How Do I Start Working on Self-Sabotage Patterns? First Steps

Q: I’m convinced I have self-sabotage patterns that are affecting my business. Where do I actually start?

The starting point matters because beginning at the wrong level produces effort without results — the work doesn’t address where the pattern is actually held. Here is a sequence that builds the necessary foundation before attempting to change behavior.

Step 1: Get Specific About What the Pattern Is

Before doing any inner work, spend time getting highly specific about the pattern you’re working with. This means:

• Identify the territory: Pricing? Visibility? Post-success consolidation? Strategic focus? The territory where the pattern is most consistent.
• Identify the behavior: The specific action that recurs — the discount, the delay, the retreat, the scope expansion. Not self-sabotage in general; this specific behavior.
• Identify the trigger: What circumstances reliably precede the behavior? What success threshold, what type of recognition, what income level, what kind of conversation?

This specificity is itself a significant development. Most people who begin this work are at the level of “I sometimes undermine myself.” Getting to “I discount pre-emptively in pricing conversations when I believe the other person could negotiate, which happens most strongly when I’m approaching my highest-ever month” is a meaningful advance.

Step 2: Build a Historical Map

Gather behavioral data before doing inner work. This means:

• Looking at pricing history: what did you charge when, and what pattern appears?
• Looking at visibility behavior: what is the actual consistency of the behavior, across what period?
• Looking at the post-success periods: what happened in the months following your five strongest periods in the past two years?

The historical data reveals the pattern in a way that introspection alone doesn’t. The pattern is often only visible at the aggregate level — any individual instance has a local explanation.

Step 3: Identify What the Pattern Is Protecting

With specificity and data, the next question is: what function is the pattern serving?

Three functions are most common:
– Threat avoidance: the behavior prevents approach to a consequence the system predicts (loss of belonging, criticism, exposure)
– Identity preservation: the behavior keeps the person within a self-concept that feels familiar and safe
– Relational preservation: the behavior manages economic or status distance from people whose belonging matters

You don’t need to identify the function with perfect certainty. You need enough clarity to point toward the right level of work.

Step 4: Identify the Primary Level

Where is the pattern most strongly held?
– Cognitive: the narrative justifications are the primary driver; questioning and examining them produces meaningful movement
– Somatic: the body’s response in trigger contexts is the primary driver; somatic practices are the most efficient entry point
– Identity: the self-concept is what the pattern is organized around; identity work is primary
– Relational: the social predictions are the primary driver; community and relational experience are central

Step 5: Begin One Level-Appropriate Practice

With the territory, the behavior, the function, and the level identified, begin one specific practice suited to the primary level.

For somatic-level patterns: begin body tracking in the specific trigger contexts. Before each pricing conversation or visibility action, check in with the body — what is present? Track this for two weeks before attempting any other change.

For identity-level patterns: begin five minutes of daily future-self contact — deliberate, specific contact with the version of you who operates without this specific pattern in this specific territory.

For cognitive-level patterns: begin examining the specific narrative the pattern generates. What is the claim? What evidence supports or contradicts it?

The practice should be small enough to do consistently and specific enough to produce real data.

The Invitation

The Abundance GPS community provides structured support for all five steps — the diagnostic framework, the historical mapping, and the level-appropriate practices.

Seven-day free trial.