Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | 3 Ways We Self-Sabotage and How to Stop | Dr Ramani Durvasula #467

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

We often seem to be our own worst enemies and there are some common ways that many of us self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is a spectrum of feelings, beliefs, and behaviours, but they all set us up to fail. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 332 of the podcast with clinical psychologist, Dr Ramani Durvasula. In this clip, she explains why perfectionism, social comparison and not living in alignment with our values are common forms of self-sabotage, and she shares some practical solutions to help overcome them. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/332 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 332 of the podcast with clinical psychologist Dr. Romani Duversula. In this clip, she explains why perfectionism, social comparison, and not living in alignment with our values are common forms of self-sabotage. And she shares some practical solutions to help overcome them. Perfectionism is a particularly nasty part of the self-sabotage cycle because it's setting a bar you will never reach. Nobody, nothing is perfect, right?

So just by setting a perfectionistic standard, you've already lost. You'll never get the thesis written. You'll never get the dinner made properly. Nothing's ever going to be enough. And because it's impossible to be perfect, people who are high in perfectionism really do exhaust themselves. could be a perfect parent and a perfect worker and have a perfect house and your refrigerator can be perfectly organized and you can have a perfect wardrobe and a perfect body. Those are always being touted as possible standards. And so because it's like, well, I could have a better body. I could have a more organized refrigerator. I could have a cleaner house or a more successful career. People are always pushing themselves. Perfectionism, what it does is it pushes people out of the moment. You're never staying present in the moment because there's always something else

you could be doing because there's no way to achieve that state. You're running after a constantly moving goalpost. You're never going to reach it. Yeah. You know, the way I've seen it with patients is, I don't know, something as simple as, yeah, doc, I want to, I'm going to start running. You know, I think that's going to be really good for me. And two months later, they still haven't done anything because they're still researching the best shoe or the right running gear or the correct type of workout to do, when just going for a 10-minute run around the block is probably the best thing they could do to get started. So I see this very much through the lens of health when people are trying to engage in health promotion behaviors. I think they do self-sabotage with this perfectionist ideal, this unattainable ideal.

What's the solution for that person? Or what's, you know, it's not easy to just click your fingers and go, oh, I'm not going to be a perfectionist anymore. I think it's often, it signifies something deeper underneath. But for someone who that resonates with, how can they start to think about it? How can they start to try and change it? Well, part of it is the tolerance of the discomfort of not being perfect. Does that make sense? Is that the idea of things not being perfect can literally bring up anxiety in a person. So in a way, you'd almost use some of the principles

we'd see in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder, that idea of exposure with response prevention, which is be in imperfection for a minute. Like, we're just going to hand that in like that. We're going to have people over. And yeah, there's still going to be some laundry in the corner. Let's see how that feels. I feel like I'm actually about to have a panic attack, but say, okay, we's still going to be some laundry in the corner. Let's see how that feels. And the person will say, I feel like I'm actually about to have a panic attack, but say,

okay, we're still going to do it. You're not going to, you're going to be fine. Even if you have a panic attack, it'll be fine. And then afterwards say, what was that like? And because again, what is it with OCD that people engage in the exposure, they recognize they're exposed to whatever the thing that they're afraid of without being able to do their compulsive behavior. And they're still standing when it's over. They're very uncomfortable, but they're still standing. They're like, okay, you're right. Nothing terrible happened. And it's that idea of nothing terrible happens when the perfect thing doesn't happen. This goes back to your earlier point of why in the case of things like illness or other sort of really bad things that befall a person, why we sometimes see a correction, that actually pushes back on perfection. When the whole world kind of comes crashing down on you,

right? People are getting sick and jobs are getting lost and people might even be losing their homes. Perfection kind of, you're just trying to stay alive. And those moments of survival can just be where some of that stuff almost gets broken off and it just goes away. But it is just the tolerating that discomfort. It's not easy to do because people are never going to run into discomfort is definitely one piece of it. I think another is also for people to get perspective and hearing the truth from other people. I hate to say it. We live in a world where a lot of people aren't telling the truth of their lives. And they're like, I've got it all figured out. I'm happily married and I have a beautiful home and I run every day and I do this and I do that. And I'll tell you that one thing I'm very

transparent about is what an absolute mess I am with people. I don't mean that in a disparaging way to myself, but like I am highly disorganized. I struggle with certain kinds of relationships. I think that when we can hear people really be open and honest, I think this idea of the therapist of having it all together, it's a very, very, very dangerous trope. Like I'm somebody who has had a lot of issues with toxic relationships in my life. I, and I've had experienced trauma and I see how like, you know, little things about myself. I was telling someone the other day, I can never sit in the middle of an auditorium. I always have to sit on the end or I will sit on the floor because I have panicky

thoughts when I can't get out of a space quickly because of my own trauma history. And so I'm the kind of bizarre looking woman who's like, I don't care if I can't hear or see, but I'm on the aisle now, so I'm okay. And so I think that when we start hearing other people's stuff, especially people that we might value or admire, all of a sudden it humanizes this idea that nobody's really perfect. And I think that we live in a world where we've almost fetishized people who seem to have it all together, right? And people don't feel good when they see that. It's not that they want other people to be suffering, but nobody's got it all together. And I think sadly, social media does to be suffering, but nobody's got it all together.

And I think sadly, social media does fetishize these people who seemingly have it all together. And I can guarantee you they don't. So that's another piece of this too, is recognizing that nobody does. That's that common humanity. That's such an essential part of self-compassion. You sharing that was really powerful. I think the more people who share the realness, the things that they're struggling with, not oversharing, which of course can be problematic, but just sharing some of those things, I think it helps the world actually be a more compassionate place. Absolutely. None of us are perfect. All of us have a thing, as it were. And I think that what we try to do too much is we try to create the mythology of people who don't have, people who have no thing, right? And it's a dangerous trope

because it does, it fosters that sense of it can be perfect. So I imagine comparing ourselves to others was also a problem 20 years ago, pre-social media, but I suspect it's got immeasurably worse. I've had the tremendous privilege of training and practicing as a therapist before there was ever social media. And now I'm practicing with it. And I have to tell you, those of us who have been in this game long enough to understand those bookends, it's like the difference between living in a life, then an asteroid hits the earth,

and then living in a new life. And it wasn't overnight. But when I think back to the sorts of, the ways we were grappling with some of these issues, you're absolutely right. Social comparison has always been an issue. Before it might have been a person compared themselves to their neighbor and the neighbor's new car or a cousin and the cousin's new job or a classmate or a friend.

The person will give you an example, Rangan. A person will want to lose weight. And they'll go on social media ostensibly for inspiration and look at these people who have these dramatic weight loss stories. Even their friends who are getting up every morning and doing some CrossFit and then they're showing their smoothie they made for breakfast. And then this person simply isn't able to do that for whatever their reasons are. They may be very real practical reasons, but as they see their friend's success on social media at weight loss, or even parenting is another great example. A person might be a

parent of young children and feel like I'm failing at this every day. And yet they see their friend with their perfectly quaffed children and saying, I'm a failure. And so looking at that will make a person say, I don't even know why I should try. That's another example of self-sabotage. But now though, the focus of comparison is everybody in the world that you might identify with. Even if a mother with a small child, you might live in Los Angeles and the mother of that small child might live in Boston. You identify with them as being a mother of a small child, much like you would a friend with a small child. The difference is this is a very different person than you. And yet you're comparing yourself to them on that one key similarity, right? And so what this has done is it has caused a tremendous distortion and a tremendous anxiety.

Whether the social comparison is happening in an online space, in your own peer group, in your family group, in your community, what it does, it sets up sort of a, you're now using the barometer as something outside of yourself. Human beings are a social species. We are going to use other people Human beings are a social species. We are going to use other people as sort of a touchstone. But when we over rely on that, then what ends up happening is we start living in service to what we think the world wants us to look like, the world expects us to do, what we think the world is telling us, for example, good parenting is, instead of sort of saying, well, this is my family. These are my children. This is what works for us, even if it may not be what works in the world. And I think that the ability to

sort of separate oneself and identity from what the world is demanding from them. That's a really, that's a kind of a tall order. But when people try to do what they think the world wants, right, I have to take the vacation to this place and stay in this hotel and do this activity because this is what looks good. I'm like, is that the vacation you really want to take? And then that's almost a self-sabotage of the precious amount of vacation time they have.

That now they've tried to go and do what they think someone else wants them to do. And they've lost a really important, restorative, recreational time. It can apply to anything. But the level of social comparison people are engaging in is really resulting in a lot of distress. And in all ways, instead of people saying, what matters to me? It may not be the same as what sort of, I'm being told matters to the world at large. You know, Dr. Ramani, what can people actually do? Because it's easy to say to people,

don't compare. It's not good for you. We all know when we compare too much, it doesn't feel good. Yet these platforms are so, I don't know, they're so tempting for so many of us. What do you practically do with people who are falling into that trap? I think that the place to begin is not to tell people to not socially compare, but to actually drill down into themselves and very intentionally, honestly, even once a day

to ask themselves the question, who am I? What do I stand for? What am I about? They seem like such simple questions. You can do them while you're sitting on a bus, on a subway, in the car, taking a walk. Look, who are you? What is your you? What matters are you? Like, what, what, what is, what is your you? You know, what, what, what matters to you? And all of a sudden it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're trying to shoot for something extraordinary or ordinary or everything in the middle. When you do that, you may catch yourself and saying, ah, it was so, it's really sort of the model of keeping up with the Joneses. I was so focused on keeping up with the Joneses that I actually, what I'm about is a person might say, I'm about family. And actually, I don't really care that I have a big car if I'm able to get home by 4.30 and spend time with my children. Someone else will say, I'm a teacher,

and I'm really about teaching. And yeah, maybe I'm not doing this and this or whatever, but that's what I've signed up to do or whatever it is a person does. I'm a storyteller, whatever. And it's funny, I can only give this from a personal example, but I was recently in a situation where I was being told, you're not doing enough of this, Ramani, and you're not doing enough of that, and you could be doing this and you could be doing that.

And I actually was really anxious about it in the last few days. And when I woke up this morning, my procrastinated rush, I did in the shower reflect on this idea of, Ramani, what are you about? What is it you set out to do? And when I did that, it became a recalibration of, yeah, actually you are doing what you set out to do. Perhaps if you did what these other people were doing, you'd make more money, you'd have more notoriety. But I'm like, do you need those things? I'm like, like, anyone wants a little more money, but more money,

more headaches. I'm able to pay my mortgage. I've got a car, I've got food in the house. And so I thought, before you get pulled in that direction, pay attention to whether you're living in alignment. And I actually don't think a lot of people have ever asked themselves that question of who are you and what are you about? Because the more of that you do, it does create a little distance between yourself and the social media. And you're able to say, ah, I see that this person is doing this and that's great. I'm happy that they're doing X, Y, or Z. I'm doing what I want to do. And then all of a sudden you're able to actually occupy more of a co-located space of they're doing that. That's different than me.

Sometimes we may even wonder if I had taken that path or what would this be like? But then also, even with my own clients, I'll say, let's do a little bit of guided imagery work. Work it as a mental experiment. Take it out in your mind. If you had those other things, like if even if I'm saying, well, if I had more notoriety or more money, then how would that pull me off my original mission? What would my day-to-day life look like? Is that what I really

want? You know, the old adage goes, be careful what you wish for, you might get it. And so I think that that kind of mental work on one's self, we are so focused on other, other, other. What do I look like to the world? That many people aren't asking themselves a simple existential question of what are you about? And then once you start doing that and you become your reference point, even when you get pulled and we all do like that person's got it together.

Whoa, that's a really nice house. How do you have so much time to travel? You then start seeing yourself within the context of your own life, what you stand for, what you are about. That I think is something that people aren't doing enough. And then if you want to look at social media, you'll be potentially looking at it through the eyes. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.