33 Wretched Ways Self Sabotage is Wrecking Your Design Success

Self sabotage is an ugly monster that all of us wrestle with from HGTV famous Joanna Gaines to seasoned superstar Candace Olson, the designer just launching and one who’s been in business for decades. Self sabotage doesn’t play favorites.

The list of self sabotage here is going to make you feel both very bad and very good.

Very bad because you are going to see yourself in at least a few (if you are like most of us, it may be more than a few) of the wretched ways you are sabotaging your success that I’ve described here.

Very good because you’ll be able to gloat a bit knowing that I’ve indulged in, either wittingly or unwittingly, every single one of these and some of them all at one time. (I created this list in just 30 minutes, without the help of Google.  I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t experienced these self sabotage actions personally. It would be embarrassing, if it weren’t a valuable lesson.)

Very, very good because you have the ability to conquer each and every one of these ways you are sabotaging your success.

Recognition and awareness are the critical first steps in killing these success saboteurs.

Perhaps the most challenging part of self sabotage is that it forms patterns really fast; patterns that we become blind to. These same patterns are what blind us to our success and keep us stuck in sabotage.

Conquering self sabotage lies in creating a series of tiny (and I mean tiny) new habits that pull you out of the pattern in a way that has immediate reward and lasting impact. Trying to do it all at once guarantees failure (see #5).

Claim yours in the comments below, c’mon be brave. Your willingness to step up is going to be the push someone else needs.

1. Insist on doing everything yourself; refuse to delegate, outsource or hire.
2. Waste your time in non-critical tasks that bore you silly (and don’t move the needle forward.)
3. Wait for permission to do what you want, instead of simply seizing opportunity.
4. Focus on busy and forget that it’s productive that matters.
5. Resist setting achievable and profitable goals; set broad and huge goals you’ll never achieve.
6. Beat yourself up with the bat of perfection; never allowing yourself to be good enough to be done.
7. Ignore your physical health and essential self-care; run yourself into the ground and get sick.  
8. Argue for your limitations and defend your weaknesses.
9. Allow yourself to be intimidated by the competition instead of inspired by them.
10. Collect business cards at networking events instead of making meaningful connections.
11. Spend endless amounts of money you don’t have on programs you don’t need.
12. Refuse to identify a profitable target market and insist on serving a poverty population.
13. Surround yourself with whiners, complainers, naysayers, and doom predictors.
14. Avoid people who are successful and will challenge you because you don’t feel worthy of their attention.
15. Make excuses for why you don’t exercise, eat healthy, and take care of yourself.
16. Hide behind your computer (and social media); avoid being truly visible and credible in your business.
17. Use your “stories” (we all have them) as your eternal crutch for lack of success.
18. Reject using a proven system for launching a program in favor of winging it at the last minute.
19. Generate an unending series of excuses for why you aren’t bringing on board new clients.
20. Continue using the same process you know does NOT work for lead generation just because you can.
21. Decline opportunities to showcase your expertise and talent because you feel like an imposter.
22. Disregard necessary deadlines and always say yes to friends when they call to go out.
23. Watch hours of mindless television each evening instead of reading books to develop yourself.
24. Send your ezine (electronic newsletter) on an entirely random schedule, avoid consistency at all costs.
25. Discount your rates and deny your true value just to work with clients who aren’t the right fit anyway.
26. Sleep in every day leveraging the excuse that it’s still dark out.
27. Check email and social media constantly and open endless tabs in your browser.
28. Put off, until the last minute, vital preparation for presentations online and offline.
29. Dodge your accountability partner with self-deprecating remarks and focus on them only.
30. Play the “I’m just a newbie” or “I’m really an introvert” cards to avoid responsibility for lack of progress.
31. Zero in on what isn’t working and spend your time making that even bigger.
32. Forget to carry business cards so you can avoid being the professional you are and make connections that would deliver success.
33. Adjust your big dreams down to a much smaller size to fit your reality instead of your potential.

Remember what I said about self sabotage being a pattern? The first step to changing any pattern is to recognize it. And if you recognized yourself in one or many of the patterns above, help is just a click away. Let’s schedule a complimentary Designer Discovery session and take a look at where you are vs. where you want to be. I’m here to help you close that gap sooner and build a design practice you truly love.

Own up to just one or two or five or more of these wretched ways you are sabotaging your success and share them in the COMMENTS BELOW.

If you’ve already conquered them, we’d love to know how you did it.