Why Failure is Actually Part of the Journey to Get Your Health Back on Track

Have you ever heard the term “self-sabotage?”

Even if you’re not familiar, it’s very likely you’ve experienced it. 

You may have sabotaged a relationship in the past, or maybe you’ve even been sabotaged by someone else at some point in your life (the worst!). But in the context of health and wellness, here we’re talking about sabotaging our own efforts when it comes to our health goals.

It’s that point in your journey of getting your health back on track after things have been going super well, you’ve been knocking out your goals, and then all of a sudden you start to revert back to your old ways. You go back to those old habits you’ve worked so hard to get away from, and often you don’t even know why you’re doing it. 

Clients come to me at this point feeling defeated, like they’ve failed. But I’m here to tell you that’s actually part of the journey. 

You’re not a failure. You are, in fact, right where you should be. 

If that seems confusing, I totally get it. So let’s dive a little deeper into why it’s actually a GOOD sign that you’re seeing this resistance… 

Let’s start with a super simple science lesson about the brain (I’m no doctor, so this is SUPER simplified!).

Your brain has different parts that are responsible for different things—parts that are responsible for higher thinking and reasoning, and others that have purely primal and emotional functions. I’ll refer to this primal/emotional side as the “critter brain.”

Your critter brain’s primary concern is to keep you safe and comfortable. That means it wants everything to stay predictable and the same for you—your habits, your environment, your thoughts, etc. Basically, any change is a threat. 

So when your higher-thinking-brain sees that your old habits aren’t serving you anymore (like that nightly ice cream habit that’s comforting…but has added 15 lbs to your waistline and is slowing you down), you try to change your habits and begin eating healthier. You may start a new workout routine that you haven’t tried before, and you begin having different thoughts.

After a few weeks of these new and improved habits, your brain starts to freak out because it sees these changes as a threat to your basic primal needs of love, safety, and belonging. This sends your critter brain into a panic, so it tries to calm you down and regain balance by bringing back the old, comforting habits (ie, the ice cream). 

This part of the journey can be super frustrating when you don’t fully understand it. And it’s even more difficult when you don’t have the right support to help guide you through. 

When I’m working 1:1 with my clients, I can often sense when this is about to hit. Just last week I had a client who’s made amazing progress, and sure enough self-sabotage hit her hard this week. We spent the session exploring what triggered her sabotaging behavior and what she’ll do differently next time. 

The true test of success and lifelong changes is first recognizing that this is a part of the journey. And it means that you ARE indeed making big changes in your life. If you weren’t really changing anything, your critter brain wouldn’t be freaking out like that. 

And the second test of success is determined by what you do following those moments of self-sabotage— 

Are you going to give up on your goals and throw in the towel on all the progress you’ve made? Or are you going to give yourself some grace, explore what triggered your sabotaging behavior, and start fresh tomorrow with a new perspective and level of self-awareness?

Remember: 

You’re not a failure. 

You’re right where you’re supposed to be. 

You’ve got this.