Avoid Self-Sabotage When Energy Is Low

How to Avoid Self-Sabotage During Low-Energy Periods

 

Your energy won’t always be at peak performance, and that’s normal. Whether in your career or personal life, low-energy days are inevitable. The danger comes when we let those temporary dips in motivation lead to self-sabotaging decisions. Learning how to handle these periods with patience and strategy can protect your progress, your confidence, and your future goals.

 

You’re not always going to be at 100 per cent every time or in the mood to conquer the world. Sometimes your greatest conquest is going to be your bed at night (or any time for that matter), but that’s okay! 

 

It’s very much akin to the notion of motivation vs discipline. Motivation is fleeting, but discipline engenders that resolve to keep ‘keeping on’ even when you aren’t highly motivated to do so. When it comes to your energy reserves, like anything that runs on a battery or power of some sort, you’re sure to have those moments where your mind, body and soul have reached full capacity and are exhausted and drained. 

 

While this can sometimes register mentally as a bout of unproductivity or laziness, we must understand that this, too, shall pass. That lack of energy and motivation isn’t going to last forever. It can be quite a stress-free and painless period of existence if we only allow it to BE, but the issues arise when we make life decisions based on these temporal and unreliable feelings. 

 

Ever fumbled an important decision during a low period and instantly regretted it after? I’m sure you have! We all have TBH. Truthfully, still to this day, I consider the consequences of decisions that I would have made in a funk that I most certainly would not have made if I had not given in to intrusive thoughts and self-sabotaging tendencies. 

 

Moreover, negativity begets negativity. It’s easy to feel groggy about your career and work life when you’re in a down period, and you just genuinely feel unenthused about every and anything. The key is not to make big decisions about your career or life in those moments, especially when you know that you’re very much satisfied with your current placement and trajectory in life. Don’t let a fleeting moment of self-deprecation and/or existential awareness drive you to make decisions that are better made on a clearer mind and in a more conducive mood.

 

Now obviously, if your job or another key aspect of your life is causing you to feel despondent or misaligned, that’s a completely different conversation that you most definitely should get advice on. But when life has been objectively good, you’re satisfied and you still feel aligned, don’t sabotage yourself out of your blessings.

 

It’s easy to feel like “woe is me” and the infamous FML (iykyk) when you’re in the dumps and have minimal energy to show up and show out how you’re accustomed to doing so. This is the natural order of life to go through the ebbs and flows of existence, but it shouldn’t be an excuse to engage in self-sabotaging behaviours and habits that aren’t going to serve you in the long run.

 

Rule of Thumb:

If the decision could wait for this period to pass, wait it out and act on a much clearer head with higher energy levels. If you can’t delay the decision, however, get some trusted 2nd and 3rd-hand advice on the situation from people whom you first and foremost trust and secondly from persons who are qualified to advise on those matters.

 

Generally, here are THREE Tips that I’d recommend to avoid self-sabotage in a groggy period:

 

1. Focus on embracing the moment for what it is and not trying to speed through it because you figure your survival depends on it. Your survival just might depend on it, but not in the way that you perceive. It’s okay to feel down along the journey.
2. Try not to spiral and overthink. It’s easy to find and exaggerate problems and issues from all corners of your life when you’re feeling down. Don’t give in to it at all and go down a rabbit hole unnecessarily.
3. Practice gratitude to counteract those intrusive thoughts. When you think of two ways in which your life isn’t panning out how you feel it should, find four ways that testify to the fact that you’re living a life you hoped for right in this moment.

 

You might be feeling down right now and saying, “He’s just yapping at this point!”. I promise you, take a breather from this article and come back to it when you’re in a better frame of mind. It’ll all make sense in time.

 

Whatever you do, always remember that it’s never that serious. Don’t make a big deal about the small things or give yourself grace when working through the bigger things.

 

All in all, go easy on yourself and honour the season that you’re in.

 

If you found this article useful, you may also find much utility in this resource. Testing Your Thoughts Worksheet. My therapist gave me this a few years back when she identified that I was struggling with catastrophizing, i.e spiralling and predicting outcomes to no avail. It’s a great resource that helped me bring rationality to my thinking to avoid sabotaging myself.

 

PS: If you feel like you may require a bit more assistance, it’s perfectly okay and normal to seek out professional help. I’d recommend checking with your employer first to see if there’s a free EAP (Employee Assistance Programme), and if not, seek out private care with a licensed therapist or counsellor.