If it’s not keeping you safe, it’s keeping you small.

Beam Training
Mar 31
3 min read

When we opened our recent People People session on self-sabotage, over a hundred people had signed up. This insight was enough alone to let us know we have hit on an important topic.

Let’s quickly recap with a moment that was delivered during the session. Have you ever done any of the following?

Have you ever avoided a conversation you knew you needed to have?
Have you ever set impossibly high standards for yourself?
Have you ever known exactly what you should do next… and found yourself scrolling instead?

For those of us in people-centric roles, self-sabotage can be particularly sneaky. We are used to supporting others, we are used to being capable, composed and emotionally steady, but often, behind the scenes, we are the ones holding ourselves back.

Self-sabotage is a stress response.

Psychologically, it’s protective and when something feels risky like applying for a promotion, setting a boundary, raising our prices, speaking up in a meeting, our brain scans for threat. If we have ever felt embarrassed, rejected or exposed in the past, our system remembers. It quietly whispers: “Let’s not do that again.”

We procrastinate.

We overprepare.

We people-please.

We stay quiet to keep the peace.

We tell ourselves, “I’m just not quite ready yet.”

On the surface, these behaviours look sensible, responsible, but underneath, they are often fuelled by fear.

We are familiar with the fear of failing but are you fearful of success?

Fear of failure says: What if I get it wrong? Fear of success says: What if I get it right… and then can’t sustain it? What if people judge me? What if I’m exposed as not good enough?

That phrase, not good enough, sits at the heart of so much self-sabotage.

“If a belief isn’t keeping you physically safe, it’s keeping you small.” - Lianne

There is a difference between genuine danger and emotional discomfort. Yet many of us live in such physical comfort that we interpret any discomfort as a problem to eliminate. Growth, however, always carries a degree of discomfort. Stretching ourselves will feel unfamiliar. Speaking up will feel exposing.

Have you ever been told that growth is the other side of discomfort?

One of the exercises we explored was “fear mapping”: asking yourself what you’re avoiding, what you’re afraid would happen if you failed, what you’re afraid would happen if you succeeded and what you gain by staying stuck. That last question is powerful commonly answered by saying things like, comfort, familiarity, or the illusion of control.

The first step is noticing the pattern, are you procrastinating, or are you busying yourself trying to perfect the task? When you bring this awareness to the forefront of your mind you engage the rational part of your brain. You create space between the fear and the action.

From there, you don’t need a dramatic leap. You need a small, safe stretch.

One brave sentence in the meeting.

One boundary set kindly but clearly.

One application submitted before it feels perfect.

Self-sabotage is not proof that you are incapable. It is proof that your system is trying to protect you.

The question is: are you being protected… or are you being kept small?

This week, choose one small step that expands you, even if it feels uncomfortable.

You deserve to take up space too.