If you have been an entrepreneur for any length of time or even thought about becoming an entrepreneur, you are most likely familiar with the idea of self sabotage. Our personal awareness is vitally important, especially in the area of self sabotage.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The three most common types of sabotage
- How to identify self sabotage
- Understand the triggers of self sabotage
- What are the lies behind self sabotage
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Transcript for Episode #3: Sneaky Types of Self Sabotage
Kristen Boss (00:05):
Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling and authentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode. It’s episode three and I am just pumped. I think I’m just going to say that about every episode.
Kristen Boss (00:59):
I am just pumped about what I’m gonna talk to you guys about today, because I believe it is probably the biggest topic that comes up for entrepreneurs and business owners, especially in the clients I coach in my community. And we’re all familiar with it. If you’ve been an entrepreneur for any length of time, heck even if you’re thinking about becoming one, I guarantee that you have heard about sabotage and you’re likely very familiar with the idea, concept, or maybe even your behaviors of self sabotage. I believe that having self-awareness in our business is one of the best assets that we can have about ourselves is really learning to become more self-aware. And one of the most important areas that we can learn on being self-aware I believe is in our personal areas where we tend to self-sabotage and it’s happened. It’s happened to me. It happens to all of my clients.
Kristen Boss (01:57):
We all have our, our self-sabotage go-to. You have a signature sabotage pattern. So I’m going to talk about the three most common types of self-sabotage. And I’m going to talk about how to identify it, the triggers of sabotage, the lies in sabotage, and what you can do to get out of that self sabotage behavior. So if you’re ready, let’s get to it. All right. So the three most common types of sabotage let’s start with the first one. I’m going to call this the researcher, the prepper: “prepper researcher.” This is when you are in the, I don’t know enough phase, you get into analysis paralysis, you are hiding behind. I need to learn more. I don’t feel like I know enough. I got to research this, do more market research here, and you’re hiding behind the books, the reading, the learning, and I know people that are stuck in learning forever.
Kristen Boss (03:07):
I’m also going to call this like the researcher is also the consumer. They’re the content consumer. They, they keep hoarding content. They have a library full of free downloads courses. It’s just never ending. Just, I’m going to listen to one more podcast and maybe you you’re doing all the the team training. There at all the calls, just information, information, information overload. And the reason behind that is that it’s, it’s a self-confidence issue. It’s, you’re researching to feel more confident about yourself because you feel like I don’t know enough to go out and make a difference, but here’s the problem with that is it gives you a false sense of productivity because in your mind you think, well, I’m doing the research. I’m learning the things I’m getting better, but here’s the thing sitting around, listening to podcasts, taking those courses and reading all the freebies.
Kristen Boss (04:10):
Isn’t making you money. And last I checked. You likely decided to become a business owner and a successful business owner and a successful business owner makes great money. You’re in this to, to have some financial freedom and time freedom. You hiding behind books and podcasts and videos and trainings all day long. Isn’t making any money. Actually. It’s costing you money. It’s costing you opportunity with this whole consumer consuming more knowledge. And I, I need to prepare more. It only, I find that we move into this research overthinking mode because we’re afraid to take action. And oftentimes it’s because we’re afraid to fail. We’re afraid to do something wrong. So we think by gaining knowledge, it’s going to somehow prevent or minimize the risk of failure. That’s just not true. You cannot–let me tell you something, in this journey, there is no such thing as avoiding risk or failure.
Kristen Boss (05:13):
I mean, you could avoid risk and failure, but you’re not going to get anywhere. If you’ve been hiding from risk and failure. I want to ask you, how far has your business moved? It’s not going to move far. If you’re hiding, we learn best from failure, but here’s the thing. Okay? So you’re in this, you’re in this. I need to research more or do more because you’re afraid. You’re afraid of making the wrong choice or misstepping, but here’s the problem: continuing to do your research builds a false sense of confidence. And you’re going to learn that it never is going to feel like enough to take action, to move past your fear barrier. And it’s almost like the more knowledge you, the more you realize how much more knowledge is out there for you to acquire. And then it almost keeps you in this cycle of I learned something new. Oh, because I learned something new. It just goes to show, I don’t know everything. And now we need to learn more because I’m still not ready. I think staying in the research cycle is it will keep you there for a long time.
Kristen Boss (06:23):
Is that you? That’s one type, that’s one type of, I’m going to talk a little bit more once I kind of unpack all these, but that was that’s type one. That the researcher, the knowledge consumer–the “I’m getting very caught up in..I just need to learn a little bit more.”
Kristen Boss (06:38):
The second one is I’m going to call it the perfectionist. This one, I feel like I see maybe the most of is. I feel like it’s a socially acceptable form of sabotage and maybe in the sneakiest form because we can hide it behind the idea of, well, we just want excellence, but just like with research, like there’s, we’re always learning. With perfection. There’s no such thing. And who decides when it’s perfect. And when you’re thinking of about like, well, it’s not perfect yet. Well, who are you trying to please? You or your audience and who in your audience decides if it’s perfect or not? Your audience may have thought it was amazing three versions ago, two versions ago, but it’s, it’s so all consuming in your mind, like getting it “just right.”
Kristen Boss (07:37):
And I love the saying, “you don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going.” Get it going. So are you the perfectionist? Over thinking everything? It gets you in perfection, as you know, your perfectionist with when you have self doubt, over analysis, analysis paralysis, and it’s just never good enough. You’re always beating yourself up. It’s frustrating for you. And then you get so exhausted that sometimes nothing gets put out, right? I know this is, this is huge. This is probably the biggest thing with entrepreneurs and their content writing. They get so stuck in like, is it right? I don’t know. And they spend an hour crafting one post and then they get so frustrated that they just end up not posting anything and walking away, feeling defeated. That’s how perfection can really stop you from having the progress and results you want, because you’re not putting anything out there because it never feels like it’s good enough.
Kristen Boss (08:42):
It never reaches the standard. Also, I think perfection is like the standard is always changing, right? Depending on your mood. Right? But again, I believe perfection is what we do to avoid failure. Just like it’s all, it’s all about avoiding failure, which is why we go and research more so I can avoid failure. If I learn enough, when I go out there, the likelihood of me going out there and feeling is less. Just like, well, if I do it really perfectly, then I’m not going to fail. When we all just have to realize it’s okay to fail. We learned far more in our failures than we do in our successes. And I know that’s hard and well, I’m going to revisit that more in a little bit here. Okay. The third we’ll move on to the third type of sabotage sneaky sabotage is what I’m going to call productive procrastination.
Kristen Boss (09:31):
We all know about procrastination. We all know when we’re, you know, we put on the Netflix and we’re like, oh, I’ll get to it. Wait until the last minute. Oh, I’ll get to it. Or I’m going to go do my laundry. You know, I can’t focus on my work unless my laundry is done. Oh, you know what I should work on? And suddenly I know you guys have had this happen is where you have this goal where you’re going to sit down and go do something. And all of a sudden, as soon as you sit down to do it, a list of all those things, you feel like are more important or you need to get done, come up and you feel a sense of urgency to go and do those things instead. Like, oh, I’m gonna do a laundry. I’m gonna prep dinner.
Kristen Boss (10:08):
I’m going to, you know, I should go and reorganize my closet. Oh, you know what sounds good is, oh, you know what? I think there’s an oil change for my car. And that’s actually, that’s more of buffering that’s to avoid what we know that needs to be done. That’s one type of productive procrastination, like where you’re productive in something else besides your work, because you’re buffering because you’re afraid to do the thing that you maybe don’t want to do. The other form of productive procrastination is actually productive procrastination in your work man, say that word like 10 times productive procrastination, real fast. Nope. Can’t! But listen. Okay. The productive procrastination and your work looks like this. And let me know if this is you logo design website design. This is like, especially-I especially see this in newer business owners where they, they get very caught up on like, well, I’m a design my logo and pick my colors and my and my fonts.
Kristen Boss (11:09):
And I gotta have my website. I’m a decorate my office. Well, I want, if I’m going to do zoom videos, I want to make sure that like the pretty, it looks pretty behind my zoom when people see it. So I’m not at decorate my office. And another form is when we prioritize low priority tasks in order to avoid our high priority tasks. So if there’s that email that customer follow up, you know, that needs to be done. That’s super high priority. And you’re hiding behind scrolling social media or going and liking a couple of things or, you know, checking your email and just kind of hanging out in there. That’s low priority tasks to avoid high priority tasks. And the thing with productive procrastination is it gives us the false sense of security that working we’re busy, look at what I’m doing, but it’s actually not the work that gives us the results we want.
Kristen Boss (12:01):
We’re not being productive in the very thing that moves the needle forward in our business to give us the outcome and the results that we actually say we want. So those are the three types, the perfectionist, the researcher, and the productive procrastinator. I’m sure there’s more, but those are the, like the top three. I see most. So I want to kind of dig into these a little bit more on like how you can overcome your go-to self-sabotage we all have one. Maybe you kind of vacillate between one of the three, but you might have like a go-to. So I’m going to give some tips and strategies to move through each form and how you can overcome each form of sabotage. So well go in the same order as we started with. So the researcher, okay. That’s again, the idea that the more you research, the more you’ll feel prepared, the more you feel prepared, the less like the less scary you hope it will be to go out and take action.
Kristen Boss (13:03):
And I feel like the researcher is always on this quest for clarity. And I feel I have this saying that I tell people I’m like, clarity is often a crutch to not take action. I see a lot of business owners that are like, well, I just need to get some clarity before I take a step. And they get stuck in this place of searching for clarity for, and that’s straight out of the Sandlot, where am I in 1990 kids. But yeah, for ever, they’re stuck in this, this search for clarity. I’m gonna tell you a secret clarity is a gift to the action taker. Clarity comes to us the best and fastest when we are taking action.
Kristen Boss (13:56):
So with that, you get the most clarity when you’re taking action, an action or experience teaches us far more, or gives us far more clarity than research does on any day. But I also want to talk to the person that’s caught in this perpetual state of learning. I think that’s a wonderful quality people that are always in a state of learning. Good, but you need to be learning and taking action. You need to act on what you are learning, there’s researching. And then there’s field testing. You need to be field testing. You need to be implementing the very things you’re learning. Don’t get caught in this idea of you’re going to be learning forever. That’s part of being an entrepreneur. It means we’re always in a constant state of learning. And the true art of being an entrepreneur is when we’re forging ahead, sharing our lessons that we’ve learned from taking action and sharing those past lessons while we continue to take on new lessons and the best lessons we teach are the lessons we teach from experience. I can say here in like Rita, Rita psychology article or something, but telling you a story from personal experience is going to resonate more with you because experience always trumps research, especially for the entrepreneur.
Kristen Boss (15:27):
So I believe in this like avoiding failure and wanting to research for clarity, clarity is a false here. This clarity is a false sense of confidence. You’re not actually looking for clarity friend, you’re looking for bravery, you’re looking for confidence. And you know, you want to know how confidence comes to us? Confidence happens when we take action, even when we’re afraid. Because at the end of that, we look at ourselves and we’re like, oh my gosh, I did the thing. It terrified me. I thought I was going to die. And I didn’t here. I am. Confidence comes when we do things in spite of our fear, even when we are afraid, you want to build your confidence as an entrepreneur, be an action taker. I believe staying in a perpetual state of acquiring knowledge actually minimizes or gives it gives you a false sense of confidence.
Kristen Boss (16:24):
I’m actually gonna go so far as to say, I think it feeds your ego. I think it feeds your pride and pride is a dangerous thing for an entrepreneur. We don’t need proud, arrogant knowledge, puffed up entrepreneurs. We need humble action takers of those who did things afraid and were willing to share their lessons, competence, real humble service oriented confidence. So that, that you end up using to bless and serve. Others comes from you being an action taker. You sitting behind books and reading and researching be careful, because it might be about feeding your ego and you don’t want that because we’re about service. So let me tell you something when you’re, when you’re stuck in that, in that place where you’re constantly looking for clarity and you don’t know how to move forward and you’re researching, researching, let me tell you this research just enough to take the next right step.
Kristen Boss (17:30):
I think oftentimes we research hoping that we’re going to get the full picture, that we’re going to get 20, 20 steps ahead. And it’s not like that. We learn from each forward step we take and realizing just you have to trust the process. We’re not promised the full picture research to take the next right step and commit to doing it. Even when you’re afraid, choose to be adaptable when you’re, when you’re taking action and you’re moving along, being adaptable means you’re willing to pivot, adjust the course, but it keeps you moving forward. You’re in forward motion.
Kristen Boss (18:11):
So tell yourself when you’re caught in that like, oh, I want to research, sit with an ask yourself. What is it I’m really avoiding right now? Is the action failure. Confidence. Is this a confidence issue, a fear issue? What am I avoiding here? But just know if you’re seeking clarity, tell yourself I’m going to get all the clarity I need when I start taking action. And this is true for me in everything. Okay. An example of that is, you know, when I, when I was a hairstylist way back in the day and I was at the top cosmetology school in the country and let home, let me just tell you, I thought I was a big deal. I really did. I thought I was going to graduate. I’m like, yeah, put me in that chair, charging my celebrity clientele. I’m just, I just was so freaking full of myself because again, I was like, look at my education, look at my research, look at all these things.
Kristen Boss (19:09):
And I’ll never forget. It was probably 90 days before we graduated. They sat us down and they’re like, you’re going to graduate from here and sweep hair, and shampoo hair, and shadow under somebody and probably be an assistant for a year or two years. And I was like, excuse me. It felt like an insult to my knowledge. And oh, it totally humbled me because again, I thought I was a hot shot and I get out and oh boy, did I get my butt handed to me? That that could be an episode for another time. But I trained under the top stylist in LA and he was amazing, but, oh man, he cracked the whip. And that’s when I learned, I thought I learned in cosmetology school. And then there was actually being in the salon with with unpredictable outcomes and all these personalities and all these moving parts and all these things that the books and the classroom could not prepare me for.
Kristen Boss (20:07):
And I remember after I humbled myself, I realized, oh, thank God. They didn’t put me in a chair. I would have wrecked myself. So that’s when I realized how valuable experience was, how valuable taking action and implementing in the real world, the things I had learned in theory. And it was, it ended up being phenomenal. And there’s still things I take from what that boss taught me. And I’ll probably, maybe, maybe I’ll do an episode on the things that being in a celebrity hair world taught me in the service and business world, because it’s a ton. So that’s to say, that’s when I learned, oh, I can sit there and feel really confident in my knowledge, but nothing’s going to grow my skillset, like experience and having some pickups and making mistakes. Because let me just tell you, when I made a mistake in the real-world cosmetology school, it’s like, oh, you made a mistake.
Kristen Boss (21:03):
Okay, it’s fine. That’s what we’re here for. It’s to protect you. But in the real world and you make a mistake? I learned once, and that was it. I was like, okay, never making that mistake again. It’s the same in the entrepreneurial world, your failures are gifts. And can you imagine how we would show up if we actually believed all failures were gifts. Amazing. Right? Let’s talk about the perfectionist now, what to do with the perfectionist. I joke, I love my husband. He’s an Enneagram one, and we’re always joking about perfectionism and reformers. And I’m an Enneagram three, and I always tease them. But I’ve realized, and I tell them this. I say, I realized that he has a real desire to do things with excellence. And I think that is amazing, but you can’t do things with excellence. If you don’t actually go out and do something, right.
Kristen Boss (21:59):
So it’s okay to have a high standard. But if your standard is so high, where it’s crippling you from taking any action, that is your indicator to know, oh, I’m self-sabotaging right now because it’s not allowing me to take any action. It’s not allowing me to move the needle forward. Your goal is not perfection. The goal needs to be progress. And I actually believe perfection is the prettiest form of self-sabotage. It looks pretty because we want it to be done. Right. Let me, so if the goal isn’t perfection, what is the goal? The goal is progress. The goal is moving forward and I’m going to actually tell you a word. I think you’re really going to, like, if you deal with perfectionism: take action and then let refinement be your mission. Practice, the art of refinement. That means you put something out there and then you evaluate it, look at it and ask yourself, how can I make this even better?
Kristen Boss (23:03):
But the point is, is something is out there. You’re learning, you’re getting feedback and you’re figuring out, okay, now how do I refine this to make it better and better and better perfection doesn’t happen on the first try. Perfection is an ongoing practice of refinement and refinement is an ongoing pursuit of excellence by improving on the actions. Woah: somebody, put it on a t-shirt! But seriously, I’m gonna say that one more time, because I just I’m sitting with them like, man, this is good. Refinement is an ongoing pursuit of excellence by improving on the actions we take. So my friend that struggles with perfectionism aim for progress and the art of refinement. And I think you’ll find joy in that. And you’re going to get the needle moving forward. You have to move forward. Okay. And I feel with the productive procrastinator, we’ll move to that third one.
Kristen Boss (24:15):
Let me just tell you something. When I started this business, my goal was to just start moving, to make money and move the needle forward. And I constantly had to remind myself, Kristen, a logo does not make you money. You designing your, your, your website and spending 12 hours on a website. When you could be spending 12 hours, making new, meaningful connections, telling people what you do, how you can serve them, getting on calls with them. That makes money. Me tinkering on a WordPress or Wix or Lord help me Kajabi for 15 hours, costs money. Didn’t make me money. So what helped me–because this, I realized that I have that propensity. I find I can be any of these, but I just remember in this particular journey, because it’s more fresh for me than others. It was really easy to get caught in logo, design, and, and font types and all these things and the students that come to me now, I have to kind of remind them.
Kristen Boss (25:22):
I’ve even told them like, man, I wish you could see my first website. You’ll feel so much better about yourself. I wish you could see how I started because I committed to just get out there and serving. And I knew eventually I would have the time and the resources, because I was making profit to outsource web design and branding and photography and all those things. But profit is first. You need to have that, that mentality with your business, that mindset with your business being like what makes me actual profit.
Kristen Boss (26:03):
If it doesn’t make you profit, then don’t, that’s, that’s self-sabotage. If you’re hiding behind the things that aren’t making a profit, that’s productive, self-sabotage-that’s productive procrastination. So start, just start. And then actually make those fun things like logo and photography session and website, make those rewards for hitting milestones in your business. Instead of a precursor to feeling like you have a valid business. Oh yeah. If you are, if you’re thinking like the logo design and the website design and all those things is what makes your valid, your business valid. That’s not true. You make your business valid. You decide that your business is valid, how you show up and how you serve. And you helping people makes you valid. Trust me, I know coaches and other social sell, like people that are selling products that have websites. And it looks “valid,” but they’re not making any money because they spent all their time making their business look valid when in fact, because they’re not making any money, their business isn’t valid because they’re actually not showing up and doing their business.
Kristen Boss (27:24):
So if you’re in that productive procrastination, your business, I’d identify your money-making activities. And do those start. If you’re doing the productive procrastination outside of your work, where you’re buffering, and you’re like, I’m going to go do laundry. I’m going to, oh, I think I’m going to paint my house, pay my room. You know, what sounds good is, you know, meal prepping, ask yourself what you’re afraid of. And this is where I call have a low barrier entry. So if you’re afraid of getting started with, to work, you feel overwhelmed. Start with a small task, just move into and set a timer. This will help you if your brain’s freaking out and you’re avoiding it, just say set a timer for 15 minutes and start with something that doesn’t take a lot of your creative energy. So if that’s opening up an email, set a timer, start the email and just say, okay, 15 minutes.
Kristen Boss (28:16):
I’m just going to start at my inbox. And here’s the thing. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion and sure enough, you’re going to know that timer’s going to pass by. And suddenly now you’re in flow. Now you have, you have, what just happened was a low barrier entry. There was less resistance because you didn’t have fear going to your mailbox or checking or checking your inbox, right? But it started, it started you getting into motion and then you work your way into your high energy activities that require your creative, happy energy. So if you need an on-ramp do it, but stop avoiding it, just set a timer, set a timer. So here’s what, here’s my challenge for you is after this episode, I really want you to ask yourself, this is where I’m going to help you with your self awareness so that you can identify what your particular go-to of self-sabotage is. But there’s usually a trigger for yourself sabotage. And I think it’s important for you to say, okay, what is my self-sabotage coping mechanism? What’s my favorite go-to. And then asking yourself, what is your trigger that causes yourself sabotage? Is it overwhelm? Is it fear? Is it fear of failure? Is it your negative? Self-Talk what is your trigger? And then ask yourself from there. What is my truth?
Kristen Boss (29:41):
So if, if overwhelm is your trigger, I’m still overwhelmed. There’s not enough time. I don’t know how I’m gonna get to this. That’s where you sit with, what is my truth? I make time. I can find 15 minutes. I always get more done than I think I’m going to get done. You have to figure out what is my trigger? What is my truth? If it’s perfectionism being like, oh, it’s never going to be right. Or, you know, that’s the truth is I am for progress and refinement. There’s no such thing as perfectionism, right? So identify what’s your mechanism of self-sabotage what’s your trigger. What’s your truth.
Kristen Boss (30:21):
And when you become more, self-aware, you’re going to identify and catch more quickly when you were starting to self-sabotage and you’ll see, and you’ll, you’ll catch it more quickly. And you’ll say, oh, I’m totally self-sabotaging right now. And then you’re going to move into this process. I just taught were asking yourself, what’s the trigger? What’s the truth. And then what can I do about it? And switching the narrative of each that I walked through. So friends aim for progress today, move the needle forward. Clarity comes by taking action. There’s no such thing. As perfection being an entrepreneur is constantly learning. We’re in a constant state of learning.
Kristen Boss (31:09):
We’re always going to be learning and people are waiting for you to show up, serve them today. So get out of your head and get out there and start serving. Because there are people waiting for you. We’ll catch you guys next time. That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you loved today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with the review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals in the academy. You get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer, go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
