Stop Punching Yourself in the Face: 13 Self-Defeating Behaviors to Avoid
It’s not good to knock-out yourself.
Self-defeat is inevitable until you acknowledge you’re punching yourself in the face.
13 Self-Defeating Behaviors:
#1. People pleasing that motivates to stress-out over opinions and approval.
#2. Perseverance in the face of futility.
Stop rolling the same stone up the same hill. (Sisyphus)
Find a new stone or find a new hill.
#3. Defending your position instead of exploring options.
Your need to win defeats your team.
#4. Putting off important work until the last minute.
Procrastination is an excuse-maker’s back door.
#5. Perfecting before you go instead of perfecting as you go.
#6. Hanging from the knot at the end of the rope before seeking help.
If you want to go far, seek help early and often.
#7. Rejecting reasonable risk.
If you want things to be different next year, step out now.
#8. Giving feedback, but never seeking feedback.
The first function of leadership is model the way. Practice a behavior for three months before you ask others to practice it.
#9. Practicing pugilism on yourself.
Leadership is hard enough. Why not learn from mistakes instead of beating yourself down?
Obsessing about mistakes is a subtle form of arrogance. “I shouldn’t have done that.” But real people make mistakes. Wise people learn.
#10. Refusing to enjoy benefits and advantages.
#11. Avoiding elephants.
Only a two-year old believes monsters go away when you cover your eyes.
Difficult situations get worse when you avoid them.
#12. Dominating conversations.
The person who talks the most has the most power. If you want your team to feel powerful, listen to them talk.
#13. Dreaming without taking the next small step.
Any dream you can’t act on today is a self-defeating fantasy.
Tip: Sometimes the next step is learning from someone.
What self-defeating behaviors have you seen?
Which self-defeating behavior should you avoid today?
Bonus material:
7 Ways to Get Out of Your Own Way and Get things Done (Success)
10 Self-Defeating Behaviors to Avoid (FastCompany)
Ouch. So that hurt. Thanks, Dan, for calling us out and helping us up.
Thanks Justin. I respect your transparency. I’m usually kicking myself in the pants first. 🙂
Self-defeating behaviors are harmful to the individual, team, and organization. Self-defeating is leadership in a bubble of oneself. I found myself frustrated as I read through the 13 self-defeating behaviors. I asked myself, “imagine if one leader had the majority of traits?”
I have had the fortunate experience of leaders listening to everyone’s voice, not dominating the conversation and having a more informed decision-making process.
I find that the more you take risk, the more your risk is calculated. There is value and leadership lessons gained through risk whether it results in success or failure. If a leader never takes risks or leads outside of their comfort zone, they will never grow as a leader and their team will never be able meet their full potential.
Thanks Krishla.
I hope your schooling is going well. Your thoughts on risk-taking are important. Growth is about appropriate levels or risk. Cheers.
” Perseverance in the face of futility” – sounds like a definition of blind faith or grit…
“Reasonable risk” is another one – in most place the ALARA principle will be played to the hilt and the level of risk mitigation seen as “disproportionate” gets ever larger…
Thanks Mitch. I had to go look up ALARA.
ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) regulatory guidelines were initially developed to protect workers from unnecessary exposure to nuclear radiation.
Unwillingness to take reasonable risk affirms the status quo. Eventually we become ignorant and irrelevant in a changing world.
Dan, thank you for an excellent post – worth listing, memorizing, implementing – appreciate you
Thanks Scott. See you soon. I appreciate you, too.
This is a GREAT menu of often self imposed traits.
Items #12 and #13 are the ones that got my attention most:
“#12. Dominating conversations.
The person who talks the most has the most power. If you want your team to feel powerful, listen to them talk.
#13. Dreaming without taking the next small step.
Any dream you can’t act on today is a self-defeating fantasy.”
The dominating conversations reference reminds me of the narcissistic people in leadership positions that are referred to me for Coaching and I can’t deal with them because as long as their mouths are open a consistent physical reaction occurs on their part. . . . their EARS are closed and they are NOT open to hearing ANYTHING but themselves.
The Dreaming feature immediately took me to the process of “Appreciative Inquiry”, where Dreaming is one of the four critical steps to progress, as authored by David Cooperrider.
Excellent thought provoking missive to start the day.
Thank you.
Thanks Gregory. Here’s one thing I took from your comment. If your mouth is open your ears are closed. hmmm that stings a little.
Listening and Hearing are two different behaviors that few excel in executing or applying. When your mouth is running . . . You can’t be listening and since You are NOT listening, there is NO Hearing taking place. It is very common with people giving answers BEFORE the question is raised. Very irritating and unproductive.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been my own worse enemy. Defeating myself, over analyzing my last failure instead of learning how to improve from it. Learning that the storms will continue to happen, and remembering how I go through it, defines who I am and what kind of leader I’ll become.
Thanks Minor…brilliant reflection. Very encouraging, even if the lesson has been a little slow in coming. Best wishes.
“The person who talks the most has the most power. If you want your team to feel powerful, listen to them talk.” – this is a fine line, I agree leaders need to listen to their employees talk but there is also a time they need to speak up, shut a conversation down and make a decision. sometimes leaders spend too much time letting the conversations go on.
Thanks Marie. You write the truth. It’s frustrating when leaders listen too much and don’t make appropriate decisions or give needed direction.
Generally speaking, I know many more leaders who could listen more.
Regarding conversations that go on too long…this is a useful reminder. For example, with teams, it can be useful to interrupt a conversation and ask, “Can anyone think of a reason we can’t make a decision right now?”
If someone says, “I’m not comfortable making the decision right now,” ask…
On a scale of 1-10 how comfortable do you need to be?
Where are you right now, on a scale of 1 to 10?
What might help you get to an acceptable level of comfort?
What self-defeating behaviors have you seen? Pride and game playing for the sake of game playing. I have found that I can outlast the game players since they usually implode.
Thanks Roger. Your last sentence made me chuckle. 🙂
Some leaders like to be adversarial, for example, just because they can. Other leaders constantly posture so that they put themselves in the best light.
Game play is a distraction for high performance.
“Obsessing about mistakes is a subtle form of arrogance.” Ouch.
Been called both; but I suspect it’s a matter of perspective … there’s a difference between mindfulness (presence of potential) and obsession (fear of history dictating future).
When we presume that we actually comprehend a committee’s “lessons learned,” we often repeat the actual undiscerned “mistakes unnoticed.”
Ego and power often blind us to our biases, especially as to our denials.
Try to point out the obvious to these people, e.g. “We can’t do this …” and even if you provide a plausible, workable alternative, they will tell you, “do it anyway (’cause I said so).”
Then, after the man-made disaster happens and they’ve delegating the blaming to a committee (NOT to include you) for the lessons learned, they warn you not to say “I told you so” under penalty of very bad things, and around and around we go.
The arrogance would be in saying I told you so, not in trying to daylight the actual problem.
“A mistake repeated is a decision.” Paulo Coelho
Thanks Rurbane. Your ability to articulate the problems of ego and power is incredible.
The Coelho quote is a keeper!!
Any dream you can’t act on today is a self-defeating fantasy. WOW going to have to think about that. Some dreams are what keeps a leader going. The end result, what can be.
Thanks Walt. Hope it’s useful.
I find that dreamers might wait for better circumstances or the right timing before taking action. But if you can’t do something, even if it’s learning something, then you’re just circling the black hole… and perhaps waiting for the next excuse to NOT move forward.
I think I’m a bit harsh on this one.
Not harsh at all. Dream vs reality. How much time do we waste just dreaming of what could be.
After reading the title and before I even read this blog today, I knew it was going to be directed specifically at me! I knew it. #6 and #11 both applies to my daily work life. #6 – “Hanging from the knot at the end of the rope before seeking help,” is something that I am used to doing because of the lack of support from previous managers. Now that I have great and very supportive management, I still have the same PTSD mentality of trying to get everything done myself without asking for help. It’s a lot for one person and very overwhelming at times. I should be utilizing my support system more. #11 – “Avoiding elephants. Difficult situations get worse when you avoid them.” I was recently faced with a very difficult situation, one that should have ended in a person being terminated. Instead of dealing with it head-on, it just slowly went away. I have lost jobs before so it’s extremely difficult to be the person to cause that sort of pain to another person. As a manager, I have not learned how to process those feelings when making emotional decisions about an employee’s future with the company.
As I look down your list of self-defeating behaviors, I see many familiar habits. The first one referencing “people pleasing” stuck out to me immediately. I am guilty of this but have learned over the years supervising that you have to put friendship and feelings aside whenever you are making important decisions regarding the organization you represent. One of the others that stuck out to me was number three and four, defending your position instead of exploring options and procrastination. You see many people get defensive when asked about a certain topic in their wheelhouse that they feel they are questioned about. This immediately turns the meeting or conversation negative and is no benefit to anyone. Procrastination will kill any project and is a product of mediocre work. The last one I wanted to comment on is number six, hanging from the knot at the end of the rope before seeking help. It is crucial to ask for help from your colleagues before it is too late. No one wants to come into a disaster and play cleanup. People are more reluctant to come help before the bomb goes off. Self-awareness to know when to ask for help is a good quality to possess.
This topic greatly resonates with me lately. I am at the finish line of my MPH and a couple of years from 30. The question that has been lingering on is, “What now?” Like I have stated in a different post, I have had several different jobs as I explore the right career. The most current one on my white board is Physician. What holds me back is not the typical fears of age, the money and time, the commitment or sacrifices, but rather the self-defeating behavior of “Perfecting before you go instead of perfecting as you go.”
I have been going round and round trying to figure everything out and fixating on what specialty I would choose. Because I don’t have the ultimate answer yet, I have not taken the next step beyond just thinking about it and looking at a brand-new set of MCAT books sitting on the corner of my room. While pursuing medical school should not be a decision taken lightly, it should also not be hindered by the uncertainty that can only be revealed via the process anyways. Knowledge and experiences shape our decisions. Trusting and enjoying the process should be the key to perfecting as we go.