anything goes with emma chamberlain - self-sabotage, a talk with emma

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

recently, i've been struggling with the urge to self-sabotage - to mess everything up. the causes of this self-destructive mindset can vary. sometimes i can fall into it by accident and this can lead to self-destructive behavior. however, over time i’ve worked hard to manage my urges to self-sabotage. and so today i want to share how i personally handle these phases of my life when i'm feeling the pull to self-sabotage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recently, I've been really struggling with the urge to self-sabotage. I just want to fuck everything up. And it's so irritating because when it comes to self-sabotage, it's not like we do this on purpose. I mean, why would we want to self-sabotage on purpose? It's something that almost happens subconsciously. Like, at least for me, I can fall into a negative mindset or I don't even want to say negative mindset. How do I want to put this? I can fall into a self-destructive mindset on accident. You know, the causes

for the self-destructive mindset vary, but at times I can fall into a self-destructive mindset on accident and then it leads me to self-destructive behavior and none of it is conscious, none of it is an active choice, it's all sort of happening subconsciously and that's what makes it so complicated. I don't think any of us purposely self-sabotage, right? I mean, I think when all of us actively think about it, we all wanna succeed. Why the fuck would we wanna self-sabotage? We all wanna succeed.

Does anyone wanna fail? No, you know? I mean, ideally, should we be okay with failure and understand that it's, you know, I mean, ideally, should we be okay with failure and understand that it's, you know, a part of ultimately succeeding one day? Of course, sure. However, do we all want to succeed as soon as possible?

Of course we do. So again, it's like, that's what's so complicated about the urge to self-sabotage. It's subconscious. None of us consciously want to fuck ourselves over. It doesn't make any sense. And recently I've fallen into a bit of a self-destructive mindset. I've sort of had this craving for self-sabotage

and thus far I have been able to fight it off, right? Like, I actually don't think I've executed on any of my destructive desires, but I've been very tempted to recently. And it sort of, I don't know, just got me thinking about it. And I think I'm at a place now where I'm better at managing my urges to self-sabotage now than I've ever been in my entire life. Like I think I've worked really hard throughout my life to get better at managing the temptation to self-sabotage. And today I wanted to share how I personally manage these little phases of my life where I'm feeling cravings to self-sabotage.

So let's begin. The first thing that I try to do when I notice that I'm in a self-sabotage state of mind is try to figure out why. Like, what's going on? You know, trying to find the root of the problem. And to be honest, that's arguably 80% of the battle, figuring out why. And I've noticed with me specifically, there are a handful of reasons why I tend to self-sabotage. And these are only the ones that I've discovered thus far.

Like, who knows? There might be more reasons that I'm not even fully aware of yet, but these are the ones that I'm aware of right now. First and most obviously, self-hatred and self-disrespect. When I don't love myself, I subconsciously get in my own way. And there are billions of reasons why I might be in a phase where I don't love myself. I don't respect myself. I don't believe in myself. It could stem from a recent failure that really like hit my self-esteem or my ego. It could be being rejected by someone. It could be a work rejection or a social rejection. Could be online comparison.

In fact, it's usually this. If I'm in a phase where I'm really sucked into the internet and I'm going down rabbit holes, stalking people on Instagram that I think have better lives than me, who look better than me and do more fun things than me, blah, blah, blah, that will cause self-hatred, self-disrespect. You know, there's a number of reasons why I might fall into a place where I don't feel so good about myself. And when I do get into one of those head spaces, I've noticed that my brain, how do I explain this, wants to like make my life match the way I see myself, right? My brain,

and I think all of our brains, like solving problems. Our brains like puzzles. Our brains like math. They like when things make sense, fit together. We want things to make logical sense for the most part, because I don't know, it makes us feel grounded. It makes us feel connected to reality. We like when things make sense. When things don't make sense, it freaks us out, right? I think when I'm in a phase where I hate myself, I subconsciously don't allow good things to happen to myself because that's what makes sense in my brain, right?

Because I don't like myself, if something good happens to me, that makes my brain uncomfortable because subconsciously it doesn't add up. It doesn't feel fair. It doesn't feel balanced. And I know that that sounds complicated, but I think that's because I'm really bad at explaining what I mean. Like I hope that that makes sense,

but I don't know if we believe that we suck, then that also means that we believe that we don't deserve good things to happen to us. Because logically, we don't want good things to happen to bad people, right? So if we believe that we're bad, then we believe that we don't want good things to happen to bad people, right? So if we believe that we're bad, then we believe that we don't deserve good things to happen to us, and subconsciously, we'll prevent good things from happening to us to keep our sense of reality stable. I mean, listen, that's something I've noticed that happens with me.

But I also think there's something to be said for negative manifestation. You know, on the internet, we see all these people talking about positive manifestation, like, you know, write in a journal every day that you will find the love of your life and you will get this job and you will get this and you'll get that. And if you believe it, and you speak it into existence, it will come true. The same thing happens, I believe, with negative beliefs and negative ideas. I mean, I think it's normal and natural to occasionally have a negative belief about yourself and negative belief about the world. We're not perfect human beings who see the positive in everything at all times.

Like, that's completely unrealistic. But if you are in a phase where you just fucking hate yourself and it's deep and it's passionate and it goes on for a long period of time, eventually, I do believe that will start to manifest into, you know, into reality in a way. Like, in phases when we hate ourselves, we tend to have pessimistic perspectives

on our own abilities, what we deserve, et cetera. And then we end up manifesting it to be true. Like, okay, so let me give examples that really show you how self-hatred leads to self-sabotage. A good example would be me wanting to quit nicotine, which is a really hard thing to do, right? No one's saying it's easy.

However, it's totally something that I can do. However, when you're struggling with addiction to anything, it's very hard, I think, to quit anything without a strong sense of self-esteem, a strong sense of confidence. It's very challenging. And the reason for that is if you don't have that self-esteem, if you don't have that self-love, if you don't have that self-confidence, you'll end up self-sabotaging. That's what I've done a trillion times with trying to quit nicotine.

I will try to quit nicotine and then I'll fall into a phase where I hate myself for whatever reason. And then I'll be like, why am I even trying to quit nicotine? I'm not strong enough of a person to do that. Also, like I don't deserve health. I don't deserve like I will convince myself that because I hate myself, I don't deserve the good that comes from quitting nicotine. It's weird. It's like, I think of nicotine addiction as a negative thing and I think of addiction in general as a negative thing. I think we all do. And I think in a phase of self-hatred,

I also see myself as a negative thing. Does that make sense? So I'm like, why should I do anything good? You know what I mean? Like who cares? I don't love myself, I don't care about myself, I don't respect myself. Why the fuck would I quit nicotine?

And then I self-sabotage and then I relapse and you know, get addicted again. And a great example of that would be, I was really like doing well on my train to quitting nicotine, and then I went through a breakup, and that breakup fucked with my self-esteem. I mean, the relationship itself fucked

with my self-esteem, but then the breakup made it even worse. And then I went from, you know, vaping to using nicotine pouches, and trying to ultimately get off of it completely, but going from the vape to the nicotine pouches, to me that felt like an improvement. But then when I went through the breakup

and my self-esteem was a complete mess, I was like, wait, why am I even trying to better myself and ultimately quit the vape, which is my goal, and I fully started vaping again, you know, for a while. I don't vape anymore, but it caused me to self-sabotage and relapse because I had low self-esteem at the time. Another example would be, you know, staying in unhealthy relationships because I don't respect myself enough to leave. That's happened to me so many times where I've sort of stayed in unhealthy relationships, again, platonic or romantic,

because my self-esteem was too low to leave. I was like, well, I know that they're bad for me, right? Like I'm fully aware that they're bad for me and I'm fully aware that staying with them in any capacity is only making my life and my potential for having good people in my life worse. However, I don't think I deserve better because I don't think I'm that great either.

So then I stay in shitty relationships and that's absolutely self-sabotage. Last example of that would be, and this is so complicated, right? But when I'm in a phase where I really fucking hate myself for whatever reason, I'll end up treating my loved ones with disrespect at times,

because subconsciously I'm like trying to like fuck up my relationships with my loved ones because I feel like for some reason I don't deserve healthy relationships or love from others. And again, it's not like any of this is a direct choice. It's all subconscious. Like I'll catch myself just being mean to my loved ones. And you know, I think it's because deep down I'm like,

Emma, you don't deserve healthy relationships. You know, you don't deserve love. You should push it away. You should fuck it all up. And also I think too, part of it is, you know, being so unhappy with myself, feeling so bad about myself, and that being so painful that then I lash out at others who don't deserve it maybe because I'm experiencing pain,

and so I want other people to experience pain with me. And that's a very human thing to do. But that's, we'll actually move on to that one now. Weirdly, I feel like sometimes I self-sabotage to distract one pain from another. Does that make sense? Fighting one pain with a different kind of pain. It's like, imagine this.

Imagine you're getting a surgery on your toenail. Okay, let's say you have an ingrown toenail. If any of you who have had an ingrown toenail knows how painful it is, it's so fucking painful. I've had quite a few in my day, maybe five. Anyway, so imagine you're at the doctor's office and you're getting your ingrown toenail fixed. It actually might be

helpful during that treatment to distract your pain from getting the toenail fixed with another pain such as biting your tongue, pinching your leg, having someone squeeze you. Like there's all these different ways that you can cause another pain that can distract from your larger pain, which in theory kind of helps. But I think at times I do that with self-sabotage. Like what I just said, you know, when I'm feeling down about myself, I hate myself,

my self-esteem is low, I'll start a fight with a loved one because the pain from that will distract me from my low self-esteem or I'll punish myself in various ways when I hate myself. Like I'll overwork myself or I don't know, you know what I'm saying? We can fight fire with fire at times. And instead of realizing that something's wrong in our lives and then being like, all right, let's make a plan to fix it. Instead, we just wanna self-sabotage

and just make it worse. You know what I mean? By creating a new source of pain to distract us from the original source of pain that we don't know how to solve. And to me, that is absolutely self-sabotage. I think another reason why I self-sabotage is because I'm afraid of success.

And I think a lot of us do this. We're afraid of things actually working out, even though that's all that we want. Like all we want is for everything to work out the way we want it to. Right? But I think for those of us who are aware, I mean, hyper aware, I should say, of the complexity of things going well, the of success can weirdly cause self-sabotage. And it's not even just succeeding itself. I think we can even fear the journey to success because it is so out of our control. Like, we are in control of certain elements of our journey to success. We are in control of, you know, what we do to get closer to our goals in life,

but we're not in control of everything, you know? Like when it comes to success, there's a lot of it that's out of our hands. And I think that can cause negative emotions and can cause weird urges to self-sabotage, at least with me. You know, I don't remember the exact saying. It's something like, the harder the rise, the harder the fall, or the bigger the rise, the harder the fall, or the larger the rise, the larger the fall.

You get the idea. Basically, the more we succeed, the more there is a chance for a horrific failure or a horrific downfall. If you don't ever succeed, then you can't ever have a downfall. When you don't succeed, you have nothing to lose. And even though I think all of us would rather succeed than not, it puts you in a very uncomfortable position when you're on the journey to succeeding or you've actually succeeded. That's actually kind of a weirdly uncomfortable place.

And I'm not just talking about work, money, accolades. I'm also talking about friendship, successful friendships, successful romantic relationships, especially feeling fulfilled in life. Like this applies to any type of success, okay? So I'm not just talking about like numerical success, how much is in your bank account, you know, where you're ranked at your job. Like I'm talking about every single category of life and success there. Success anywhere can psych you out

and make you want to self-sabotage. Weirdly, having nothing to lose is a more comfortable state to live in. For example, let's say your dream, your goal is to find love. And success to you would mean being in love and being married and having a family. You might meet an incredible person who you're like, this could honestly be my long-term partner.

This is a great person. You might end up psyching yourself out and being like, okay, but wait, if we do fall in love and then it doesn't work out, that is gonna hurt so bad that I don't even wanna try it. And you can self-sabotage and push that person away and not give it a try because you're so afraid of what that fall might feel like if it does work out. Or you could even take it a bit further, date somebody for a year

and be like, oh my God, this is going so well. Everything's kind of perfect. And that perfection could freak you out so badly that you're like, fuck, like you start subconsciously fucking it up. You sabotage it because you're so afraid of it failing that you subconsciously force it to fail by your own hand, just so that you can have a bit more control over the situation and know when it's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen, because subconsciously, like, you're the one doing it. In some ways, it's less embarrassing to choose failure

through self-sabotage than to fail after putting in a lot of effort. Like, why not self-sabotage before you even have the chance to fail after putting in a lot of effort. Like, why not self-sabotage before you even have the chance to fail? It's like making a self-deprecating joke so that nobody else can make a joke about you and create a laugh. Like, you're the one creating a laugh.

The only difference is that self-sabotage is far more toxic. Like, making a self-deprecating joke, you know, it can be toxic, it can also be harmless, but it's not that deep, right? But self-sabotage can potentially fuck something up that like could have been really, really amazing for you. Like for example, one time I broke up with a boyfriend.

It was not good for me emotionally. And immediately after we broke up, my life improved in a bazillion, trillion different ways. Like there was a moment of a return to self where I was like, oh my God, I'm back. Like, you know, my personality was being suppressed in this relationship. I didn't feel safe to be myself

and my confidence was super low because this person brought my confidence down and people wanna hang out with me again because they like who I low because this person brought my confidence down and people want to hang out with me again because they like who I am without this person in my life like everything was improving and then I started talking to you know new guys and like I was like, oh my god, you know I'm clicking so much better with these new boys that I'm talking to and You know, this is so exciting. Like I'm having deeper conversation with these new boys that I'm talking to. And, you know, this is so exciting. Like I'm having deeper conversation with these new boys than I ever had with my ex.

Like this is so much better. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm really turning over a new leaf and everything would be going great, right? And ultimately for me, my goal in love is to find somebody who truly loves me for who I actually am, because I've struggled a lot in my past relationships with guys not liking me for me.

Like wanting me to be something I'm not or whatever, it's been a very, like, and whenever my personality comes out, just like fucking shutting it down and shit, you know? But instead of being like, that's me, take it or leave it, I was always like, oh, okay, I guess I'll just suppress who I am as a person then instead. And so my goal has always been like, I wanna find somebody who truly appreciates me

for who I am, but also challenges me, tries to make me a better person, who also I can communicate with really well, like we click really well and I can have good, interesting conversation. Like all these things and more are what make up a good relationship for me. And I was starting to find that, right?

For the first time in my life, like, whoa, wait, everything that I want actually kind of does exist out there. Like, I don't know who it is and I don't, whatever, but I'm starting to see those characteristics in new people. And then that potential for success would scare me, would start to like freak me out. And I'd want to go back to my ex and self-sabotage and just go back to that because it's more comfortable.

There's something comfortable about remaining stagnant because going back to my ex in that scenario, it's familiar. It's like, it's not great. It wasn't great, you know? So it's like, and I lost it once before and it was fine. It's like, I'm not afraid of losing it again because I had already lost it before

and I knew that I would be fine. There's something frightening about, you know, dating new people who maybe are actually like more rare in the sense that the characteristics that they have actually like click with me so much better. And being with them actually could potentially bring me a lot of success in love in the way that I want it to. And then, you know, I would get all psyched out

and be like, what if I get more attached to these boys than I've ever been to another boy in the past? And then what if it, like the pain of that breakup, it'll probably be 50 times worse than the pains that I've experienced with my exes in the past. I kind of just want to go back to the thing

that's comfortable and safe and is I'm not that afraid of losing and blah, blah blah blah. So that's one example of sort of being afraid of success. Another example would be when weirdly enough things are actually going really well for me in my career. A lot of times when things are going really well for me in my career, instead of just being excited about the success that I'm experiencing, I tend to find myself focusing on the pressure that's now on me to continue the success. And I become fixated on what the fall is gonna look like.

You know, like, okay, yeah, things are working out right now, especially having a job on the internet. Like, the internet goes through cycles with who they love, who they hate, who they care about, who they don't care about. And so when I'm in a phase where, you know, people like me and people care about what I'm doing

and are excited about what I'm doing or whatever, I have a hard time being excited. And I'm more just thinking about how painful it's gonna be when, as the internet does, things turn around and everyone is annoyed with me and doesn't care what I'm doing. You know, it goes through phases. That's how the internet works.

And that's, you know, my personal example, but it's different for every job and every occupation. Like, there's an equivalent in almost every job. The highs and the lows, right? Or even just the potential for highs and the potential for lows. Yeah, I'm somebody who doesn't enjoy a moment of success. I actually am more stressed out, more uncomfortable, more scared because all it makes me think about is what it's gonna feel like if or when it all crumbles. And that can tempt me to self-sabotage and throw everything all away. Things are going really well.

Why would I wanna throw it all away? Because I'm afraid of it doing really well in it rising and succeeding and then all fucking coming crashing down. It's less scary if nothing big and good happens because then nothing horribly bad can happen. Do you see what I'm saying? I think it really comes down to control

and we are not in control of how our lives unfold. I mean, we're in control of bits and pieces, but we are not in control of the bigger picture. And when it comes to success, there are so many variables that we have no control over that the journey to success and experiencing a moment of success is exciting, but it's also a leap of faith in a lot of ways.

Like we don't know if it's gonna all come crashing down. We don't know if everyone's gonna turn on us. We don't know when the opportunity's gonna get ripped away, just when we thought it had changed our lives. Like we don't know. And for a lot of people, myself included, that is so uncomfortable and so scary that we'd almost rather not even try to succeed.

We'd almost rather stop it in its tracks than experience having it for just a moment and then having it be ripped away. Even though there's also a chance that it never gets ripped away. You know, it's complicated. Moving on to another reason that I've noticed that I self-sabotage, weaknesses in my morality. You know, temptation, getting the best of me, even though I know better. Our moral compass is sort of a constant work in progress. We're constantly experiencing things

and trying things and failing at things and succeeding to build and evolve our moral compass. Everything that we do, every conversation that we have, everything adds to our moral compass, you know? It teaches us what's important to us, what we believe in, what we're against, how we choose to handle various challenges in our lives. Like, it's the closest thing we have as individuals

to a manual to life. It's the closest thing we have, our moral compass, right? But the truth is, it's one of the most challenging things to build because actually, I should say it like this, it's one of the most challenging things to build well, I think, because it takes a lot of work and a lot of discipline. Like, not only is there a lot of trial and error, which is exhausting and sometimes emotionally turbulent, but also delayed gratification. Like I would say a lot of our morals,

probably some of our most important morals and values are centered around the idea of delayed gratification. Doing the right thing now will benefit you down the line in some way. Like for example, treating others how you'd like to be treated, that's a moral, that's a value. That might not make you money,

that might not make you money. That might not gain you power, but that will eventually create loyalty to you, a larger social circle for you to enjoy, more friends, more people who love you, who appreciate you, more people who will do favors for you down the line. Will it gain you power? Probably not. I mean, maybe you power? Hmm, probably not.

I mean, maybe a little bit, but probably not. Will it make you money? Hmm, maybe, but not as much. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, my point is a lot of our morals and values are based on delayed gratification. And delayed gratification is really, it's tough because a lot of us want instant gratification.

That's what's the easiest, like it's easiest to do stuff that gratifies us instantly. It's far harder to do something a bit challenging now that will reward us maybe down the line. However, I would say the most rewarding actions in life do not gratify us instantly. I feel like most things that gratify us instantly are not worth much. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, it's a lot of work to build your moral compass. And even as we constantly build it through conversation, life experience, performing

an admirable act of sorts that doesn't really have payoff instantly but does have payoff long term and waiting to see that payoff and then being like, you know what, this is how I want to live my life because even though the gratification is delayed, it's so worth it because I have experienced what it's like to be gratified later and it is worth so much more than anything that could have ever happened instantly. All of that, it's so much work and yet no moral compass is perfect. There are always holes and cracks as we move through life, and we're constantly working to patch the holes and seal the cracks, and we're constantly making mistakes

in order to find where the holes and the cracks are, and I would say one of the most common ways that we find the holes and the cracks in our moral compass is by self-sabotage. Because we know what we should do. Like, it's something that's almost set in stone in our moral compass, right? It's almost there permanently, it's almost there, but we don't have it in us to make the more challenging,

but more rewarding choice. We don't have it in us to do the right thing. I think one of the best demonstrations of this is like, having a devil and an angel on your shoulder. The angel on your shoulder is your moral compass. The devil on your shoulder is the urge to do wrong, to take the shortcuts in life, to self-sabotage, to do all things negative.

And the stronger the angel on your shoulder is, the easier it is to ignore the devil on your shoulder. But every once in a while, the angel won't convince you and you'll do what the devil tells you to do. That's a metaphor that I think you can be religious or not to benefit from, you know? But like a good example would be avoiding confrontation, even though, you know, in my moral compass, I know it's right to confront things, to communicate so that everyone involved can grow and so that things can be resolved and we can all come out the other side a better person.

In my personal moral compass, I really do believe in confrontation and communication and honesty and all of these things. Yet it's uncomfortable. It is painful. It's terrifying. I know it's the right thing to do because I know all of the beautiful things that can come from it. And I know that I will not regret doing it even if it doesn't end up going the way I want

it to. But it's a scary thing to do. It's an uncomfortable thing to do. And so at times I'll self-sabotage and not bring things up. I'll be like, I really want to bring this up, but you know what? Like I'm just not going to do it. And to me, that's a form of self-sabotage, allowing myself to not listen to the angel on my shoulder that's saying, you need to confront this or else there will be a price to pay later. You will either lose this person as a friend, you know, you'll grow resentment for them because you didn't confront things.

And then the relationship will end up, you know, going down in flames. Or, you know, I'll continue to be mistreated because I was too afraid to speak up and say, Hey, I don't like when you treat me like that, or whatever, you know? There is a price to pay for not confronting, but at times it's just too tempting to avoid it. And so I'll avoid it, and then a problem

that could have been solved will now persist because I didn't wanna to confront the problem. Another example would be, I do not like, I really try not to gossip unfairly. I think that gossip is normal and healthy, right? I think we all gossip sometimes and I think for the sake of analyzing other human beings and learning more about who we are and who we wanna be, I think gossiping, there's some value to it, right? But sometimes gossiping is just like nasty.

It's like, shut up. Like, you're not learning anything from this. No one's learning anything from this. This is just like kind of nasty. And I'm definitely against that form of gossip. I really, really try not to gossip in a way that's unfair. But sometimes, usually when I'm feeling jealous or insecure, the devil on my shoulder will win.

And I'll gossip in a way that makes me feel gross and nasty afterward. And again, I think that gossiping in that sort of way, allowing myself to do it, is self-sabotage in a way because I know better, right? But the temptation to do it is too strong and so I do it anyway. And a lot of times I think that in these cases of self-sabotage where there's a sort of weakness in our morality and we do something even though we know better.

I think that those mistakes are crucial for strengthening our sense of morality. So, and that's also why self-sabotage is so complicated because we do also learn from it. You know, like it's something that, it's so complicated because it's like, as much as we can, we should prevent it, right? But at the same time, we need it to learn and to grow.

There are instances when self-sabotage is critical for growing as a human being. And there are times when it's just plain destructive. And you know, we'll learn from it, absolutely, but it's like, eh, we didn't really need to do that one. And that's why it's so fucking complicated. But I think the way that I look at it is, is it inevitable that I'm going

to self-sabotage sometimes? Yes, right? And in those instances, I will do my best to learn from it. However, as often as it can be avoided, I'm gonna try to avoid it. Because I actually think that you can learn from the temptation to self-sabotage as well. Like, you don't even have to fully execute on the self-sabotage to learn from it. I think a great example of that would be like, you know, in the example of when I wanted to go back to my ex who was really bad for me,

when there were all these opportunities with new people who actually seemed to show a lot more promise, right? But I wanted to throw that all away and self-sabotage and go back to my ex because it was more comfortable and I was scared of what that success would bring. I did not go back to the ex. Did I really want to? Yes, but I knew I would regret it

and I pushed and pushed and pushed through and allowed myself to learn from the temptation to sabotage without actually sabotaging anything. And that's possible as well. And so anyway, with that being said, it's like 80% of the battle is trying to find the root of the desire to self-sabotage. Because once you know the root,

you can kind of solve it from there. You know what I'm saying? So let's start with self-hatred. If you hate yourself, okay, that means that in order to stop your cycle of self-sabotaging, you need to fix your self-esteem. And to build more respect for yourself, you have to do some stuff that seems almost so painfully obvious that it seems pointless

to even try. But the answer is painfully simple. I think self-respect comes through behaving admirably, making yourself proud, disciplining yourself, practicing being respectful to yourself, catching yourself saying mean thingsining yourself, practicing, being respectful to yourself, like catching yourself saying mean things to yourself and then reframing them, rephrasing them in your head, and learning to forgive yourself and allow yourself to make mistakes to make you better.

Just being gentler with yourself. It's so obvious, but that's all it is. I mean, that's all I know. That's all I can do. When I notice I'm in a phase of hating myself, I'll sort of figure out, all right, you know, maybe this week I can, I'll call, you know, one of my family members that I haven't talked to in a while

and I'll try to cook every day this week because that makes me feel proud, you know, and disciplined. You know, maybe I'll make sure I follow an exercise routine that will make me feel accomplished. I try to be a little bit kinder to people at the grocery store. It's like all these little things. I'm like, all right, I just need to get my shit together.

And it's shocking how all those little things will really make a difference in how you see yourself. And it seems too simple, but I think majority of self-sabotage is rooted in self-hatred and self-disrespect, to be honest. Like I would say for me, that is usually the cause for a phase of self-destruction for me.

And it's so tough because when you are in a phase of self-hatred and self-disrespect, you're like, why would I take care of myself? I don't care about myself. And I'd also say that this is one of the most complicated routes for self-sabotage because it's like this hamster wheel of a situation right you hate yourself So then you self-sabotage, but then self-sabotaging makes you hate yourself more So then you self-sabotage more and it's sort of this hamster wheel effect and in order to break the cycle you have to hop off the hamster wheel and

You know do all the things I just mentioned, behave admirably, make yourself proud, discipline yourself, practice being respectful to yourself, learning to forgive yourself, allowing yourself to make mistakes to make you better. Like, you have to jump off and use all the strength that you have to build just a little bit of respect for yourself and experience how good that feels,

and then be like, okay, you know what? Now I actually do wanna take care of myself because I respect myself enough again to do that. When my reasoning for self-sabotage is that I want to distract from another pain, I think instead of allowing myself to cause other pain, I need to do the harder work, which is address the root of the pain.

What is, you know what I mean? Like what's that initial pain that I'm trying to cover up? Addressing that head on, which can be really uncomfortable and at times even more painful. It's almost like when you have an open wound on your leg and you have to disinfect it so that it doesn't get infected later and

cause a whole more painful, more dangerous sort of issue. But in the moment, disinfecting that wound is incredibly painful, but it's preventing pain down the line that's 50 times worse because it was left untreated and it festered and got 50 times worse because it was left untreated and it festered and got 50 times worse, right? It's the same thing with other sort of pains in our lives, emotional pains in our lives. If we don't address them, they just get worse for the most part. And it can cause us to self-sabotage to distract us from what's really bothering us, you know? And I think the key to that is just like being like,

all right, well, I guess I need to figure out what will alleviate this pain. If you're afraid of success, and that's why you're self-sabotaging, it's about constantly reminding yourself that no success is acquired without the risk for an even harder fall. You know?

Like that is just the risk that every single human being on this planet takes to ultimately achieve something great. Whether it's in love or it's in career or it's in anything, it doesn't matter. That is just the reality of success. And I think what I've done, you know, in terms of this is just I've learned to accept and even at times expect the worst to come. And through accepting it and expecting it, through accepting and expecting the potential for things to go wrong, instead of being really afraid all the time

and being like, oh my God, what am I gonna do if everything goes wrong? I'm like, I know that there's a chance that things might go wrong, and I have a plan for if things do. I have a plan, I feel comfortable with this reality, and I've made the decision that the risk of things failing is worth the risk of things succeeding, you know?

And I think being in touch with all the different ways that things can go and finding acceptance is kind of all you can do. But also sometimes you might be like, you know what? It's not worth it. I don't care about being successful in my job enough to take these types of risks. I'd rather just be comfortable in this area of my life and take less risks. And over here in love, you know, it's more important to me to take risks in love and potentially have

an incredible success because that's my number one priority. You know, spend all your energy on that. We have to also be realistic about what we're emotionally capable of. Like we're not emotionally capable of, I don't know, like finding immense success in all areas of our life. Like, it's okay to be successful in one area and sort of more stagnant and whatever in another area. It's up to us to figure out what is worth that risk and stuff, you know?

When it comes to weakness in your moral compass, you know, like if that's why you're, you know, finding yourself self-sabotaging because your moral compass isn't strong enough, honestly, sometimes you just have to touch the stove to realize that it's hot, you know what I mean? And I think, I almost feel like if the reason why you're self-sabotaging is because your moral compass is not strong enough, you know, do your best to be like, Hey, you know, better, don't listen to that devil on your shoulder. But a lot of times the way that we strengthen our moral compass is by making mistakes. And because of that, I say, maybe let yourself self

sabotage, pay the price, and then use that to teach you a lesson and make your moral compass stronger. I mean, obviously in theory, it's better to be like, hey, you know better and to take all the strength you have and not go and fuck up, you know what I mean? But I always have to touch the stove to know that it's hot. And if the reason why you're self-sabotaging

is because you just want instant gratification and you just like, you can't, even if you know that instant gratification leads to long-term Suffering sometimes instant gratification is so tempting That you just do it anyway and often that is sort of a form of self-sabotage Because it feels really good now even though you know, it's gonna be a catastrophe for you later You know like for me, I know drinking causes me anxiety, but in the moment, I can be too tempted by the fun

and the escapism, you know? So I just fucking drink anyway. Or like texting my ex because it feels good in the moment and it is instant gratification, even though later I'll regret it because I know I shouldn't speak to them again and speaking to them and opening up the door again only causes more pain longterm.

You know, in my life thus far, when it comes to instant gratification, I've noticed that a lot of times, you just have to make that mistake over and over and over again until you ultimately learn your lesson because it fucks you up so bad. But if you want to avoid it,

my advice would be to make a plan. I think making a plan is incredibly beneficial, you know? Like next time I'm tempted to instantly gratify myself, which is ultimately self-sabotage, what am I going to do instead? So you're like, okay, well next time I get tempted to text text my ex, I'm gonna go for a walk with my friend, my neighbor. Let's say, okay, let's say your best friend is your neighbor. Wow, lucky you.

Next time you wanna text your ex, okay, go on a walk with your friend. Or like for me, when I would get tempted to like text an ex, I would call my parents first and be like, tell me why I shouldn't do this right now. And they would talk me out of it. And that became my plan, you know? Or when it came to, you know,

okay, how do I stop drinking when I go out? Because I get really anxious the next day and depressed and like, just does not make me happy. My quality of life suffers or whatever. I made a plan like, you know what? Actually, this has happened to me multiple times in my life and I've done a few different things. I've come to the conclusion that

I'm not gonna go out for a while. I've given myself drink limits like, I'll have one drink and sip on it over the course of like the whole night, you know? Or I'm gonna make it a challenge, like a fun challenge to go out and have just as much fun without alcohol. You know, make a plan. Making a plan is incredibly helpful.

And then I think in general, something that helps when it comes to self-sabotage is changing your lens on the world as a whole. I've noticed that when I'm feeling really pessimistic about the world, about people around me, the world itself, everything, right? My temptation to self-sabotage is much stronger. Like, why do anything good when the world sucks? Like, you know what I'm saying? I think it's easier to find the drive to do the right

thing when you see the world through a positive lens, a realistic lens still, because of course, as with all things, nothing is ever all good or all bad. I mean, there's always good and bad and everything, but it can be very easy to look at the world around us and just have a negative lens, and be like, everything sucks, everyone sucks, the world is horrible, nothing good ever happens,

you know, what's the point of doing the right thing in this world when this is a horrible place to be? I get it. Being a human being on this planet is challenging and it's fucking challenging in a different way for every single person on the planet. But I do think that a lot of times to try to find the good in the world and in life

itself can really help with self-sabotage because there is good in the world. There's good people. It's a miracle to be alive in general. And it sounds kind of corny, but that actually really does help me. And last but not least, something that I just think helps in general with self-sabotage and the temptation to self-sabotage is things to distract you. I notice that I am even more likely to self-sabotage regardless of the root of the self-sabotage.

I'm more likely to execute on it when I'm bored and I have nothing to do. And that's why I think it's so important to have certain things in your life that are routine, that keep you grounded in a way and distract you. Like that might be therapy, that might be exercise, that might be cooking, that might be social events. Like, you know, every Thursday night you go line dancing,

and then every Friday night you do a yoga class. Or it might be meditation. Every day you meditate for 20 minutes. Like, finding those little things that kind of keep you busy in a way that you can, that like, are either routinely on your schedule, like you do them, you know, every Thursday you're going to do this thing that you enjoy. And having as many of those things they think is possible sprinkled into your free time, the better. And they should be enjoyable to you, not like horrible. Like for example, I do a hot yoga class every weekend

with a friend and I exercise as many days a week as I can and as many days a week as my body wants me to. And I try to cook as much as possible. And I talk to my parents on the phone almost every day. There's certain things that I do that are a part of my routine that keep me busy so that I'm not just sitting around ruminating, wanting to self-sabotage.

And don't get me wrong, boredom is also good sometimes, but if we're bored too often, it can lead us to doing some dumb shit. Anyway, I don't know, that's all I have for today. That was like a really, self-sabotage in general is so complicated, so talking about it's really complicated. And I'm, I don't know. I'm no fucking genius.

So my brain hurts. Hopefully your brain doesn't hurt. And if it doesn't hurt and you enjoyed this episode, new episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday, stream anywhere you get podcasts, although video episodes are exclusively on Spotify. Check Anything Goes out on social media at Anything Goes. Find me on social media at Emma Chamberlain

and find my coffee company, possibly in a store near you. Target, Whole Foods, go find us there. And more places, store locator on www.chamberlaincoffee.com. Find us in a store near you or order online. Or find the brand on social media at Chamberlain Coffee to just, I don't know, watch some of our Instagram reels or TikTok videos or something. Anyway, thank you all for listening and hanging out.

It's always a pleasure. I'm still trying to figure out why I'm personally self-sabotaging right now. That's the phase of my self-sabotage phase that I'm in. I'm still trying to figure out why I've been so tempted to do it. I'll keep you updated. All right, I love you all, appreciate you all,

and I will talk to you very soon. Okay, bye.