Most of your lack of success a student is your own fault and you’re not even aware of it but I am going to show you how you self-sabotage as a student and teach you how to put a stop to it.

How You Learned To Self-Sabotage

If you’ve ever taken a psychology course, then you’ve probably heard of the Psychologist Martin Seligman or you’ve at least heard of his famous dog experiment.

Seligman built these two boxes, and inside of these two boxes, he placed dogs to receive electrical shocks.

No matter where in the box the dogs were, they would get shocked.

Now, in one of the boxes, we’ll call it ‘Box A’ the dog that was in that box had the opportunity to escape the shocks. He could jump over a partition, and escape the shocks.

In the other box, which we’ll call ‘Box B’ the dog was not given the opportunity to escape the shocks. No matter what he did, he would always get shocked.

Over time, the dog in box A figured out, “Hey, if I jump over here, I’m not going to get shocked.”

But the dog in box B would just lay down and take the shocks. Because he realized that no matter what he did, he was going to get shocked. Instead of fighting, instead of trying to scramble around, barking, and doing whatever, he just learned to lay his body down and take the hits.

But there is a second part to this experiment that is crucial to you understanding how you self-sabotage

In the second part of this experiment, the same dogs were placed in completely different boxes, where they both had the opportunity to escape the shocks.

The dog that was in box A figured out very quickly that he could escape the shocks similarly to the other box that he was in.

But the dog in box B, even though in this new box he could escape, he didn’t even try. Again, he would just lay down and take the shocks. Even though in this new environment, he had the opportunity to avoid that pain.

But what he learned was the term learned helplessness.

What Learned Helplessness Has To Do With Your Grades

What learned helplessness is the idea or the perception that you have no control over the outcome of the situation that you’re currently in.

Now, the thing that I want you to understand is that almost always this feeling of having no control is 100% a perception.

The example of the dogs is a perfect example of how this is just a perception, because even when the dogs were placed in a box where they could both escape, that one dog who believed in his mind that no matter what he did, he was still going to get shocked, could not find a way out. Even though, there was a way out.

His belief system wouldn’t allow him. What he chose to believe about the environment around him prevented him from safety.

Beliefs are just thoughts, words or experiences we’ve chosen to believe as true. 

One of the first ways students begin to self-sabotage is through blame and complaining.

If you find yourself constantly blaming people, or constantly complaining about something, let that be a warning sign to you, that you could possibly be in self-sabotaging mode.

You have a perception that you have no control over the situation, and so you start to blame people or things, or situations, right?

You start to complain about what you’re going through.  I’m going to use my own personal story as an example.

Nursing is my second degree. When I first went to college, I knew from the age of eight that I wanted to be in the medical field and that I wanted to be in women’s health. I went off to college to go to medical school. I was a pre-med major freshmen year, all the way towards the end of junior year of college.

I think I failed over seven classes during that period.  If you want proof, I’ll email you my transcript, because I’m not ashamed of that. I went to go meet with my advisor junior year and I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, I have to start thinking about medical school, and all that kind of stuff.”

She sat me down in her office and she looked me straight in the eye and she said to me, “You don’t have what it takes. You failed over five classes here, classes that are needed for you to get into the medical field. You don’t have the brains. You don’t have the capacity to go on to medical school or be in the medical field if I’m being frank with you. I think that you should pursue another path. I think that you should maybe consider becoming a teacher.”

I was absolutely completely devastated by what she had said to me. I was hurt.

I went through a period where I just felt really down about myself, because at some deep level, at some deep level, I believed her. I believe what it was that she was saying to me.

I absolutely believed that I was not smart enough, that I was not worthy enough, that I was not capable enough of being in the medical field.

What I did was go into the victim mentality and I started to self-sabotage.

I started blaming everything around me. I first started with my mom, because she pushed me to go to this private college where you can count the number of minority students in it.

I started saying, “If only my parents themselves got a college education, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation. If only they cared enough about putting me in the right schools that would prepare you for college, I wouldn’t be struggling as hard as I did. If only I would have gone to the schools that gave me full scholarships. If only I would have applied myself more. If only the professors in this college focused on us minority students, who didn’t have the privilege to go to prep school. If only I had been born rich. If only I had gone to a private high school. Then my situation would be different.”

I didn’t like how my advisor’s words made me feel like I was unworthy. I didn’t like the way that sat with me, and I didn’t want to feel those feelings. Instead of sitting with those emotions, I literally projected them on other people.

I literally wanted to take what it was that I was feeling, and dump it on my mom, and dump it on my dad, and dump it on this stupid private college that I went to, that doesn’t help its students, right?

How You’re Giving Away Your Academic Success 

Are you right now are saying to yourself, “My school doesn’t help us. The professors don’t tell us what is going to be on the exam. They don’t provide study sessions. They don’t help students that are struggling. My husband doesn’t help me, so I don’t have enough time to study.” Or, “I have five kids so this is not possible for me.”

You’re putting yourself in this victim mentality where you are literally giving away control. You’re giving away your power as a person. When you give away control, and when you give away power, there is no way that you can get better. Because your success is dependent on someone else.

Remember that I said that I did not like the way my advisor was making me feel. It had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with me. It was my thought system, what I believed about myself, what I thought about myself that was causing my feelings.

Here’s what you need to understand. That underneath it all, whenever we feel attacked at the bottom of it, is some thought or belief system that we’re feeding into.

Learned helplessness is a way of handing over control. When you hand over control, you hand over your power. When you give your power to someone else, you cannot succeed.

How to put a stop to self-sabatoge

Well the first thing that you have to do, is you have to separate your emotions from what’s actually happening.

You have to become aware of your thinking, and your thoughts. Like I said, you’re feeling attacked because of your perception, right?

It’s not true. Most of the time, people aren’t doing things at you.

Now in the case of my situation with my advisor, the thoughts that were making me believe what she was saying, and making me feel like she was somehow purposely hurting me, and trying to destroy my life as a future doctor, was because deep down I believed, and I thought that I wasn’t smart enough.

I thought that I didn’t have the intelligence level that quote/unquote, “Doctors needed to have in order to get into medical school.” Down, deep down, I believed that I wasn’t good enough, and smart enough, and it was that belief system in myself that made me feel hurt.

The first step to getting out of this self-sabotaging mode is understanding that.

Take back your power, by taking back responsibility. You have to take back responsibility by becoming aware of your thoughts.

The first step is to become aware of your thinking.

What are the thoughts that you’re having about the situation that are causing you to feel a certain way?

Ask yourself…

• “What’s really happening here?
• What are the facts?
• What am I making it mean?
• What am I making it mean that’s causing me to feel this way, feel helpless?
• What can I do to try to change the situation?”

That question, “What can I do?” Is so powerful.

When you can say to yourself, “This is what’s happening right now. This is actually happening. This is what I’m thinking about it. That thought is making me feel this way. Because of that, I’m acting this way. But what can I do to make it more of what I want? What can I change, what can I control?”

Those questions are so powerful in your education, especially when you run into situations where maybe you’re not getting the support that you want from your professor. Is that professor the only option?

Absolutely not, right?  If the professor didn’t teach it the way that you wanted to, you can go to tutoring. You can look up videos, you can ask a friend. There are so many different solutions.

Instead of saying, “This professor sucks. She didn’t help me. She didn’t even tell us anything. She just read the PowerPoints.” Okay, those are the facts.

That’s actually what happened. She did just stand up there and read the PowerPoints. You can’t change that.

But what can you change? What can you do to get the kind of education that you want?

You can apply somewhere else if you really wanted to, that’s an option too if you’re not getting the support that you want. But right now, this is where you’re at. You do have a professor who stands in front of the class and just goes through the PowerPoints, and doesn’t answer your questions. That’s actually happening. But that doesn’t have to stay your reality, okay?

You can do things outside of the classroom, you can seek help outside of the classroom. That doesn’t have to be your life if you don’t want it to be if you’re willing to step outside of learned helplessness.