Children who grow up with loving, patient, and supportive parents develop healthy coping mechanisms when faced with stress and trauma. In adulthood, these individuals tend to be resilient, confident, and resourceful. If they do develop any self-defeating behavior, they are relatively minor and easy to overcome.
Conversely, abused or neglected children without parental love develop unhealthy coping mechanisms because they feel unprotected and alone. When they find themselves in stressful situations in adulthood, they do anything to make their unbearable feelings bearable. The same goes for children who did not lack love but adequate guidance from their parents. As adults, they often feel unsafe in the face of adversity because they feel incompetent and incapable. In both cases, their coping mechanisms that bring quick relief from discomfort eventually become self-defeating behaviors.
People who lack parental love or approval often chase them throughout their whole lives. Unfortunately, their many attempts to change the way their parents treat them turn out to be self-defeating since they continue to get the same response from them. Luckily, there is a way to beat this self-defeat.
Whenever you are unsatisfied with the way your parents treat you, do not blame them as usual. In many cases, what you want to get from them is precisely what they did not receive from their parents. As it is hard for them to give you what they lacked, they mimic their upbringing. If you want what you never got from your parent, become your own grandparent. That means, for instance, if you seek a parent’s approval, tell them you are proud of them because the great chances are they never heard this from their parents. Simply, stop defeating yourself by chasing their love and approval because you likely won’t get them.
People are peculiar creatures—just as they invent numerous ways to make their lives better, they also find plenty of ways to sabotage their love, happiness, and health. Perhaps one of the saddest things you can experience is to come to the end of your life and realize you haven’t fulfilled your hopes and dreams because you could not get out of your own way. Therefore, beat your self-defeat and start living a life you won’t later regret.
- Work on it now. As soon as you realize you repeatedly deal with stressful situations in the wrong way, immediately start taking steps to change. Face your problem because you might later regret all life opportunities that you missed.
- Jump from the frying pan onto the counter, not into the fire. In other words, be careful not to substitute your self-defeating behavior with one as damaging as the one you are trying to leave behind.
- Avoidance is not a solution. Remember—overcoming self-defeating behavior does not mean avoiding the situations that trigger it. It will only make things worse because the hurt and disappointment you feel will eventually grow into anger, resentment, and hate.
- There is nothing more futile than trying to change another person. Beating the self-defeat is about making positive changes in our behavior. Therefore, always concentrate on modifying yourself, not the people around you.
- You can’t fix something until you admit it’s broken. You cannot start improving yourself until you define what your problem is—that is always the first step towards overcoming self-defeat.
- It takes seconds to destroy and years to rebuild it. The longer you avoid changing, the more challenging it will be for you to regain other people’s trust and respect you lost while behaving in self-defeating ways.
- Where there’s a way, there’s a will. In our lives, we often lack the willpower to take steps to our goal. Nevertheless, when you find concrete ways to improve your behavior, the lack of will won’t be your problem anymore.
- You can teach an old dog new tricks. Recall these words whenever you lack confidence that you can replace your old approach to problems with new ones.
- Self-involvement is usually at the root of self-defeating behavior in relationships. However disturbing some experience is for you, do not get too preoccupied with yourself. Always try to imagine how others feel at that moment.
- Few things make you feel better than overcoming self-defeating behavior. Although impulsive acting removes the discomfort quickly, the relief you feel after is only short-lived. Once you learn how not to behave in self-defeating ways, “you will discover more self-esteem and self-respect than you have ever experienced in your life.”
