Super-sabotage-alistic: When Thoughts Race And How To Get Out Of A Funk

You know those days when you do your utmost to put obstacles in your own path?

Yeah, those days.

You probably know your own sabotages all too well.

Self-sabotage has been rife in my life. Yet, I’ve found it actually exceptionally easy to deal with sabotage, simply by choosing. It starts with mindfully paying attention to your patterns. And then interrupting those habits. Choosing to not do it. Giving it up.  Stopping.  Doing something else instead.  Changing the behaviour.

I’ll just stop doing The Thing, I thought.

Yeah, sure, that’s easy enough – ha!

I’ve had a little slip, of course. Sabotages have been creeping in again.

Just as you think you’ve got on habit handled, you discover a new one. Today, I’ve been at it all day, putting off my lunchtime workout until is was pouring and pouring with rain, planning things that will get in the way of me working tomorrow when I have three deadlines, procrastinating on finding a better screen capture recorder for my ecourse, etc etc.

Sabotage.

Unconscious thoughts.

Being in a productivity funk.

So I just stopped, gave it up, did the opposite.  Stopped putting off, planning and procrastinating.

What I did instead…

1 Cooked a healthy dinner

Instead of compounding the damage or deciding I’d ‘written off’ any good intentions of a healthy day, I acted in the name of my health.

Okay, so I didn’t make that lunchtime workut, but I don’t have to ‘start again tomorrow’. I can start right in this moment to do something towards my goals.

I have a goal of eating 120 varieties of food this week, after my health coach explained some interesting concepts from the Japanese eating culture that resonated with me. It’s the first day of the week and I’m up to 33.

This relates much to my work-at-home life, because it’s all too easy to let health goals slip when you don’t actually have to go out to get to work. It’s funny how sometimes you just can’t find the time to fit in exercise, even though you no longer commute or go into an office. You’ve saved yourself hours and yet work often expands into the time you now have to do it.

Getting moving is high on my priorities at the moment, but it’s a sabotage that comes up often.

I’m just too busy, I tell myself.

No.

Make time for your health.

2 Finished one piece of work to completion

I got some work out of the way, so I can have breakfast with a friend I haven’t seen in years.  It’s not often you come to the furthest flung country and get a chance to hang with a schoolmate, so the brunch date was non-negotiable.  So I took a step towards destressing my tomorrow.  It feels good, even if it meant working late.

3 Ordered my print book copies

Sometimes I just can’t look at the thing I’m avoiding, so I do something else difficult but different. It helps me bash a stubborn task on the head quickly using the energy from the frustration or fear I’m feeling.

I couldn’t spend another afternoon fluffing about with technology, so I did something else exciting and energising, but frightening nonetheless.

I shipped my print book!

So turn it around. Look sabotage in the eye and defy it. Even if you’re not tackling exactly what you intended to, do something rather than nothing.

What’s one thing you can do right now to get your day back on track and give sabotage the boot? Vent! Share your sabotages below.