Are you unwittingly self-sabotaging?
- buckandrea
- Mar 17
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 18
Have you ever heard of the concept of self-sabotage? Or self-handicapping?
Have you ever experienced, or witnessed in others, almost making it, and then things suddenly fall apart?
Maybe you do something to sabotage your own success. Maybe something happens to sabotage your success?
If this rings true for you, that there is more going on than a one-off bad luck event, then perhaps you are teetering in the realm of fear of success, fear of rejection, going against your self-image, or operating outside of what you believe is possible for you.
As you experience more and more success, the stakes get higher and higher, and so can the fear.
This is a real phenomenon that is not much spoken about.
Instead of falling victim to your own fears, even deeply unconscious ones, you could choose the alternative – to embrace a few of the upcoming concepts to support you to keep going, even when you are doing great. And to start doing great if you are not yet.
If you have even the slightest inkling that you might be the reason why you are not flying as free or as high as you know you would love to, and are capable of, then please... read on.
Read on if you would like to learn more about upper limiting, self-sabotaging, and self-handicapping.
Are you creating your own best life?
UPPER LIMITING
In the book "The Big Leap" by Gay Hendricks, the term "Upper Limit Behaviours" refers to self-sabotaging patterns or behaviours that individuals engage in when they reach a certain level of success, happiness, or fulfilment. These behaviours are considered to be self-imposed limitations that prevent individuals from experiencing sustained success and reaching their full potential.
According to Gay Hendricks, we operate within 4 zones:
1. The Zone of Incompetence
2. The Zone of Competence
3. The Zone of Excellence
4. The Zone of Genius
You ‘Upper Limit’ (verb) when you bump up against your Zone of Genius.
Few people reach their Zone of Genius. Mostly – we stop ourselves, and we do it because of four hidden barriers that will not allow us to go beyond our Upper Limit.
THE FOUR BARRIERS AND FEARS THAT HOLD UPPER LIMIT PROBLEMS IN PLACE
Hidden Barrier #1: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed
The biggest and most widely-shared fear that many of us feel, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and that we’re undeserving of great success and happiness.
This fear causes us to hold ourselves back from fulfilling our ultimate potential because we feel we inherently don’t deserve it.
The unconscious mantra of this fear is: “I cannot expand to my full creative genius because something is fundamentally wrong with me.”
Hidden Barrier #2: Disloyalty and Abandonment
Another widely held fear is of being disloyal to or leaving behind people who have been there for us in the past. We pull back from greater success because we fear we’ll end up all alone, abandon our roots, and leave behind people whom we love or care for.
The unconscious mantra of this fear is: “I cannot expand to my full success because it would cause me to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots, and leave behind people from my past.”
Hidden Barrier #3: A Belief That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden
A third fear is of being a burden; some people unconsciously believe that more success will bring greater burdens.
The unconscious mantra of this fear is: “I can’t expand to my highest potential because I’d be an even bigger burden than I am now.”
Hidden Barrier #4: The Fear of Outshining
Common among gifted and talented children, this fear often emerges from a strong subliminal message they receive from their families that if you shine too much, you’ll make others feel bad or look bad.
Greater levels of success and happiness often trigger these fears, which then cause us to pull back to lower levels of fulfillment.
The unconscious mantra of this fear is: “I must not expand to my full success, because if I did, I would outshine (person) and make him or her look or feel bad.”
And then we upper limit ourselves in a whole bunch of ways.
Ways in which we Upper Limit ourselves
We worry – is ‘it’ a real possibility?
We criticise and blame, we argue and crimp the flow of positive energy
And, when things are going well, some of us have a pattern that is pure Upper Limit problem:
We get sick or hurt
Or we simply, self-sabotage
Time to get personal
When I first learned about self sabotaging, and in particular, Upper Limiting, so much of my life started to make more sense. Confusions gave way to moments of lucidity, and potential answers to elusive problems began to emerge.
This was a great big whopping potential aha – moment for me.
Actually I wasn't sure. It was a still a maybe. But it was so new and so dramatic a possibility.
Was this what had been happening to me over my years of trying so much, working so hard, getting so very close so many times?
I was working with my partner, who later became my husband in our own film production company in Africa, Los Angeles, and Australia. We worked hard, almost obsessively, and had so many brilliant opportunities, and such close outlandish successes.
When I look back at the things we turned down, at the decisions we made, and at the dramatic events that pulls us down, I wonder -- were we, was I, upper limiting?
Was I Upper Limiting when, as the producer, I turned down $6 million to make the movie, Bury Me Tracy?
If this incident was a stand-alone, then I would be fairly certain that I was upholding my values, simply following my inner moral compass. My transgender director, with experience directing 6 feature films in Hollywood and South Africa, was being rejected at the last minute, after 3 months of final negotiations. She and I had written the film; it was based on our own life story, and two straight white men on the board of Hoyts got last-minute cold feet. They (not in their words) would be more comfortable with a straight white male comedy director. Today this would not be contemplated for even a moment. However, back then, there were no diversity boxes to be ticked. I refused, and the money went to someone else's' film.
Were we Upper Limiting when we rejected the offer to run a wildlife film production company, making documentaries for Discovery and Disney Channel?
Was I Upper Limiting when I said no to the Tennessee banker offering to finance a documentary production company?
Was there more than coincidence at play with all the accidents and near-death experiences I have survived, culminating in my burst brain aneurism that took 10 years of recovery?
Much of this drama is in my TEDx StKilda talk, MY STORY: Challenging the myth of the Happy Ending.
Of course this whole notion that I 'stopped' myself by getting so stressed that my head 'exploded' is not fact. It is a theory. Maybe it was just bad luck. Maybe I never Upper Limited at all ....
Except. that deep down I know that I have not believed I was ever going to be that successful. I have not been convinced that things would work out for me. I have had self doubt, even while I have dedicated my life to striving and trying.
Now that I have pivoted, and re-created myself post-aneurism, I see so much more than I did back then. I now see the internal conflicts of belief vs. self doubt.
Now I know that if we doubt ourselves, or don’t believe that we are worthy/ capable of the thing we are striving for, then we might unconsciously sabotage.
Maybe I did. Maybe I just think that I might have.
Even if there is a tiny chance that I did all that to myself as I bumped up against my Upper Limit, and, if I was the one holding myself back from operating from my Zone Of Genius, then I would like to make sure my clients, my friends, my people learn from the error of my ways, and save themselves from the wasted time, and lost opportunities.
The biggest question for you is - are you living in your Zone Of Genius? Not everyone cares, but if you do, then it might be worth considering whether it is your environment, your circumstances, or yourself, that is stopping you from sharing your genius with the world.
NEXT ... stay tuned for a little dive into the tangential topic of Self Handicapping.
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