To stop self-sabotaging, first you have to become aware of it. Try to catch yourself when you’re behaving habitually—even just saying to yourself, “I’m self-sabotaging,” can help, because the behavior is no longer unconscious. Once you have the awareness, pause for a couple of minutes and think about a better option. Keep this up for a few months and you’ll create new ways of being competent.
It might help to remember “the four stages of competence,” a theory developed in 1970s by the Gordon Training Institute. It describes the phases we all go through to learn a new skill.
Unconscious incompetence
Conscious incompetence
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Conscious competence
Unconscious competence