A certainty of life is that it is full of challenges.  What you tell yourself can significantly impact how you navigate those challenges.  Our inner talk can be positive – “I’ve got this” – or neutral, but more often, it’s negative – “No one gets me”.  It’s this negative self-talk that shows up in the form of our inner saboteurs.      

Each of us develops these inner saboteurs during childhood to survive perceived physical and emotional threats.  Saboteurs were developed to handle things like:  

• a parent who favored a sibling over you  

• kids at school that were smarter, taller, faster, funnier  

• a time you failed publicly  

• rejection or betrayal by someone  

• being the oldest in the family and having to take care of others  

They represent the automatic patterns in your mind for how to think, feel, and respond.  They beat you up over mistakes, encourage unnecessary obsession with future performance, and keep you up at night.  They like to interfere with your performance, your well-being, your relationships, among many other impacts.  Our saboteurs take the form of “The Judge” – this affects everyone –  and eight other accomplices.     

How do we know what saboteurs show up for us?  

Take the quiz at https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ to find out.    

Here’s a quick look at three of the saboteurs.  

The Pleaser  

How do we know if The Pleaser is present for us?  The Pleaser may serve as an indirect attempt to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others. Who doesn’t want to help others?  The challenge is that The Pleaser loses sight of their own needs; they worry that insisting on their own needs will drive others away.  They may end up with resentments about being taken for granted, even though they didn’t express their needs.  

The Hyper-Achiever  

The Hyper-Achiever finds self-respect and self-validation through constant high performance and achievement.  They become focused on external success and can be highly competitive, leading to unsustainable workaholic tendencies and loss of touch with deeper emotional and relationship needs.  The Hyper-Achiever doesn’t like dwelling on feelings for too long, as feelings distract from achieving goals.  The Hyper-Achiever may fear intimacy and vulnerability, as closeness with others might allow others to see imperfections.   

The Restless 

The Restless saboteur finds themselves constantly in search of greater excitement in the next thing or activity, resulting in difficulty being present in the current moment.  They may tell themselves things like “This isn’t fulfilling,” “Negative feelings are bad, and I must shift my attention to something else,” or “Why can’t anyone keep up with me?”  

Do any of these three resonate for you?  There’s five more to check out.  Again, if you haven’t already, take the quiz at https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ .    

We can help you break through the saboteurs to find more positive self-talk.  Schedule your coaching session today.