How Do You Sabotage Yourself? Take a Run Through Your PACES™️ Hotspots.

The 5 main ways in which we do it to ourselves.

Source: Depositphotos

Hi and welcome to ‘Something More’. If you’re new here, I’m Caroline Ferguson, mindset trainer, speaker and therapist. Join us as we run through mindset and self-leadership tips that could help you become your “something more”.

How do we humans get in our own way?

While training to be a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist, I was taught that there are three main ways in which we routinely self-sabotage:

• PERFECTIONISM

• APPROVAL ADDICTION

• NEED FOR EASE

When I started working with clients, as well as addressing the issues they brought to therapy, I would assess for those three criteria to help me understand more about the core beliefs that were causing mental and emotional disturbance. Much of the time it was relatively easy to say “Yes, it’s that one”, or “Those two/three are clearly there”.

But sometimes it wasn’t so simple. We are complex creatures, after all, and three categories is not many. I kept having to bend people’s lived experiences to fit the criteria.

Was Person A’s need to do everything in the right order about Perfectionism? Or need for Ease? It didn’t seem to sit quite comfortably with either. Nor did Person B’s anger about having to meet other people’s expectations fit with Approval addiction or Perfectionism.

I found the system frustratingly confining, especially as I was committed to treating each person wholly as themselves.

As I write this, I’m amused to recognise for the first time that at least three of my own hotspots – not to mention my values – were being triggered by the limits of those categories. Self-awareness is an ongoing adventure! See if you can guess what my hotspots around this were. I’ll reveal them at the end.**

Over time, as I worked with more clients, I rebelled and added an extra category – need for CERTAINTY. That helped, but there was still a gap. Eventually I added one more: need for SOVEREIGNTY (initially called Self Rule). There, that was more like it.

I then held my metaphorical breath while testing the validity of these five common self-sabotage issues. Result? I no longer had to shoehorn people into boxes that didn’t quite fit them – hurrah! Whether on their own or layered over one another, the five hotspots were flexible enough to wrap around almost every individual. What’s more, my clients recognised and embraced them.

And so my PACES™️ model was born. Here are the five main ways in which we tend to sabotage ourselves:

• PERFECTIONISM

• APPROVAL ADDICTION

• Need for CERTAINTY

• Need for EASE

• Need for SOVEREIGNTY

Note that wanting to do well, or for someone to like us, or to know things will turn out well, or to stay within our comfort zone, or to do things our own way – these are not unhealthy desires. It’s when we turn our wants into rigid demands that we trip ourselves up.

The PACES model is one of the key self-awareness tools I teach everyone who chooses to hang out with me. Apart from the fact that it’s been thoroughly burn-tested, it’s very simple to use. Of course most of us have a reasonable idea of how we get in our own way, but I hope that as you walk through your PACES in this article (preferably with compassionate curiosity!) you might learn a little more about yourself, confirm a hunch or join some previously random dots.

Source: Depositphotos

Let’s take a quick look at the hotspots in turn. We’ll take a deeper dive into each of them in future article on Something More.

PERFECTIONISM (theme = ego)

Does the thought of putting yourself – or something of yours – out there when it’s ‘OK but not quite perfect’ make you feel apprehensive? Does the idea of failing or getting something publicly wrong trigger anxiety or shame? If so, welcome to the world of the perfectionist – one I’m all-too familiar with.

Perfectionism is about two things: a strong desire to do things brilliantly, and/or an equally strong desire to not fail. It’s natural to want to do things well and not get them wrong. It’s a key driver in leading us to push boundaries, expand what’s possible and strive for excellence.

The problem is, there comes a point where “I want to do well” can tip over into “I MUST do well, or else it would be really bad and I couldn’t bear it and it would mean I’m a failure.” How on earth can we do our best work with that script playing in our heads?

APPROVAL ADDICTION (theme = ego)

This one is all about needing others to validate us. There are two sides to approval addiction:

Attention-seeking – I’m sure we all know someone who pushes to the centre and soaks up attention. It can come across as self-promotion, but often they’re desperately seeking approval as proof that they’re worthwhile. It’s like the story of the little girl who constantly stared at herself in the mirror. Everyone thought she was vain, when really she needed to see her reflection to convince herself she existed.

People-pleasing – one of my previous favourites. People-pleasers get validation by prioritising the needs of others and being of service. We don’t want to let anyone down. It’s a risky strategy as often our efforts aren’t noticed, appreciated or reciprocated to the extent we think they should be. Cue hurt, resentment and passive aggression on our part, with plenty of pity parties.

NEED FOR CERTAINTY (theme = safety)

This is one of the new hotspots I added. I know all about it because it used to bite me. Some would say this fits into the Ease category, but ‘Certainty’ people are looking for a very specific type of comfort. We want ALL the answers, particularly those that relate to the questions: who, what, where, when, why and how.

We want to know what to do and how to do it. Where to find things. Who’s involved. When and why something is happening. Before trying something new, we want to know all the steps in the right order and have all the necessary kit. We also want to be assured that everything will turn out OK.

Demanding assurances that can’t be given may lead to horrible consequences like anxiety, procrastination and avoidance. We’ve recently seen a rash of these, largely, I suspect, because during the pandemic we couldn’t be sure of anything, even whether we’d come out alive. Major Certainty trigger, right there.

NEED FOR EASE (theme = safety)

This one hits people in different ways but it all comes down to wanting life to be safe and familiar. ‘Ease’ people want to stay well within their comfort zone.

This perhaps isn’t surprising when you look at human evolution. For much of the six million years since we hominids stood on our hind legs, the world was not a safe place. Every time we left the security of our shelter or community, we risked death from predators, marauders or the weather. Being cautious was crucial for our survival.

Most of us have a comfort zone and for some it’s a lot less roomy than others. For ‘Ease’ people, the consequences of facing a difficult situation or finding themselves in unfamiliar territory can range from mild concern, to anxiety, through to full-blown panic and terror. These emotions can prevent them from embracing their full potential – or at the very least make facing challenges and change difficult.

NEED FOR SOVEREIGNTY (theme = ego)

This is the second hotspot I added. If you’ve known me for a while you may notice it’s had a rebrand. I initially called it ‘Self Rule’, but that term isn’t familiar to many (mainly because I made it up).

The need for sovereignty is about autonomy, identity and control. It often expresses as “Don’t tell me what to do”, or “I’ll do it my way.” If you regularly feeling irritated when others interfere with what you’re doing, or, worse still, take it upon themselves to tell you what to do or how to do it, you may want to pay attention to this hotspot.

We all create our own set of rules, based on how we see ourselves and our place in the world. For those with a higher demand for autonomy, those rules can be more rigid and have greater negative consequences when our (yes, it’s one of mine) need for control isn’t met. That doesn’t always make us easy to deal with.

One event made me realise my Sovereignty hotspot was getting out of hand. I noticed I was becoming a tetchy driver, to the extent that as soon as I got behind the wheel, I felt annoyed. It wasn’t until I shouted at my sat nav one day that I realised I was irritated because this voice in my car was telling me what to do ALL THE TIME. I laughed so hard at this bolt of self-awareness that I had to pull over. I turned off the sat nav voice and calm driver Caroline returned. That incident made me reassess my Sovereignty response and see that my control freakery was getting a bit ahead of itself.

We’ll be covering Sovereignty in this month’s group-coaching session for paying subscribers, taking place this Wednesday at 8pm UK time. There’s still time to upgrade your subscription if you’d like to join us.

Source: Depositphotos

We all tend to experience all of the PACES, but we have our favourites.

Think about people close to you and try to identify their hotspots. Does your partner get frustrated when you ask them to do things around the house, and accuse you of nagging (Sovereignty)? Does your child get extra-reactive when exam time looms (Ease)? Does another child constantly need reassurance (Approval)? Does a work colleague place huge stress on themselves to get things right (Perfectionism)? Does a parent fret more than most about wanting to know what’s going on (Certainty)?

What about you? Which ones repeatedly pop up and sabotage you?

Note that we can have multiple PACES playing out at the same time. Perfectionism and Approval is a common combination, as is Ease and Certainty.

My own hotspots have changed over time. For much of my life I had major triggers around need for Certainty, and I was a habitual people-pleaser who lugged around a lot of hurt because I felt people didn’t notice when I needed support. Now I’ve found my something more, it’s much more about Perfectionism and Sovereignty. I want to do it well and I want to do it my way.

Knowing my PACES and becoming more self-aware has definitely helped me recognise and manage when I’m triggered and sabotaging myself. It’s not the situation that causes those unhelpful consequences, it’s what I’m telling myself about the situation (this isn’t new, Stoic philosopher Epictetus said it 2000 years ago). I’m thankful every day that I know how to identify, challenge and rewrite those unhelpful stories to give myself a better outcome.

Has this post clarified anything for you?

I’d love to hear whether you’ve learned or confirmed anything about your own habits while reading this article. Did you have any eureka moments, as I did when I started writing it?

** As mentioned further up, I’ve just realised three of my PACES were triggered when I was trying to squeeze my clients into the initial three categories:

• Perfectionism – The categories felt inadequate and didn’t provide enough accuracy or flexibility. I wanted to provide a more tailored experience.

• Approval addiction – I felt I was letting my clients down by trying to cram them into buckets that didn’t fit.

• Sovereignty - I didn’t want to be constrained by a formula that felt too narrow.

NB: your PACES are not bad

Here’s the thing: in themselves, our PACES are not villains. In fact they help flag up what’s important to us and go hand in hand with our values. In that respect they provide us with a useful compass. It’s only when we cling too tightly to our stories about what must or must not happen that we end up in trouble.

I wasn’t so triggered by the PACES beliefs above that I got stuck. My demands were never so rigid that I couldn’t find a way through. It was actually my frustrations that helped me recognise that the three-criteria model wasn’t wholly effective. That emotion directed my imagination to help me develop a (for me) more useful model.

At risk of repeating myself, wanting a thing to be a particular way is generally not self-sabotage. It only becomes destructive when we demand that thing, rigidly, irrationally and unhelpfully.

Finishing up…

There’s only been time for a quick gallop through the PACES hotspots in this post but I’ll be tackling them each in more detail in future articles. If you’re interested in a deeper dive, we’ve been going through them in turn over the last few months during our mindset group-coaching sessions. Live monthly coaching, plus recordings of all sessions, are available to paying subscribers for just £80 a year.

If we stay open and curious, and we habitually look for patterns, we’ll learn something about ourselves every day. I’d love it if you’d share your own hotspots in the comments and what, if anything, you’ve learned about yourself from this article.

That’s all for this week. Paying subscribers, don’t forget to check this article for the Zoom link for Wednesday’s coaching session. I’ll send you a reminder on Wednesday morning.

Take care and see you soon,