From Self-Defeat to Self-Release in 3 Easy Steps
Sam comes home from a hard day at work feeling exhausted and strung out. The last meeting of the day did not go well and she is worried that her boss thinks that she isn’t up to the job. Her thoughts race; how can she have been so stupid in the meeting? Why was she so inarticulate? ….Within a few minutes of walking through the front door, Sam has convinced herself that the contract is in danger and it is all her fault. She is a walking disaster; always has been, always will be.
She turns to chocolate. A lot of chocolate. It makes her feel better while she is chewing and swallowing, but when it is finished, she feels awful. Worse than before.
Now her internal dialogue is even more colourful: “You are so weak” she tells herself. “No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend – you are such a pig.” “You are pathetic.”
Round and round these thoughts go, helping Sam descend into a downward spiral of bullying herself, trying to make herself feel better, and then bullying herself some more. The more she criticizes herself, the worse she feels, the more chocolate she has to eat, and so it goes on.
I see this cycle of self-defeat a lot in my coaching room, and it doesn’t have to be related to food although that is a common stick that clients beat themselves with.
It is a nasty cycle to be stuck in. But it is possible – and not that difficult – to break it.
The first step is to be aware of it – awareness, in my opinion, is nine tenths of the war. Know what you are doing, and when you are doing it.
The second step is to make a contract with yourself to help you break the cycle of self-defeat.
The third step is to mindfully enforce your contract.
Once you have a clearer idea of what your personal self-defeat cycle looks like, you can start to stop it.
Once Sam worked out what was going on in her cycle, she contracted with herself to stop the negative self-talk as soon as it started. To help her enforce this, she implemented a fining system – every time she bullied herself, she had to put R5 ($1) in a jar. This helped to stop the bullying.
She also contracted with herself that, when she did need comforting, she would turn to things that genuinely made her feel better; a warm bath, talking to a supportive friend, watching a movie were some of the chocolate-alternatives she identified for herself. Lastly, she made a commitment to herself to leave work behind when she walked through her front door, and consciously stopped herself from worrying about work during non-working hours.
Through being mindful and aware, Sam was able to change her internal dialogue from a bullying and self-defeating one, into a constructive and self-supporting one.
Where do you notice cycles of self-defeat in your own life? Do you have other strategies for breaking the cycle?
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