When the Mountain is You: Three Habits that Lead to Self-Sabotage

Most of us (and I include myself here) are instinctive blamers. When something goes wrong, it’s obvious whose fault it is. It’s theirs, and if it wasn’t for them, life would be so much better. The trouble is that every now and then we realise that that simply isn’t true. It is alleged that when asked the question “What’s wrong with the world?” the great G.K.Chesterton replied “I am”. You’ve completely missed the point if that makes you think we should blame Chesterton for everything! His counsel is wise. When looking for the cause of some wrong, at some point our eyes should turn inward, and we should ask the curious question, “In what way am I the mountain? In what way is my response the problem?” This becomes all the more pertinent when we ask why we don’t reach the dreams we aspire towards. We can usually rattle off a list of insurmountable obstacles. But what if the chief obstacle is your response, and you are engaging in the old rite of self-sabotage?

Longer term readers of this blog will know that I advocate that when we face a difficult scenario we run through a series of questions:

What is mine to carry? No, everything about this is unlikely to be my fault or my responsibility, but which parts are?

What is yours to carry? Yours here is the other person or people involved in the situation. We don’t need to rescue others or to carry the load alone. It’s about objectively seeing who should carry what.

What is the systems to carry? Often we are in trouble because of poor system design. It’s sometimes not about individuals getting their act together but reshaping dysfunctional systems that were always going to fail.

What is God’s to carry? We ask this because much of life is completely out of our control, and we simply have to leave many things in God’s hands, though this should not be an excuse to stop doing what we should.

But there is a layer to work on beyond these four questions – and it often falls into the category of “what’s mine to carry?” When things persistently go wrong, or fall short of what we hoped for, we should be willing to ask “in what way is this about me and the way I am approaching things? Could it be that my response is the key issue here?”

First it is as well to note that we have an inbuilt tendency to self-sabotage. Paul writes of this in Romans 7:15-20 when he laments that he finds himself doing the things he hates. He cannot understand himself and acknowledges that without God, the chance of real and deep change is negligible. We shouldn’t dismiss Paul as being too gloomy. He has identified a deep truth. We should face our need for change with humility. We are unlikely to be able to do it alone.

It also helps to identify some of the more common forms of self-sabotage. Here are three I have spotted in myself – and I imagine you can add others to the list:

One: The mountain is me when I play the victim card. Don’t misunderstand me on this. We all have sad and unfair things happen to us. No – they aren’t divided up in equal measure. Some face dramatically more difficult scenarios than others. For all that, if I think of myself as primarily a victim I dramatically reduce the likelihood that my situation will ever change, because those who act like victims (regardless of if they are or not) tend to stay there. Far better to look reality in the face and to ask what options I have, and if I have used them. In more dramatic cases the only option could be through my inner reality – an inner reality that insists that I am not who you say and think I am, and that in my inner being I am free – even if outwardly I am in chains. But I am pushing this to the extreme and reality is usually a long way from there. For most of us it’s realising that just because our first, and perhaps second and third choices are not available, does not mean we can’t still engage meaningfully with what is possible. We can shift our focus from what can’t be to what can be, and assume responsibility in this sphere. Perhaps you didn’t have an ideal childhood, or education, or were belittled and ridiculed… No need to pretend that that wasn’t hard and damaging, but what next? Deciding to get up is an intentional choice. It’s refusing to play the victim. And so many positive things happen when we make that life serving choice. We might have to identify an inner script that works against us. That’s why it’s self sabotage – that little voice that says, “You aren’t worth it; you can’t do this; you always mess up; as if you could turn it around.” We need to embrace our counter voice. “You say I’m not worth it. Just watch me. And you know what? It’s not your evaluation that I’m going to pay attention to anyway…” Then get up, look at the mountain, and climb each step one at a time. You are not a victim.

Two: The mountain is me when I fail to prioritise. This is an easier one to work with, but I’m surprised at how many don’t take it seriously. There are many things in life that matter, but they don’t matter equally. Don’t sweat the small stuff. So you misunderstood something and it was terribly embarrassing. So what? We’ve all been there. Move along! Don’t be so serious about yourself that you lose perspective. Ask if you are spending the bulk of your time and energy on things that actually matter to you. Name your priorities. If you don’t, you are likely to find yourself focusing on secondary matters.

Three: The mountain is me when I continue to build on an unstable foundation. You are probably aware of Jesus’ instruction to build our house on the rock, even though sand is initially an easier option (Matt 7:24-27). Building on sand can happen in different ways. I consult with many organisations and have often heard leaders say: “If we could go back to the drawing board we would never build our company this way. But history is what it is and so we carry on as we always have.” And a year later it is even more of a problem, and five years later – well sometimes they aren’t around in five years – for the problems they refused to rectify have now consumed them. People do this in so many ways. Often we run away from difficult conversations – but they are the conversations that open up a path to the future. Or we learn to live with a problem, rationalising that it is not worth the effort to put it right. What we fail to calculate is the compounding impact over time. It’s worth asking if you keep justifying some things even though you know they are not justifiable. We often come up with the most elaborate excuses to retain the status quo rather than face the temporary discomfort of putting things right.

These are certainly not the only mountains of our own creating, and I imagine you could add many more (and feel free to in the comments). But I wanted to get us thinking and to ask the curious question: If this week I stopped blaming and asked “In what way is my response the problem” what might I start to do differently? Why not take the risk?

Nice chatting…

Photo by Niklas Jeromin: https://www.pexels.com/photo/majestic-snow-capped-mountain-in-tirol-austria-28772389/

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