Leadership
How To Stop Sabotaging Your Own Success
Janine Jakob · 8 min read
As humans, we can't help but judge ourselves. It's how our mind works — our mind is programmed to sabotage us. The reason we judge ourselves comes from the survival instinct of our ancestors, who were hunters and gatherers. Even though we aren't in that society any more, our mindset still follows the same pattern, and it can heavily hinder our success.
So if we want to succeed, we need to give our minds a boost to catch up with the modern world, using Positive Intelligence.
What is Positive Intelligence (PQ)? Positive Intelligence is developing control over your own mind so you can unlock your full potential for happiness and success. It helps you define, measure and become more aware of your own performance and happiness.
People with a positive mindset perform better in the face of a challenge. Burt's Bees CEO John Replogle calls this the "happiness advantage," because every business outcome is better when the brain is positive.
Training your brain to think differently is similar to training your body at the gym. Engaging in just one of the following exercises for three weeks can rewire your brain to think more positively: write down three things you're grateful for; write a positive message to someone in your network; meditate for two minutes; exercise for ten minutes; write down a meaningful experience from the last 24 hours.
Name the pattern without becoming the pattern
Self-sabotage often appears as over-preparation, avoidance, perfectionism, constant comparison or saying yes to work that distracts from the real priority. The behaviour may once have protected you, but it can become expensive at a new level of responsibility.
Describe the pattern factually: the trigger, the response and the consequence. This creates distance between identity and behaviour and makes change more practical.
Look for the hidden reward
A repeated behaviour usually delivers a short-term benefit. Avoiding a decision delays conflict. Perfecting a document delays judgement. Taking on everything creates a feeling of control.
Ask what the behaviour protects you from and what it costs over time. A replacement must provide a healthier way to meet the underlying need.
Create a decision rule
When pressure is high, a pre-agreed rule can interrupt the familiar response. Examples include seeking one dissenting view before a major decision, sending a draft at eighty percent or waiting overnight before accepting a non-strategic commitment.
Good rules are specific, easy to remember and connected to a real trigger. They turn self-awareness into an operating mechanism.
Use trusted challenge
Senior leaders may receive less honest feedback as their authority grows. Build a small circle of people who can question your assumptions without needing to manage your reaction.
Ask for observations about behaviour, not labels about personality. Then close the loop by explaining what you will test and what happened.
Turn reflection into a working practice
Insight only becomes useful when it changes a decision, a behaviour or a system. Choose one action that can be completed this week, give it an owner and define what better will look like. Small, visible progress creates more confidence than an ambitious plan that never enters the calendar.
Review the result after thirty days. Keep what creates clarity or momentum, remove what adds noise, and make the next improvement from evidence rather than enthusiasm. This disciplined cycle is how a useful idea becomes part of the way a leader operates.
Executive action checklist
- Write one repeated trigger-response-consequence pattern.
- Identify the short-term reward the pattern provides.
- Create one decision rule for the next trigger.
- Ask a trusted person to observe the experiment.
Questions for reflection
- Which behaviour looks productive but delays the real work?
- What are you protecting yourself from?
- Who can challenge you honestly and constructively?
A practical 90-day implementation plan
The value of how to stop sabotaging your own success is not in agreeing with the idea. It is in building a repeatable practice around it. A ninety-day window is long enough to create evidence and short enough to maintain executive attention. Use the following sequence as a working plan, adapting the pace to the realities of your role and organization.
Days 1–30: establish the baseline
Begin with observation rather than reinvention. Document what happens now, who is affected and where the current approach creates friction. Complete the first action: Write one repeated trigger-response-consequence pattern. Discuss the result with one person who sees your work from a different angle. Their response will help distinguish a real pattern from a personal assumption.
Choose two indicators that can be reviewed without creating unnecessary reporting. One should measure activity and one should indicate quality. A visibility initiative, for example, might track relevant conversations as well as output. A leadership initiative might track whether decisions are made with greater clarity, not simply how many meetings took place.
Days 31–60: run a focused experiment
Use the second and third actions as a controlled experiment: Identify the short-term reward the pattern provides. Then create one decision rule for the next trigger. Keep the scope narrow enough that you can observe cause and effect. Explain the experiment to the people involved, including what you are testing, what will remain unchanged and when you will review it.
Record language, objections and unexpected responses. Executive work often improves through better questions rather than more activity. Return to the reflection prompts above and write a short answer to each. If the answers remain vague, the experiment probably needs a clearer audience, decision or standard.
Days 61–90: decide what becomes a system
Complete the final action: Ask a trusted person to observe the experiment. Compare the evidence with the baseline. Keep the elements that improved clarity, trust, consistency or commercial relevance. Adapt the elements that produced useful learning but not yet the intended outcome. Stop anything that added volume without value.
Finally, assign ownership and a review rhythm. A practice becomes durable when it has a place in the calendar, a person responsible for maintaining it and a reason to be revisited. The aim is not a perfect ninety-day transformation. It is a stronger way of operating, supported by evidence and ready for the next cycle of improvement.
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