Saboteurs |

How to Stop Self Sabotage

by Lucy White | Sep 17, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, Saboteurs, self care

Congratulations!

You’re making progress with setting boundaries. You’re saying no to time-wasters and energy drains. You’re saying no to tasks and people who violate your principles or don’t contribute to your vision and goals.

Now, you see space opening up in your calendar and more mental bandwidth for what matters most.

So why aren’t you making more progress on your biggest goals? Why aren’t you saying yes to the things that you want?

Because you haven’t learned to stop self-sabotage, yet!

Here is a short story about hamburgers, sort of.

The Webers sign is a familiar milestone on the drive to Muskoka (aka cottage country.) On a long-weekend Friday, I’ve seen a hundred people in line waiting for a burger or hot dog. But, in the 40 years I’ve been making the drive past, I’d never stopped. I’d tell myself, “It’s too crowded. I don’t like to line up for food. Those hamburgers can’t be that good!”

And, then, inexplicably, I did stop.

I lined up, waited patiently and then ate the burger.

Was it good? No.

Was it worth it? Yes!!

The hamburger wasn’t the point.

Intercepting self-sabotage was.

The ‘reasons’ I hadn’t stopped over the years were self-sabotage. And, although this particular scenario is trivial, it’s part of a pattern of talking myself out of things I want to try. Letting my saboteurs say no, when I wanted to say yes.

Here’s what I’ve noticed in my work with nonprofit leaders: once you master boundaries and create time for your priorities, you’re building tolerance for change. And, suddenly your internal saboteurs get louder. They’re like that friend who’s supportive when you’re stuck in neutral but has all kinds of negative opinions when you start changing.

As I shared in my recent article about boundaries, learning to say no gives you the capacity to say yes to what truly matters. But saying yes to your vision and goals requires a different flex of your mental muscles—learning to recognize and overcome the ways we undermine our own progress through self-sabotage. Learning to stop self sabotage.

Understanding Self-Sabotaging Behaviours: Why We Get in Our Own Way

Self-sabotage isn’t random. Research shows that self-sabotaging behaviours like perfectionism, hyper-rationalism, and procrastination are prevalent across work, relationships, and personal goals. We each have a specific set of internal saboteurs that developed from our inherent strengths.

As we encountered difficult situations throughout life, we relied on those strengths to keep us safe. Over time, those strengths were overdeveloped and now as adults continue to show up to keep us safe and small.

How to Identify Your Self-Sabotage Patterns

The key is knowing how your saboteurs are running your personal show. Research by Positive Intelligence shows that there are 10 saboteurs and that we all have them in varying intensity (yes, you too! I have Avoider and Victim most prominently.)

Common types of self-sabotaging behaviours include:

Procrastination – Avoiding difficult tasks or conflicts to focus on the pleasant
Shiny object chasing – Never feeling at rest or satisfied and needing constant busyness
Perfectionism – Constant striving for perfection in all things, so nothing is ever good enough
People-pleasing – Flattering, rescuing or pleasing others to gain acceptance and love
Victimhood – Feeling self-pity, helplessness, and that things will always go wrong, so why try?

Once you become familiar with your saboteur patterns, you’ll start noticing them everywhere—when you postpone calling that major donor because you’re “waiting for the perfect time,” when you spend hours researching instead of writing that board presentation, or when you talk yourself out of trying that new hiking trail because it might be too difficult.

This awareness is your foundation. When you can predict how your saboteurs operate, you’re ready to start intercepting them in real-time and choosing a different path forward.

Want to identify and understand your top saboteurs? For only $37, I can help you understand exactly which patterns are holding you back and how. Click here to book your 45 minute Saboteur Discovery session.

Three Reasons Your Personal Boundaries Don’t Work (And How to Fix Them)

by Lucy White | Sep 10, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, positive mindset, Saboteurs, Sage Powers, self care, Values

“Thank you for thinking of me but I’m not available at this time.”

This is all I wrote when I declined to write a graduate school reference letter for a former colleague I had worked with briefly.

I had been brooding over my reply for a couple of weeks. I was surprised by how resentful I felt about this request. When the first email was followed by a second and then a text, I felt pushed. The text felt aggressive.

At the same time, I felt petty to be wanting to protect my time and boxed in by the request, feeling that I was holding this person’s future in my hands and therefore was obligated to agree.

What to do?

The Uncomfortable Truth About Boundaries

Life coach Nancy Levin says, a boundary is an agreement between you and yourself about what you will or will not do, accept or tolerate. A boundary is how you uphold a value or principle in your life. It is not about controlling other people and their behaviour. When you experience resentment, guilt, and other negative feelings, those feelings are signals that you are disrespecting your own boundaries.

Take a minute and let that sink in.

In my case, someone asked me to do them a favour and I felt resentful to have been asked even though I had total freedom to say no. So why did I have big negative feelings?

Digging deeper, I realized that I didn’t believe I had the right to protect my time, I didn’t have a “good reason” to decline, and more painfully, I didn’t feel I had the right to say no to a request with absolutely nothing in it for me.

Aha! My saboteurs wanted me to ignore my boundaries so they were sending me the message that I was not entitled to value myself that highly.

I felt selfish saying no but I did it anyway because what I really wanted, more than earning goodwill for writing the letter, was time to myself.

Three Common Boundary Mistakes You Are Probably Making

Boundaries are not about other people; they’re about you. You may want cousin Babs to stop making sexist jokes but your boundary is not a rule for them. It’s a rule for you. A clear statement about your boundary could be: “Babs, I don’t appreciate sexist jokes, so I’m going to leave if you continue.”
Resentment and guilt are signals that you, not others, are disrespecting your boundaries. When someone else’s behaviour triggers those feelings ask yourself what boundary is being challenged and why you feel you can’t say no. Saboteur-driven wants could be needing to: be liked or to earn affection, be a hero, avoid criticism or blame, or control another person’s experience. Protect your boundaries and say no to requests or circumstances that are out of alignment with what you truly want.
Boundaries are not walls, they are gates. Levin uses the metaphor of healthy, well-maintained personal boundaries as gateways to freedom. When you guard your values and principles, and focus on what you most desire, boundaries support you and your goals by creating space, preserving your energy, and maintaining your emotional safety.

Saying No Without Guilt

I’d like to tell you that saying no to writing the letter caused my feeling of selfishness to vanish. The reality is that I need more practice at setting healthy boundaries, recognizing and correcting my own boundary-breaking thoughts and behaviours, and more comfort with valuing myself highly enough to say no.

And, I’ll keep practicing and sitting in the discomfort until I get there.

If you realize you need to develop or refine healthy boundaries for work or home, connect with me here to explore how Mental Fitness coaching can help.

Don’t Forget to Celebrate That You Forgot!

by Lucy White | Aug 29, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, positive mindset, Saboteurs, Sage Powers, self care

Pop quiz time!

On Saturday, you promised yourself to walk every morning before work to improve your health. On Friday, you realize that you forgot to walk for the last two days. You:

Criticize yourself for being forgetful “as always!”
Commit to double-up your steps this weekend because “no pain, no gain!”
Give yourself a high-five in the mirror while saying “good job!”

When I tell my clients that the most motivating answer is ‘3’ they usually give me a very confused look. They think I want them to celebrate their failures.

Not exactly.

I want them to celebrate that they remembered they forgot! 😵

Why Should Nonprofit Leaders Celebrate Failure?

Although it’s baked into our culture, and maybe our DNA, to be critical of any kind of failure, most of us understand that forgetting is natural.

We:

order fries instead of salad (that’s me!)
drive instead of walk
react before taking three deep breaths
send the email without the attachment (also me!)

I’m sure you can think of a time (or more!) where you just forgot. It happens to all of us.

But instead of beating yourself up with critical thoughts, what I want you to try is to celebrate when you remember.

How Celebrating Builds Mental Fitness

Celebrating does two interesting things to our bodies and brains. First, a celebratory act releases the various feel-good hormones, like endorphins, into our systems.

Second, by rewarding our brains we train them to respond positively to failure. We lessen self-deprecating thoughts and our brains associate good feelings with the action we forgot. This improves the likelihood we will remember next time.

In my Mental Fitness programs, we frame this as moving from self-sabotage to sage wisdom. Learn more about Mental Fitness for nonprofit leaders, here.

What’s the Best Way to Celebrate?

Great ways to celebrate are to enjoy a sensory moment. Some examples that feel great and don’t drain your bank account:

sing or whistle
do a happy dance (The Twist, anyone?)
enjoy a special nibble
spend a few minutes in your garden or with your pet
give yourself a warm hug

Will you remember to give this a try? Let me know how you do!

How to Build Strong Connections in Four Steps

by Lucy White | Jul 10, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Group Coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, Saboteurs, Sage Powers, Values

Sitting at brunch, I was stunned to hear my friend tell me exactly what kind of friend and colleague she thought I was–a terrible one. “You missed my 40th birthday party,” she said. “You haven’t been there for me at all; not at home and not at work. I don’t even know why I bother with this friendship anymore.”

I was completely blindsided. Yes, I had missed her party. In fact, I’d missed a lot of things. I was in the middle of a divorce and barely managing to keep myself together. I hadn’t even let her know I wouldn’t be coming.

But Amy didn’t ask about any of that. And I didn’t explain.

When Saboteurs Collide

Looking back through the lens of Mental Fitness, I can see exactly what happened. Amy’s Victim saboteur had completely taken over. The Victim saboteur causes us to focus solely on our internal feelings, particularly painful ones. Her disappointment about her birthday had evolved into a story where I was a bad, selfish friend who didn’t care about her.

Meanwhile, my Avoider saboteur kicked into high gear. Rather than calmly explaining what I was going through or trying to empathize with her feelings of being neglected, I simply walked away from the friendship and let our work connection cool. The Avoider’s desire to avoid any kind of difficult conversation meant I let our friendship end rather than doing the difficult work to build a strong connection.

The Cost of Saboteur Interference

When our saboteurs drive our relationships, we miss opportunities for the strong connections we crave. Amy’s Victim saboteur prevented her from extending empathy or curiosity about my situation. My Avoider saboteur robbed us of the opportunity to work through our conflict and strengthen our friendship.

Amy had created a story that my absence meant I didn’t value our connection. I had created a story that her anger was too threatening to deal with.

Working with Empathy, Curiosity, and Discernment

I wonder now what might have happened if we had approached this conflict with empathy, curiosity and discernment rather than judgement?

Empathy would have helped Amy consider that things might be happening in my life that could explain my absence. It would have helped me consider how important that milestone birthday was to her and understand how deeply she felt my absence.

Curiosity would have led to mutual questions instead of accusations. “I missed you at my party. Is everything okay?” instead of “You’re a terrible friend.” Or from my side: “I’m sorry for missing your party. You sound really hurt and angry. Is that what you’re feeling?”

Discernment would have guided us to a deeper understanding of whether our responses aligned with our values and whether the friendship was mutually valuable.

What Science Tells Us About Connection

When we operate from empathy and curiosity rather than saboteur messages, we create what researchers call “psychological safety”—the sense that we can be vulnerable, make mistakes, and still be accepted. This is the foundation of fulfilling relationships.

Practical Steps to Build Strong Connections

Notice Your Saboteurs: When you feel triggered in a relationship, pause and ask: “Is a saboteur activated right now?” Are you creating negative stories about the other person’s intentions?

Use the “WIN” Question: When relationship conflicts arise, ask yourself “What’s Important Now?” Often, the answer isn’t being right–it’s preserving or deepening the connection.

Practice Empathy: Before deciding what someone’s behavior means, get curious about what might be driving it. What might they be experiencing that you don’t see?

Be Discerning: Sometimes ending relationships is the healthiest discerning choice; sometimes our saboteurs push us into judgement and behaviours that weaken rather than strengthen relationships that we value.

Sadly, Amy and I never did reconnect. But from that experience, I have worked to intercept my saboteurs and navigate my relationships from a place of self-compassion, empathy for my friends, and mutual curiosity.

Relationships at work, in our families, and with our friends will always come with challenges. How we choose to meet those challenges determines whether those challenges lead to the deeper connections we all desire.

Ready to Transform Your Relationships?

If you find your work and personal relationships challenging, if you want to improve them and create more fulfilling connections, and you’re curious about how Mental Fitness can help, I invite you to join the upcoming Calm Confident Nonprofit Leader course beginning September 8.

This comprehensive group program will give you the tools to recognize your saboteurs in real time, strengthen your inner powers including empathy and curiosity, and build the kind of stronger connections that energize rather than drain you–both personally and professionally.

With limited places available to ensure individual support and attention, early bird pricing is available until August 8.

Don’t let another important relationship end because of saboteur thinking. Use these four steps to build strong connections.

Transform Your Inner Critic: How to Stop Judging Others

by Lucy White | Jul 6, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, positive mindset, Saboteurs, Sage Powers

As I headed out to work elsewhere, I ran into my neighbour in the condo lobby. “Must be nice to be able to go out for fun instead of sweating all day like I have to,” they said in a unfriendly tone.

Yikes! My face got hot and my stomach flipped over. Two signs that my inner judge was fired up instantly.

Remember my sweaty morning meltdown when the air conditioning broke? I shared how my technique of “accept or convert” rescued me from turning an annoyance into a day-ruining drama. But it’s what happened next that really tested this approach.

When Judgement Gets Personal

Broken HVAC systems are one thing. Judging people – others and ourselves – is where things get stressful. That comment from my neighbour triggered a stream of judgemental thoughts: “They’re so whiny and sorry for themselves.” “I’m not going out for fun. Who do they think they are, commenting on what I’m doing?”

Then came the judgement about my own judgment: “Oh, now I’m being the whiny one.” “Why do I care what a stranger thinks about me?” “Just let this go! “

Sound familiar? We judge others for their behaviour, then judge ourselves for being judgemental. It’s our inner critic and it’s freaking exhausting.

The People Problem

Like circumstances, other people trigger our deepest stories about fairness, respect, and self-worth. When someone butts in line, speaks rudely or dismissively, our inner judge doesn’t just react to their behaviour – it creates stories about who they are, their intentions, and what it all means about us.

The same happens with self-judgement. We don’t just notice we made a mistake; our Judge decides we’re incompetent, lazy, or flawed in some other way.

Accept or Convert

Here’s how to apply the same framework when your inner judge targets other people or yourself:

Step One: Breathe and Catch the Judge

The moment you notice judgement – whether about someone else’s behaviour or your own perceived failures – pause. Place your hands on your heart, feel your feet, breathe. You’re not stopping the judgement; you’re creating space around it.

Step Two: Get Curious About the Judgement

Ask yourself: “Am I making up a story about this person? What could be true instead? What might also be true about them or their actions?”

If you’re judging yourself, ask: “What story am I telling about myself? Is this true? Is this how I would speak to a friend in this situation? If not, what would I say?” Curiosity moves the focus from judgement to empathy.

Step Three: Choose Your Response

Accepting the person’s behaviour (including your own) means recognizing we’re all human, complex, and probably doing their best with their current resources. In most cases, acceptance saves your mental and physical energy for things that really matter.

Converting means finding the gift or opportunity hidden in the interaction. The gift can be greater knowledge, increased strength of character or being able to take focused action.

I might understand that my neighbour’s comment exposed my own insecurities about working for myself.

Maybe I’d recognize that my Victim saboteur is super competitive and doesn’t want anyone else to be worse off than I am.

Perhaps there’s an opportunity for action: getting an HVAC update from the condo manager, inviting my neighbour for iced coffee at the café, or creating my own ‘employee manual’ to clarify my rules for self-employment.

The Learning in Letting Go

When I dialed down judging my neighbour and myself, things shifted. I understood that their comment said more about their choices than mine.

And my defensiveness? Just human. Normal. Nothing to fix or beat myself up for.

Later, typing up a storm in a cool coffee shop, I felt how much the whole small experience was a reminder of how much I still had to learn about myself and self-judgement.

Your Judgement Challenge

This week, I invite you to notice when your inner judge fixates on someone’s behaviour or your own human shortcomings.

Try the accept or convert approach. What shifts when you respond with curiosity instead of judgement? Can you transform your inner critic?

Hit reply to let me know how the experience was for you!

Judgement is human, but it doesn’t have to stress you and run your life. You always have the choice to accept or convert even your harshest judgements into opportunities and gifts.

Stop the Spin-Out! Stay Present with Mental Fitness

by Lucy White | Jun 13, 2025 | Coaching, executive coaching, Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Life Coaching, Mental Fitness, Positive Intelligence, positive mindset, Saboteurs, Sage Powers

My client said, “Sometimes a worry gets stuck in my mind and then I start to spin out.”

Spinning out.

Stuck in a loop.

In a tizzy.

Sound familiar?

There are a lot of ways to describe that feeling of being stuck in a mental loop, replaying past mistakes or worrying about future problems.

It’s rumination—that exhausting cycle of repetitive thoughts that drains your energy and happiness. And, rumination is often at the root of burnout for women nonprofit leaders.

The thing about rumination that you may not realize is that it only happens when you’ve mentally left the present.

Whether you’re judging yourself for past actions or anxiously worrying about what might go wrong tomorrow, rumination pulls you away from the here and now.

The Past-Future Trick

Rumination is sneaky and a favourite trick of the inner Judge saboteur. You think that you’re problem-solving when really, you’re just spinning your wheels.

That spinning out feeling emerges when you judge yourself harshly for things you can’t change (“I should have prepared more for that meeting”) or when you anticipate bad things that haven’t happened yet (“What if my presentation bombs tomorrow?”).

Neither scenario exists now and you lose peace of mind (and often sleep!) worrying about the past and the future.

How Women Nonprofit Leaders Self-Sabotage

Rumination is a form of self-sabotage experienced by many women nonprofit leaders, where you move from a valid concern, like needing to prepare well for a presentation, to getting stuck in negative thoughts that undermine your well-being and productivity.

Your inner resources—attention, energy, creativity—are misdirected to repetitive thoughts, leaving you exhausted and discouraged for what matters in the present. In the extreme, rumination can lead to burnout.

Break the Cycle with Mental Fitness Practices

Fortunately, with simple Mental Fitness practices, you can train your mind to break free from rumination.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Recognize Your Inner Saboteurs

Bring awareness to when your thoughts have shifted from productive thinking to “spinning out.” That’s your inner judge finding fault (“I always mess things up” or “I’ll never get this right”).

Notice if you have tense shoulders, shallow breathing, a knot in your stomach or another physical symptom that accompanies the mental feeling. When you catch these messages, don’t judge yourself for having them—just notice what’s happening.

Step 2: Return to the Present

Once you’ve recognized rumination, guide your attention back to the present. Try rubbing two fingers together, counting your breaths, feeling your body in contact with your chair or bed.

These simple practices interrupt the cycle of thoughts and anchors you through your senses with the present.

Step 3: Respond with Compassion

The final step is crucial: how you treat yourself when you catch rumination determines whether you’ll build mental fitness or fall back into the cycle of negative thinking. Speak to yourself as you would a dear friend or family member with compassion and empathy.

Celebrate when you catch yourself in rumination to connect the interruption with pleasure. You’ll build new neural pathways that, over time, reduce rumination and help you stay focused in the present.

Choose Presence

It’s totally natural for your thoughts to move between past, present, and future. But when those thoughts become stuck in a loop that reduces your well-being, that’s unhelpful rumination. By practicing the Mental Fitness techniques above, you’re not just reducing rumination—you’re building capacity for leading and living fully in the present.

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