would say that it was very, very apparent with my son and also my husband Friends as well. I had to tell them that I'm not okay and I asked myself why did I start to do that? And even my therapist said when did this start to happen? You?

Kristelle: 6:53

know, when did this start to become a major part of your life and your mindset? So, to be more specific, being a kid, I catastrophize things. There's a New York Times article that says catastrophizing things is actually a real thing. I've talked about it on the show before, of course, and it's very similar to it's almost identical. It's another word for self-sabotaging, right. So the article had said here are the things that you need to realize that you are a self-sabotager, you are a catastrophizer, and every one of the different points, like you know, you read those bullshit Buzzfeed reviews you're like you're a self-sabotager If you do this and you just go through the quiz and you're like, well, that's fake. Okay, that's cool, you got a meme out of it. No, I read this article and I said, oh shit, I have a real problem here.

Kristelle: 7:41

And then when I went into therapy and then when I sat by myself one time on a two hour train ride, I count or on one hour train ride, in one hour I self-sabotage and I catastrophize seven things, seven moments. So out of 60 minutes I spent roughly half of it in a negative space, in a catastrophizing space, and I was like this isn't okay, that's a lot to do. And when you take up that mental space, how can you progress forward? How can you stay positive? You just don't have the time to be positive anymore. That doesn't make any fucking sense.

Jace: 8:18

Well, I think staying positive kind of gets a bad rap. It can get this notion of like ignoring reality, Like when someone's positive or I'm pretty optimistic sometimes to like an annoying degree to the people around me.

Kristelle: 8:29

And they'll tell me they'll go well, I'm just a realist.

Jace: 8:33

Like that's different than the optimism or positivity, right that they're like things that are real are hard and it's a struggle and life's not fair. Is that reality? Yeah, that's part of reality, that is sometimes. But the other side of like people coming through and having your back or kindness being shown out of nowhere, just getting love when we don't feel we deserve it, fucking kick and ass all of that is also reality. And so we have this notion that positive thinking or looking on the bright side or optimism is somehow inferior to the rigor of the struggle and reality. And they're not.

Jace: 9:09

And so staying positive is not necessarily ignoring the negative, but it's instead, I think, putting ourselves in a space of agency where we're going. Here's the situation what's mine to do? What power do I have within myself to shift things if I need to, to change my perspective or whatnot. It's not an ignoring, which does exist. It does exist. I've spent a lot of time in denial, as many of us have, but instead, when we come into, I think, a more grown up version of self-evaluation and our relationships and things like that, it's not an ignoring of what's going on. Being in a negative space like the one. You're talking about self-sabotage, catastrophizing the anxiety that I shared experiencing. Those put us in a state of victimhood or victim mentality.

Kristelle: 10:00

Yes.

Jace: 10:01

And it is happening to me or at me, and here are all the things that are going wrong, or that are bad or that I can't overcome, and it's only gonna get worse and we're just going into this victim spiral hood.

Jace: 10:14

So, instead of positive thinking, I like to think about it stepping into agency, moving out of that victim space and going into. All right, I'm a capable person, I have resources. What can I do here to shift this? If it's not sitting right with me, if I'm experiencing some form of restlessness, which it sounds like you were okay, I hear you, what's here for me, what am I experiencing, what am I witnessing and what do I need? And I just have to say I commend you and thank you for sharing it that you immediately sought out a professional.

Jace: 10:44

Oh yeah, so you went. This isn't how I wanna be.

Kristelle: 10:47

No.

Jace: 10:47

My mind is not in a place I want it to be. I've been here for X amount of time without handling it on my own. Let me bring in someone else. We have such a bad rap for therapy or and it's like. Life is very hard, it's confusing. Being a human is fucking weird all the time and it's just a constant contradiction. And somehow we're supposed to know how to deal with all of the things that come with being a human and an adult in a world that's forever changing. Well, we have like 75 emotions going on simultaneously and they're all of equal value, and we have all of these different ages happening within us and then our person's, like all this shit we talk about on the show inside, all at the same time, and we're supposed to just know how to deal with that. So thank you for saying like I went and grabbed someone as a resource.

Kristelle: 11:33

I think though, yes, I appreciate that comment or the thanks, but one of the pieces that I think unintentionally happened at the same time, and self-sabotaging can be and the part of the reason why I was like, okay, this is a good topic to talk about, because self-sabotaging can happen when you least expect it. What I realized was that I read an article, the New York Times article but catastrophizing in one minute, and then, five hours later, I read an article about the negative impacts of the power of positivity at the same time. I can't tell you. I think the best metaphor to describe how I felt that day was imagine me as like this beautiful ceramic elephant and just fucking chucking it in the ground. I felt like into 1000 pieces, and I even told my therapist. I said I have never been broken by articles before.

Jace: 12:33

The power of the written word.

Kristelle: 12:36

Yeah, I was, I was and I think I want people to know that, based off of you know the podcasts of this, like why is this a relevant topic to talk about? It's, I think, that we don't talk about how to get yourself out of those spaces, or we don't talk about ways to ask somebody to help you get out of those spaces, and if they can't help, how do you look for that help, professionally speaking? Yeah, it's not. It's not. This is not a mental health podcast, right? At least that's not what I'm intending it to be. I think one of the things that that we we forget to think about is and let me ask you this question, and if you were to look at it from my point of view why does self-sabotage hinder success?

Jace: 13:22

I think the why is actually super important. Yeah, and I don't know that I'm an expert or the expert, but I do have a longstanding obsession with self mastery and exploring all of these things. And because I'm very lazy, I refuse to deal with symptoms. And so, like the hour long and I noticed seven times like now, let me deal with these seven occurrences of self-sabotage or cat catastrophic thinking things like that, Like those are symptoms, right. So I'm like where is this stuff coming from? I want to deal with that. So then I never have to deal with the symptoms again.

Jace: 13:57

So when we're talking about self-sabotage, where's that coming from? Why are we doing it? And then, why does it absolutely result in a hindrance to the life we want? Yeah, People get confused because they go. I know this isn't in my best interest and I'm doing it anyway. Or I know this is my goal, but all of my actions disalign me with that. So why?

Jace: 14:16

At its core, self-sabotage happens when we have an underlying story about ourselves and our lives. Usually this comes from younger years, in our formative ages, when we're told directly or indirectly who we are, what our worth is, what our value is and how we show up in the world and that becomes our reality, because we don't have other reality, because we're little and so what we're given we're like that must be true, and we grow up with that for so long that all of our perception is that, and so all of the evidence we're getting back matches that as well. And so, even if we say I want this bigger life or I want this milestone or this success, if it's out of alignment with our underlying story and belief about ourselves, we will always find ways for our own stories to be true, Because it's life or death for the ego and the brain. It will be a death to our identity. And imagine if we were all here.

Jace: 15:14

We're kicking it, we're recording this podcast, right, Life goes on as it always is. And then we look outside and there's like legit Godzilla smashing the building next door. We're not going to just go. Well, how interesting we're going to go. Oh fuck, the reality I thought was real isn't real. There are actual monsters and it would snow globe our idea of things.

Kristelle: 15:33

It would change some shit, right? Yeah, I'm still super stuck. I'm like, oh my God, godzilla made an appearance in Albuquerque.

Jace: 15:39

Right, we don't even have like tall buildings or anything. This is not New York, that's true.

Kristelle: 15:43

That's true.

Jace: 15:43

Good point, good point, but it would. It would fuck some shit up in your brain, right?

Kristelle: 15:46

Yes.

Jace: 15:47

And so self sabotage happens where it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stick with reality, which is just a story. So why does it hinder our success? We'll always align subconsciously and in the brain and in our nervous system, with what we believe to be true. Yeah, so the solution? We have to change our stories.

Kristelle: 16:05

Yeah, well, I'm glad you that's a perfect segue. I think you know one of the things I'm I'm very excited about that we have it outwardly offered as an agency is crisis communications.

Kristelle: 16:19

Right oh yeah, and crisis communications is something where it takes a certain mental aspect out in and out of the process. Right, crisis communication starts with you know, analyze the situation. You look at what are the stakeholders that affected? How do we make sure that we restore trust into the people that could potentially lose trust in a crisis situation like this? What are our options to fix it? Right, that that's as I said. It. It's very procedural now for me as a crisis communications professional. What you said stories.

Kristelle: 16:55

You also become a better crisis communications professional when you study a crisis. You study how it affected the people, the people in the moment, the outside stakeholders, the external stakeholders. You start to study, you know response times, which is huge in crisis. You study the response of the first responders. You study the response of the public relations people. You you study the government, et cetera. So why do I bring that up? I realized one of the many reasons why I started to have a catastrophic, catastrophic, catastrophic thinking, or why I started to self sabotage a lot of the relationships around me who work or non work related, was because I was used to being in a crisis mode.

Jace: 17:47

That was your reality.

Kristelle: 17:48

That was my reality, and so I never have been always a crisis person, but it was. You know, one of the largest crises is that, however happens in this company, was COVID right, and I got used to that. And then I got used to phone calls of saying I'm in a crisis right now, what do I do? I got to analyzing a crisis so I can be a better crisis communication professional and I said to myself oh shit, I didn't realize that I'm going back to the stories that I know that now, like even talking about it, I'm like, oh, this massive anxiety that I feel all the time, it just all of a sudden just came back. And lately I haven't felt that I have and I have it when I talk myself down, which I'm doing right now, when I'm expressing what's happening, when I dissecting what's happening, and I'm, most importantly, taking a breath. I'm taking a breath to say, Okay, don't sabotage this, take a moment, don't think in the future, don't panic. I had to say that this morning. Don't panic, take one step at a time.

Jace: 19:00

You took a breath. I did. I was like I need a breath. I'm like I'm panicking right now.

Kristelle: 19:04

I had to learn how to just take a breath and say just take one moment at a time. And I think that's the best piece of advice that I can give to a person that might be listening and saying, oh my God, I do the exact same thing. Take a breath, because that's how you can help a person. Take a minute to stop self self sabotaging themselves.

Jace: 19:22

Well, and the cool thing is, whatever we're self sabotaging, usually isn't actually happening right in front of us. Yeah, there's very rarely an a true urgent emergency going on directly in front of us. They're in the mind Right. Anxiety is fake fear, but the body responds the exact same way. So, one of the best things we can do is come into the present moment and actually take like an inventory of like what's going on right now and we can do that through the breath or the body or what my clothes feel like right now, what are my feet feel like on the floor?

Jace: 19:52

You know what tastes are in my mouth, anything that brings us back into the body and into the present, we're actually shifting our nervous system and the functions of the brain, and then we can deal with things.

Kristelle: 20:02

We go.

Jace: 20:03

Oh, that's not real. Not to invalidate the feeling, no, but it allows us then to step out of that victim mode into a grown up space of agency. And you touched on something that that I experienced and I see this with myself, mastery clients where most of us are used to some form of chaos and we grew up with some kind of dysfunction or just not a constant sense of safety and security. I mean, how many families have that? Very few, yeah, and so the chaos becomes the norm and the striving for wellness and the deciphering. What's wrong with us which I don't believe anything is wrong with any of us yeah, and then we'll step into this next phase of well being.

Jace: 20:47

That's very uncomfortable because it does not match the reality we've known, and in that, a lot of us will do things to continue states of chaos, just because then we feel like we have control over them. And so it's really fun and I did this too to watch people actually come into, like the success that they want or that they've been working towards, and then freak the fuck out because it's so different and they're so uncomfortable, and so the things like taking the breath or having the right people around us allows us to just be in that discomfort because it's absolutely going to be there. And then when we're like, oh, this is expected Anytime, there's a change internally, we're going to freak out. Oh cool, this is the freak out moment. And having a plan in place so that we can just sit through the discomfort until it becomes the new norm, and then our reality in our story has shifted and we don't have to have that unconscious need to self sabotage, yeah, yeah, I also.

Kristelle: 21:48

I'm curious to see your thoughts on the phrase of the vicious cycle. There's some folks that, just like I've encountered, some professionals, you know within or without, you know outside of our walls, that they can never be. As the famous Hamilton quote goes they will never be satisfied. Is that a thing? Is that self sabotage? Or is that just a whole different animal in the beginning, with, I think, even the phrasing and we're really big on?

Jace: 22:12

this in our culture, where there's like oh, is some kind of battle going on, but like, even the vicious cycle breeds a space of being a victim. And when I say, when I say victim, I'm saying there's a perceived threat against me, right, and that's when it becomes problematic. So instead of like this is the vicious cycle, it'd be like oh, this is a cycle that makes sense based on the history I've had. Okay, what threat is there? Yeah, right, so I'm, I'm, I'm super, super mindful with language. We kind of talked about the you said talking yourself down or talking yourself up, or having a positive outlook. Language is super important.

Jace: 22:50

So, I think even the notion of the vicious cycle will create self sabotage, because then we're putting, we're putting ourselves, even though it doesn't feel like it, into a perceived threat. And now, all of a sudden we're in our fight flight freezer, please mode, and we're not actually in a space of agency. So the more we can be in that space of sovereignty we're like oh okay, what's mine to do here? What is needed, what's actually at hand, the better chance we have for success.

Kristelle: 23:24

I very much believe, so. I think that it is important to mention, though, that you know, in this particular instance now I'm thinking about it like okay, you know, you and I have given ourselves to spaces of dealing with addiction, domestic violence. You know, you know places of, you know those that are victims like we have to say this very out loud like we're not second responders, we're not mental health professionals here, right.

Kristelle: 23:52

I think that's very important to mention. However, when it comes to, like you said, the self mastery, working on ourselves, working on our mental health or working on the professionalism of trying to achieve success, I think bringing these things up are very important in a level where transparency really. You know, just saying like, hey, like I've been a person that has said I'm self sabotaging the success of the company and I'm self sabotaging it because I can't just get my shit together, or something along those lines.

Jace: 24:25

Right and I was like there are true states of victimhood like what you just described. That thank you. And it took me quite a bit of therapy like even in therapy, the therapist couldn't use the word victim. It just didn't sit right with me. Even though I was sexually abused for years as a kid, I couldn't see myself as a victim in that space. And so she would say you know, you're a person who has experienced something that impacted you deeply that I could handle. It took me a long time to actually go. Oh no, something really did happen to me and it resulted in these things, right? So, yes, there are actual ways where you are indeed a victim.

Jace: 24:59

That is different than when we were creating that own sense of anytime we're in this, something's happening to me, and is it, or are we creating that in a mental state? Those are two very different things, so yes, thank you for that distinction. There are indeed true victims. Yes, and even though states can have agency gained over them as well, that's where the healing comes from, some things like that. So, yes, thank you for it's kind of that's important.

Kristelle: 25:28

However, if a person says that you know that they might not be using the language of causing themselves as a victim. Or let's say, for example, plain and simple you know Valentine's Day, I said to myself, I just already sabotaged Valentine's Day, which a lot of people have opinions about Valentine's Day being a Hallmark holiday besides the point. But saying to myself did I just ruin the experience for myself? Or here's a classic example that people that are married or not married or single have said did I just tear apart my relationship in my head? That's very common, right? And that self-sabotaging is something that I think most people should be aware about, because that's when people run away, that's when people leave relationships, they leave their companies, they create barriers around the workplace and you're like what the fuck? The guy was just nice to me yesterday across the cubicle, like why is he being an asshole? Now, a lot of folks self-sabotage when they don't even realize it. It's just so common that I wish there was more awareness of it, you know Well that's why we're talking about it.

Jace: 26:40

Yeah, yeah, most definitely. Even a different shift on that. For me, it's like it is happening. Most of us do it, right, we do some version of this, mostly just like get back in a comfort zone, and this is unconscious, right. Nobody's sitting there being like, oh, what should? Why you know, like let's see what I can fuck up today.

Kristelle: 26:56

Very rarely, very rarely is that going on?

Jace: 26:59

So we're? You know this is all unconscious stuff. So instead of like, did I just tear apart that relationship? A different approach would be like oh, these were my actions. What would that be a sensical result of Like? What would have to be true in my belief system for my actions to have been this Now we're actually getting somewhere, we can resolve some shit. Instead of the like oh I just fucked up again, I'm always doing this. Like, how is that helpful?

Jace: 27:28

Yeah right, and that's different than actually being self-reflective where we go oh, I did this, okay, no shame, needed that happened. What would have to be true within me to result, for this to be a sensical action? I just did, and when we can start exploring it backwards and actually find out, oh, I don't think I deserve people being nice to me. This is not true anymore, but you know, with the guy and the people, like when people are nice to me, it makes me really uncomfortable, or I question their motives or what are they trying to get out of me? And I'm like, oh, where's that coming from?

Jace: 28:00

And when we can go down like the little fun curiosity rabbit hole for these things, then we can heal what's going on and shift it, and then it's just cool. People are nice to us, right. And then we can show up differently in our relationships, we can show up more in alignment with what we say we want in our lives, as we hit that root cause.

Kristelle: 28:19

I will say, and to kind of end this you know this episode. I will say that if you are not the type to go down the rabbit hole and there are people that have a different frame- of thinking. I think one of the things I had to tell my team today is that sometimes you just have to take one task at a time, that's all you can ever do truly One day at a time.

Kristelle: 28:40

That's how I got over. You know I still battle with gambling addiction, but it's one of those. How do you take one day at a time? How do you take one moment at a time, how do you take one decision at a time? The more you just go step by step, rather than 20 steps forward, 20 steps back, I think it relieves a lot of self-sabotaging that tends to happen in an everyday mindset.

Jace: 29:03

Yeah, like what's mine to do right now.

Kristelle: 29:05

Yep, the end, absolutely. Thanks for joining us on today's episode of Stories, success and Stuff. A heavy topic on self-sabotage and a little bit of a lack of a British accent, unfortunately, I'll always miss it now. Oh yeah and no, I did not go to Oxford but at any rate thanks for joining us on this great episode of Stories, success and Stuff.

Kristelle: 29:25

We are so grateful that you subscribe to us on your favorite podcast channel. Don't forget to watch us on YouTube or to follow us on CRScom. This is Jace. I'm Crystal. Thanks again for another great episode of Stories, success and Stuff HelpครEstelle.