Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Fitness and Build Real Momentum

Are you falling short of health and fitness goals due to a lack of knowledge, or falling victim to self-sabotage?

And more importantly…how do you stop yourself from self-sabotaging your fitness results every time you start to make progress and build momentum?

You start to see some weight loss.
You start getting consistent at the gym or going for a run.
You get to sleep at a decent time for a few nights in a row.

Then one missed day turns into another.

And another.

And you’re back to square one (or worse)

Self-sabotage cost me 10 years of fitness results

I spent over a decade in self-sabotaging habits when it came to my health and fitness. Despite many training mistakes (and many lessons learned), I finally got out of my own way and achieved sub 10% body fat.

It only took me about 10 years longer than it should have.

Don’t get me wrong, even during all my years of self-sabotaging cycles, I wasn’t unhealthy by any means. I could squat 350 lbs, take off and run a 6 something minute mile, and hold my own when it comes to my fitness — but none of that was what I really desired.

On the outside I was ‘healthy’. On the inside I kept running into the same wall over and over again.

I wanted to get lean. I wanted to drop body fat percentage while maintaining a high level of fitness.

Self-sabotage can be subtle.

You usually don’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late.

I would make just enough progress to feel like I was doing all the right things.

I would pick up momentum…and then something would come up.

A vacation or birthday celebration
A change in schedule
Simply getting bored with my current routine

I would blame it on something external, but the problem was always internal.

What is self-sabotage?

How do you know when you’re in a cycle of self-sabotage?

First you have to know what self-sabotage even is before you can spot it.

A quick Google search nails it:

Self-sabotage is the act of hindering your own goals, well-being, or relationships through behaviors or actions that undermine your progress. It’s a pattern of behavior where, despite wanting to succeed, a person engages in actions that prevent them from achieving their desired outcomes. These actions can be conscious or unconscious and often stem from underlying fears, insecurities, or negative beliefs.

Sound familiar?

‘Despite wanting to succeed, a person engages in actions that prevent them from achieving their desired outcomes.’

This implies a few things:

It’s not for a lack of desire to succeed. Most men want to shed some fat, build some muscle, improve their physique and performance. I wanted to get lean for a lot of years. It’s not a lack of motivation or desire that’s keeping you stuck.
It’s usually not for a lack of knowledge. Most men don’t need more knowledge, a new workout program, or a restrictive diet. Knowledge is rarely the issue when it comes to self-sabotaging. Here’s where it gets twisted: my belief that I needed more knowledge was actually a unconscious strategy I used to self-sabotage. I would over research, change things up, and lose momentum without realizing it.
It follows a pattern (or cycle). Here’s the good news. If it follows a pattern, or a cycle, you can learn to spot (and stop). Most patterns are unconscious and often run on autopilot without us realizing it. It took deeper digging to get to the root of why I continually fell victim to self-sabotaging tendencies.

Awareness is step one.

If you don’t know what self-sabotage is, or when you’re in the middle of a negative pattern, it’s going to be near impossible to get yourself out of it.

But awareness on its own is not enough.

How to get out of the fitness self-sabotage cycle

Once you identify that you’re slipping into self-sabotage, how to get yourself out?

You don’t just wake up one day in a negative cycle. Most of the time it happens gradually and often without realizing it.

I can think of many times on my own fitness journey, and when talking with coaching clients, where a cycle might look something like this:

You’re locked in on a diet and exercise program
You miss one day at the gym, or overeat at a social event or when out to eat
An ‘all or nothing’ mindset makes you feel guilty or you failed
You find yourself craving foods that have been ‘off limits’, or you tell yourself you might as well enjoy it while you can
One missed meal or workout turns into days (or weeks) of self-sabotaging tendencies

I see things like this all the time. The earlier you can spot it, the more successful you’ll be. Even knowing what I know now, and having seen huge transformation in my health and physique, I’m still prone to slip back into self-sabotaging cycles.

But what used to take me weeks or months to get out of now takes me days or hours.

Next time you find yourself in a self-sabotaging cycle, here is how to get yourself out:

Identify patterns

The earlier you can spot your patterns, the more successful you’ll be in preventing self-sabotaging tendencies.

Momentum is a powerful tool. It can work positively or negatively.

When you have positive momentum at your back, you feel unstoppable. When you’re stuck in negative momentum, you wonder if or how you’ll ever get out.

Negative momentum is best stopped early and aggressively.

Identify what patterns or triggers send you into self-sabotaging cycles.

It could be a missed workout, eating too much (or eating certain foods), a poor night of sleep, or higher stress.

Small actions

Once you know you’re starting down the path of self-sabotage, the key is quick and small action. Don’t wait for when you feel like it. Learn to take action even when you don’t feel like it. That’s the difference between discipline and willpower, so choose to take a small step to regain positive momentum.

This could be taking a walk instead of grabbing another snack, doing 50 pushups even when you miss the gym, or eating a big salad at your next meal (instead of waiting until ‘tomorrow’ or ‘Monday’ to start back up).

Better>perfect

All or nothing mindsets are a huge trigger into self-sabotaging cycles.

When you think everything has to be perfect, your likelihood of failure is only a matter of time. A perfectionist mindset leads to adopting a ‘screw it’ mentality when you mess up.

Instead of aiming for a perfection mindset, aim for a better mindset.

A perfect mindset leads to feelings of guilt, failure, and going off the rails.
A better mindset acknowledges you messed up, but that your progress isn’t lost with one bad decision.

This could mean having a drink, but passing on dessert (or vice versa) instead of having both.

This could mean a 10 minute run when you don’t have time to do your scheduled 60 minute workout.

Choosing better, not perfect, is a quick way to get out of a self-sabotaging cycle (or avoid it altogether).

Accountability

Accountability is a super power that most men avoid like the plague. I could have avoided many self-sabotaging cycles if I embraced accountability at a younger age.

You should be accountable to certain people: a coach, a mentor, a spouse, a friend.
You should also be accountable to a standard: what values and expectations you’ll choose to live up to, regardless of who’s watching or what’s happening around you.

Accountability is the cornerstone that gets my coaching clients real results that can last a lifetime. If you have the money to pay for coaching, it’s one of the best decisions you can make.

But you don’t need a coach to hold your hand if you’re accountable to a standard that you set.

This could be a certain number of workouts per week, steps per day, or process you follow to make sure you’re not overeating.

System safeguards

James Clear says that you don’t rise to the level of your abilities, you fall to the level of your systems.

If you don’t have systems and habits in place, you’ll continue to self-sabotage any time you get comfortable or complacent.

Find a sustainable system for your health, track the right data to keep you accountable, and be okay to make changes as you run into your guardrails.

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You’re not a failure for falling into self-sabotaging tendencies.

But once you know you’re in a negative cycle, you have a responsibility to get yourself out.

If you continue to find yourself in self-sabotaging patterns, and you’re ready to follow a proven process and get real accountability to reach your fitness and physique goals once and for all: fill out a coaching form to set up a call and learn how to finally get the results you desire.

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