How to overcome self-sabotage and increase motivation with your fitness and health

Have you ever wanted to achieve something so bad but you keep failing to do so?

It may be self-sabotage creeping in.

But what is self sabotage?

It’s any behaviour, thought, emotion or action that holds you back from getting what you want. It’s a conflict between conscious desires and unconscious wants.

It means that you say you want to feel fit and healthy, but you subconsciously believe that you’re fat and frumpy. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be fit and active, your brain will sabotage your efforts as this conscious thought doesn’t match what you truly believe about yourself.

What does self sabotage look like?

It can be any thought that comes your way that will get in the way of doing something.

Say for example, you want to get outside and go for a run. You decide that you’re going to do it but when it comes to the time, you start telling yourself that your “too tired”, “too busy”, “you’ll start on Monday” “you’re not fit enough” etc.

It can even be good thoughts like “I’ve done enough today, I’m going to give myself a rest”.

This one’s a tricky one. You need to really look at this thought and consider what intent is behind it. If you truly are too exhausted then take that break, but if you are just saying it to get out of something then that’s self-sabotage.

Check out our fitness and health audit to see where your blocks are that are holding you back HERE.

How to overcome it?

The key here is to work out what your key self-sabotage traits are. Mine are ‘I’ll start on Monday” “I’m too tired and done enough already’ and “I’ll just eat healthy today” haha…

Now work out what behviours are attached to these thoughts. It may be that you slump down on your chair or couch, that you think ‘stuff it’ I”ll just eat whatever and start tomorrow.

Once you know what your thought and behaviour is, we then identify a healthy replacement. Change your thoughts from:

• “I’ll start on Monday” to “I’ll start now as I”ll get closer to my goals if I start sooner’,
• “I’m too tired” to “I’m energetic and know that my exercise will make me feel amazing and even more energetic afterwards”, or
• “I’ll just eat healthy today” to “exercise will make it easy for me to choose healthy options and not feel guilty about that glass of wine with my partner tonight”.

Next steps

Ok so now that you’ve changed those thoughts, you need to practice, practice, practice!

Every time that little ugly thought creeps into your head, change the thought, say it out loud – interrupt it! And then do what you were going to do (i.e. get to a class).

The more you beat the thought, the more you create new neurological pathways in your brain that mean it becomes a habit and starts to shift that subconscious belief about yourself!