9 warning signs you’re self-sabotaging your life (without even realizing it)

Let me ask you a straight-up question.

What do you think is standing between you and success?

I’ll understand if you want to point to systematic, institutionalized discrimination or being born into tough circumstances. These factors are undeniably real barriers for many of us.

But for most people out there, there’s something totally different blocking us or at least adding to these problems.

Self-sabotage.

French peasants once wore carved wooden shoes called ‘sabo.’ When the machines of the Industrial Revolution began to threaten their jobs, some of these peasants threw their shoes into the machinery to destroy it.

In the process, they created ‘sabotage,’ a new word for a new world.

(I love a little word history, don’t you?)

If you’re sabotaging yourself, that means you’re hurling obstacles into your own path and engaging in habits that tear down the workings of your life, just like those ruined machines. 

And you might not even know you’re doing it.

Well, it’s time to put a stop to damaging yourself and start working toward a more successful life.

To help you move forward, here are nine warning signs you’re self-sabotaging your life without even realizing it!

1) You’re always wasting tons of time.

I think wasting time has become the biggest self-sabotage factor in the modern world.

People have always wasted time, of course, but things seem to be getting worse.

We can define time-wasting as engaging in any activities that distract you from important tasks, reduce your productivity, and don’t lead to reasonable rewards.

So, what’s the biggest culprit?

Screen time!

Our devices are with us all the time, not just sitting in the living room like they used to be. You used to have to find creative ways to waste time, but now it’s just too easy.

All that time that gets sucked down the black holes of social media, video reels, and unlimited entertainment is all time that could be better spent elsewhere.

So why not pay attention to your screen time stats and resolve to reduce them by just an hour a day?

That’s an extra seven hours each week that you could be doing something productive to enhance your life!

2) You’re in the habit of procrastinating.

It’s not procrastinating if you really don’t have time to do something today, and you have to stick it onto tomorrow’s to-do list.

But it definitely is if you just don’t wanna.

The problem with procrastination is that it doesn’t make your tasks go away. Sure, it does for today, but you’ll have more for tomorrow and even more for the next day until the pile is too big.

And then what?

You get too overwhelmed and give up on that whole pile of things you were going to do.

This is one of the most common forms of self-sabotage out there, but there’s also a way out of the hole you might not have realized you were digging yourself into.

Every day, push yourself to do just one single thing that you would normally put off, even if it just takes five minutes. That’s five minutes saved tomorrow, after all.

Once you get in this habit, you’ll see it was just the dread of doing the thing, not actually doing it, that was getting in your way.

3) You’re not seeking out challenges.

If you’re not seeking challenges in your life, then you’re almost certainly staying in the same little area of life you’ve always occupied.

Well, guess what?

The world can move beneath your feet, and that little patch of ground that you knew as your comfort zone may actually get pulled right out from under you.

To illustrate what I mean, imagine you get an apartment that you like. It’s a bit small, but the rent is good, and it’s in a great location. Why would you think of moving or looking around for options if you’re happy with where you are?

So fast-forward five or even ten years. The neighborhood that you liked has changed, and it’s not your style anymore. And the building owner is raising the rent to keep pace with inflation.

Suddenly, you could find yourself without a place to live without ever having moved an inch.

This is the danger of staying in your comfort zone, not branching out, and not seeking challenges in your life to help you learn and grow as a person.

4) You’re avoiding responsibilities.

The other great way to grow and learn is by taking on new responsibilities as life brings them to you.

This doesn’t have to mean the Big Three (marriage, house, kids) either, although those are all major opportunities to change your life.

Even adding small responsibilities to your life little by little can enhance it. This is really a natural part of growing up and moving through life.

Imagine Ben, my young buddy who just got his first job as a barista. If he didn’t want to take on more responsibilities at work, no problem. He could be a coffee runner for his whole career.

But if he was open to learning to work the cappuccino machine, and then to man the till, and eventually to manage the team, he would find himself really growing.

He’d learn to use the skills he had already and to pick up necessary new ones along the way. And he’d also learn to value himself more and build self-confidence.

But if he never took on any responsibilities, he might never have gained these important elements and would have essentially sabotaged his own development without even realizing it.

5) You’re forever passing the buck.

The other side of responsibility for your actions is accepting blame when blame is due.

Blame really is just taking responsibility for negative consequences instead of only positive ones, and they’re two pieces of the same whole.

But guess what people normally do?

Yep, pass the buck and point the blame at someone else instead.

They don’t realize that by doing this, they’re actually disempowering themselves.

Not only that, but deflecting the blame can inadvertently make you enemies or at least make others feel that they can’t trust and depend on you.

6) You’re always tired.

If you’re always tired, you’re not getting enough sleep.

It’s simple.

And if you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re missing out on its incredible benefits. These include everything from improved mood and focus, better memory, improved health, and prevention of disease.

That’s all!

These days, the culprit is often the one we identified earlier – screen time – but not always. This modern world has so many distractions it’s a wonder we ever go to sleep at all.

If you’re like me and most other people, the temptation to stay up just another few minutes, watch one more video, or read one more post is always looming.

But remember that no one else can sleep for you, so the only person able to turn off these distractions and make you turn in, aside from maybe your mom, is you!

7) You’re negative.

If you have a generally surly demeanor and a pessimistic outlook on life, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot.

Trust me, because I used to really be this way while thinking that I was actually just “being realistic”.

But the reality is that life has a lot of negatives and positives, and you can focus more on one or the other.

If you choose negativity, you’re going to end up pushing other people and opportunities away rather than drawing them toward you. And that’s a major way to sabotage your life.

8) You’re spreading yourself too thin.

So many people think that if they take on more tasks and do more work, they’ll automatically get ahead, but that just isn’t so.

You’ll certainly get busier!

But the problem with taking on some many tasks and activities is that you can almost never get them all done well.

You also end up wiped out and frazzled, to say the least. It’s so much better to get to know yourself and only take on as much as you can handle while still doing it well.

9) You’re going through life burning bridges.

Last but not least, burning bridges is a seriously self-sabotaging behavior.

Setting fire to real bridges is pretty bad, but so is tossing away relationships that didn’t turn out well.

Telling your boss to get ducked when she fires you might feel great at the time, but not when you need a reference for your next job interview.

Professional and personal relationships can all be useful and important, even if they aren’t going well at some point so disposing of them callously is a really negative thing to do.

Signs of self-sabotage

I hope for your sake that these nine warning signs you’re self-sabotaging your life without even realizing it don’t ring any bells.

But if they do, it should be alarm bells because you’re doing things that hurt you and your chances of happiness in the future.