Everyone sabotages themselves all the time. It’s Natural Human Behaviour.

• It’s our natural mechanism for making us quit before we do something really stupid and get ourselves killed. 
• It is well evolved for keeping us safe whilst chasing mammoths, but a bit over the top for your average SUP race
• We must learn to recognise when the “self sabotage mechanism is limiting us too much”

How do we overcome it

Investigate our actions and emotions

• We need to learn to review how we react to situations
• We then need to catalogue them and decide if we react well to them
• We need to ask if each situations safety limits can and should be stretched a bit further
• After this we plan how we “want to react” to them in the future

Is this a good idea

• Not every act of Self Sabotage is a bad thing. As stated already, it is a natural thing thats stops us from taking things too far

BUT

• In sport we often decide on situations where we want to take off the safety limiters and push just a little bit more.
• This is where the mythical 110% comes in
• It is a good idea if you can do it safely
• Plan out these situations and ensure that we build in safety mechanisms and support to ensure that they don’t go badly wrong.

Example

• An excellent example of this could be Ultra Running Marathons.
• Competitors routinely push their bodies well beyond what is considered safe.
• Natural “Self Sabotaging” behaviours have been screaming at them to quit and save their bodies from damage for most of the race but they still go on
• The competitors have decided to train themselves to ignore these warnings and push on with the race

BUT

• They plan nutrition and hydration meticulously
• They will have specific criteria for when to continue or not (Time, Health Indicators, Weather etc…)
• They may carry comms/gps gear to call for help and broadcast their location
• They have strict medical checks at waypoints to ensure they are not going to kill themselves
• They often have mandated Sleep Breaks in the longer races
• They may have many volunteers in their team that are supporting them and keeping them safe

All of this adds up to a specific and managed exception to Natural Behaviour.

Treating it this way makes it safer AND also makes it easier to rationalise when your mind is trying to sabotage you with doubt.

• You have a plan
• You can be safe
• You can do this

Where do I start

Pick a single scenario where you always want to quit such as:

• Before the Race starts
• The long middle of the Race when things start to hurt
• Sprinting for the Finish (When things really hurt a lot)

Plan out how you are going to, recognise and deal with the doubts and Self Sabotage.

• When does it happen
• What is your mind telling you
• Should/Can you ignore it?
• What Self Talk will help you reframe the moment
• What Mental Techniques will help you (I always start with counting strokes. It is my default GoTo tool)
• What Safety Plans can ensure yourself that you can keep pushing
• What external help do you need (It might be as simple as someone calling out your name at the halfway point)

Practice all of the above in a Training session (Do nothing new in Races)