Self-Care or Self-Sabotage?
Self-Care of Self-Sabotage? Get to Know Your Self-Indulgent Saboteur + Three Ways for Taking Back Control
Read time: Under 8 minutes
If you’ve dabbled in the self-help world, you’ve probably heard talk of the “Inner Critic.” Sometimes referred to as your “Saboteur” or your “Gremlin,” the idea is that within each of us lies a force that’s often critical, always menacing, and that generally holds us back from being “our best selves.”
For some, the Inner Critic can be incredibly loud and vocal. You’re running late for work again and on the drive there your thoughts are all, “What is WRONG with you? Last night you said – out loud – that you were going to stop hitting the snooze button, but here we are. You’re literally incapable of being a responsible adult.”
For others, it may be a little more subtle. You walk into a room and forget what you’re doing (innocent enough). You feel a brief sense of embarrassment wash over you. “Idiot,” the voice says quietly. “Pay attention to what you’re doing.”
Though not totally obvious, the Inner Critic actually wants good things for us (e.g., to get up earlier when we say we’re going to, to be mindful of our present experience – and purpose for walking into a room, etc.). But the thing is, it’s going about it in the wrong way. Criticism doesn’t lead to self-improvement. It leads to a defeatist attitude and the internalization of the messages you’re hearing – “I’m irresponsible.” “My head is in the clouds.” It’s a real problem. And for this reason, the Inner Critic gets a lot of time and attention in the self-help world.
But there’s another, lesser known player in the game. It’s equally problematic but harder to detect. It often wears a disguise and loves working alongside the Inner Critic – they’re a match made in heaven. So without further ado, allow me to introduce you to your Self-Indulgent Saboteur.
The Self-Indulgent Saboteur
Unlike the Inner Critic, the Self-Indulgent Saboteur wants to make you feel good. Like really good. All the time. To the detriment of all your hopes and dreams. The Self-Indulgent Saboteur is all about immediate gratification and will do everything it can to persuade you to choose it over your long-term goals (or short-terms goals for that matter). See if this sounds familiar:
You’re wrapping up after a long, exhausting day at the office. A few coworkers are heading to the bar down the street and invite you to come along for a drink or two. Yes, this is exactly what you need after a day like today! But wait...you remember your recent commitment to get up early tomorrow and head to the gym before work. Won’t it be hard to follow through if you decide to go out?
“You’ll be fine. You can have one drink and then go home.”
“Maybe it’ll be a little harder to get up, but you need this. You need to cut loose every once in awhile. And today was the worst!”
“There are 6 other days in the week. You don’t have to start tomorrow.”
Or what about this?
You’ve been talking about it for years and you’ve finally decided that now is the time to write your novel. You’re feeling inspired and motivated. You know it will take some discipline but you’re determined to make it happen. On Saturday morning you wake up early, brew a pot of coffee, and sit down to write. Nothing’s coming. After a few minutes of staring at the blank page in front of you, you glance over at your phone and feel the familiar urge to open Facebook.
“It’ll just be a few minutes. Maybe taking a little break will actually be helpful.”
“You just aren’t feeling inspired today. That’s okay. Let’s try again tomorrow.”
“There’s a few messages you need to respond to. Maybe take care of those now and work on this later?”
You see what’s happening here? In reading these examples, it’s pretty obvious that giving into the voice would be somewhat of a detriment to the people involved. We all know that the person going out for drinks is most likely not getting up to start their fitness journey tomorrow. We also know that the novelist who gives into the Facebook urge is probably going to feel shitty about it and, quite possibly, lose a little faith in his or her ability to write the novel in the first place.
But here’s the thing: when we’re in these situations ourselves, the decision isn’t as cut and dry. In fact, oftentimes giving into the Self-Indulgent Saboteur feels a lot like self-care. And isn’t self-care important? We’ve certainly been told that it is.
Giving into the temptations of our Self-Indulgent Saboteur isn’t self-care. Rather, it’s throwing in the towel and choosing instant gratification over our goals. It’s giving into the desire to feel good right now rather than doing the hard or uncomfortable thing that will get us a little closer to our larger vision for ourselves. And unlike self-care, it doesn’t feel good.
Not to mention, giving into your Self-Indulgent Saboteur sets you up perfectly to be berated by your Inner Critic. Take the person from our very first example whose Inner Critic was giving them hell for hitting the snooze button. Who do you think talked them into hitting the snooze button in the first place? You guessed it!
So what do we do about it?
Knowing that you have a Self-Indulgent Saboteur is the first step to gaining some control over it (and yes, gaining some control is what we’re going for here – it’s not going away). With that knowledge comes the choice to do something about it. The following are 3 of my personal favorite ways for lessening the grip of the Self-Indulgent Saboteur:
1) Make it a case study
Make it a point over the next few weeks to become familiar with your Self-Indulgent Saboteur. Start noticing the situations where you’re most likely to choose that quick hit of dopamine over your goals. Also take note of the particular language that he or she is using. Two of the most common messages you’re likely to observe are:
“Now isn’t the right time to better yourself/pursue your goals. There’s always tomorrow” and/or
“You need/deserve this. Giving in is actually the better decision.”
If you’re into journaling, keep a log of the times you noticed the Self-Indulgent Saboteur throughout the day. What were you doing? What was it saying? How did you respond? It’s really important to remove any and all judgment from this process. Your goal is simply to observe, to gather data. Once you’ve taken some time to get to know your Self-Indulgent Saboteur, you’ll notice that the choice not to give in will become more and more available to you.
2) Reframe the “should’s” and “have to’s” in your life
Let me ask you this: How stoked are you to do the things you should do? What about the things you have to do? I’m guessing not very. When someone tells us that we should or have to do something, we feel inner resistance. But here’s the thing: We feel that same inner resistance over the should’s and have to’s we put on ourselves. According to the late psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D. in his book “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life”:
“When we are conscious of the life-enriching purpose behind an action we take, when the sole energy that motivates us is simply to make life wonderful for others and ourselves, then even hard work has an element of play in it. Correspondingly, an otherwise joyful activity performed out of obligation, duty, fear, guilt, or shame will lose its joy and eventually engender resistance.”
Because of this, Rosenberg recommends we translate any and all instances of “I have to” to “I choose to.” So if you’re not feeling motivated by the thought “I have to go to the gym,” then get in touch with the reason that you’re choosing to go to the gym. Maybe it’s because you want a healthy, capable body that allows you to move with ease. Maybe it’s because you want to look hot in a bikini. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get in touch with why you’re making the choice and then keep that in the forefront of your mind when you’re tempted to blow it off.
3) Don’t forget to treat yourself
This one’s pretty simple: Make it a priority to actually do some stuff that serves zero purpose other than making you feel good. That could be taking a break to walk outside or stop and enjoy a delicious beverage in the middle of the work day. It could be as elaborate as booking the cruise you’ve been daydreaming about or as simple as taking a minute for yourself to sit, stand, or walk around without your phone and without a single care about what else you need to do today.
And, on a related note, make it a point to celebrate any progress you make in sidestepping the lure of immediate gratification. You only hit the snooze button once this week? THAT’S GREAT! You made it to the gym twice instead of once last week? HOLY HELL! You sat down for 30 minutes this weekend to work on your novel? CONGRATULATIONS!
Your small achievements are worth celebrating. Avoid the trap of believing you don’t deserve to be proud of yourself just yet because you haven’t gotten where you want to be. Progress is taking small steps in the right direction – over and over again. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect or to reach your goals overnight. That sets you up for disappointment (and internal criticism). And who the hell needs that?