The Confidence Booster Newsletter
The Mr. Davidson & Geoffrey Issue (Self Sabotage)
This issue of the Confidence Booster Workout Newsletter focuses on the theme of Self-Sabotage. I offer no tips or strategies. Instead I provide a personal story that may shed some light on the way Self-Sabotage can take root. And the hope that it can change.
Remember - In The Presence Of Confidence, Doubt Cannot Exist
Mr. Davidson & Geoffrey
When I was seven years old my main passion and preoccupation was football. At school it was the only thing I cared about. During class my mind would drift ahead to the next break. When the bell went, I would run out into the yard in readiness for the game. I was known as The Scrounger. It meant goal-hanger. Someone who waits near the goal for the opportunity to score. In modern footballing parlance I would be called a predator. It was what I did best.
Whenever the ball came near to me, I would be on to it in a flash, looking to score. If I missed, I knew another chance would come my way. Doubt did not exist. If there had been an England Schools Playground Football Team for seven year olds, I would have been in it. The boy, the ball and the goal.
When the day came to pick the school football team, I was confident I would be picked. No one scored anything like the number of goals I scored. Mr Davidson was responsible for picking the team. When the time came to find out who was in the team, I was stunned to learn that I had been excluded. Mr. Davidson had picked his son Geoffrey in my place.
I didn't let anyone know how I felt. Inside was a cold feeling. A feeling of being alone. A feeling of exclusion. A feeling that I was being denied a chance to do something I loved to do. Without knowing why. In the absence of the reason why, it becomes easy to manufacture doubts and uncertainty about oneself. As if you are not good enough. As if it is your fault. As if he must be right. Yet it knew he wasn't.
A month later the class was auditioning for the school choir. I loved to sing. Each person would come out and sing 'All things bright and beautiful'. The music teacher would listen to you. I came out and sang in a dull voice, without a trace of melody. I sang like a robot. I sang deliberately badly. I sang so that I wouldn't get picked. I had decided that if I wasn't going to get picked, I would do the excluding. I wouldn't wait for them to exclude me.
This was my first experience of self-sabotage. A pattern had begun. A pattern of preventing good things from happening to me. Usually just before they happened. Whenever success came knocking I would make sure that I was out. Why? - Because I expected someone to take it away from me. I took pride in this attitude. It reinforced my identity as a rebel. Someone not part of the system. Not part of the cultural success machine. Success was for Mr. Davidson and Geoffrey.
This pattern continued over many years. I threw away potential career success like a drunken sailor. The self-sabotage pattern was a reaction. A reaction to show how hurt I felt. To join the cultural success machine would be to accept it's terms and conditions. Which I didn't. It's decision making seemed arbitrary. Unfair. And unreasonable.
It was only when I started coaching in 1996 that this rebel against authority world view felt like baggage I wanted to shed. It began to dawn on me that the rebel was not really a rebel at all, but an enthusiastic, passionate, inner life that didn't want to experience the pain of exclusion again. The rebel act was a shield of immunity. It kept me from pain.
I now had a job that tapped into my deeper values. The championing of the best in others. This lifted the way I felt about myself. It gave me the feeling that I could be of help. That the enthusiastic, passionate inner life had a place in the world. That I was included. Mr. Davidson was no longer making the decisions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading this far down. Please write to me at martin@theatreofwork.com with any questions or comments. See you next time. Martin
