Why Sabotage May Spike In Midlife And How To Stop It

We explore why midlife often triggers self-sabotage and how it can actually be a signal to realign with your values. We reframe “crisis” as a remembering, map the safety line, and share practical steps to build congruence, safety, and courageous action.

• midlife as remembering rather than crisis
• outgrowing survival-built identities
• inner saboteur and the safety line
• misalignment versus apathy or burnout
• shame reduction by depersonalizing sabotage
• practical signs of subtle self-sabotage
• values-first vision and congruence
• fear versus faith as a daily practice
• client case study on identity work and safety
• accountability and high-leverage actions

Go check out the program page if you're interested. And if it speaks to you, fill out an application and we will be in touch for a connection call

Chapters

• 0:15 Welcome And Topic Framing
• 0:51 The Midlife Tension Explained
• 2:05 Program Invitation: Magnetic Leader Accelerator
• 3:46 Reframing Midlife From Crisis To Calling
• 5:15 Outgrowing Your Old Identity
• 7:52 Safety Line And Inner Saboteur
• 9:56 Misalignment Versus Apathy Or Burnout
• 12:17 Body Signals And Overriding Safety
• 14:09 Patterns Of Sabotage In Daily Life
• 16:36 Awakening, Not Falling Behind
• 18:25 Fear, Faith, And Releasing Resistance
• 21:24 Client Case Study And Identity Work
• 25:01 Integration, Congruence, And Next Steps
• 27:26 Final Invitation And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

Welcome to the show leaders. Today we're talking about an interesting subject. I've talked about sabotage and self-sabotage many times. It's simply a form of self-protection. That's it. But I haven't really dove into sabotage that can sometimes rear its head in midlife. Now, midlife can be different for different people. I've heard people say that they feel like they're in midlife in their 30s, which I can tell you when I was in my 30s, I did not feel like I was in midlife. Whether you're in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, and you're thinking, okay, I have the wisdom, I have the knowledge, I have the education, but why do I feel like I'm shrinking, maybe delaying, overthinking, sabotaging, drifting through decisions that are not aligned, stalling myself. What is going on? If this is something you're experiencing, by the way, it is very normal. If you've been feeling this tension inside, like you're meant for more, but you can't really articulate it. The old ways of pushing and grinding and making things happen, they suddenly stop working. Maybe you're questioning your choices, you've tried in a way, and it just doesn't fix things anymore. Then this is a conversation for you. We're gonna talk about it. Before we get into the conversation, shout out to everyone that is applied to the magnetic leader accelerator. If you are finding that you're not where you want to be in your business, in your career, you previously set goals and you feel like you're not progressing at the speed you want, or you're not progressing at all, or you're struggling with the clarity to really craft a visceral vision that's gonna pull you forward. The magnetic leader accelerator hits on the main points that I see holds leaders back clarity, confidence, and accountability. And we're gonna be working in 2026, truly going big on the vision. Not just big for the sake of going big, but big for the sake of going aligned, aligned with your values, aligned with your desires, releasing the limitations that hold you back, and really focusing in on high-leverage, courageous actions. This is what the program is all about. Obviously, as always, mixed with the evidence-based and the intuitive, metaphysical, and practical. So go check out the program page if you're interested. And if it speaks to you, fill out an application and we will be in touch for a connection call. All right, let's get into this. So everyone, you know, that's talked about midlife in prior years with a lower level of consciousness, often talks about midlife as being a crisis or a freakout, a meltdown, a collapse. Oh my God, he bought a Ferrari. He must be having a midlife crisis. Midlife is not a crisis at all. It is a remembering. It's a calling back. It's, oh my God, what have I been doing these last few decades? Haven't really been living for me. Haven't really been tuned in to my values, what I actually want, what actually matters to me. So many of us high achievers have spent so long proving and doing things to prove we are worthy or prove we are this or that, whatever it is, whatever we feel we are lacking, we've spent so long proving that in our middle season of life, a lot of that starts to crumble. And it's a reckoning. Midlife sabotage often happens, not because things are completely falling apart, but because you've outgrown the identity that got you here. You've outgrown it. And a lot of times you've outgrown it a long time ago. So the strategies that worked in your twenties, in your early thirties, they're no longer going to work. And a lot of times they're no longer gonna work because they were built from survival, self-abandonment, proving, hustling, people pleasing, perfectionism. They were built from a performance version of you. And midlight is where a lot of your soul comes online again and it's gonna say, you know, enough. This is not working. We are not gonna do it like this anymore. And it really just depends. Are you gonna listen to that or are you gonna push it away? Push it away. So a lot of the sabotage that happens is because we are not congruent with ourselves, right? We got one part of us going this way. We got one part of us trying to keep ourselves safe. We got another part going that away. And sometimes what happens is nothing happens. We make no progress on what our soul is calling us toward because we're too busy trying to manage the chaos that is actually just a distraction. The inner saboteur is very sneaky and it will create obstacles, distractions that are not based in truth and reality. They are simply a protective mechanism and it will keep you exactly where it wants you in your safety line. If you're familiar with my work, I talk about the safety line a lot because the safety line is where your body, your mind, yourself feels safe. So let's look at the identity that you've built that is no longer the identity that you want to live in. Success built from performance or survival has an expiry date. It's not going to work forever. I've had clients come to me in their 40s and 50s, they've achieved a lot, they've made a lot of money, and they're absolutely miserable. They are disconnected from their work, they feel resentful of all the expectations that they once agreed to. They are exhausted when nothing's even real wrong, but they feel exhausted. They're like so exhausted, and they're bored with the old version of ambition because it was never truly fitting. Sometimes they've just grown out of it, they've passed the season. So this is misalignment. A lot of times people think it's apathy, or maybe they're depressed, or they're just going through the motions. It's typically when we dig in, misalignment. Your internal identity, right, has already changed. Your values have changed. The things that are important to you have changed, but your external life, it hasn't caught up yet. And you're doing the same things, but the internal you is no, this is not fitting anymore. We don't like this. But we keep doing it because our body, our system, our inner saboteurs trying to keep us safe and protected. So it keeps things the same. It views the same as being safe. So a lot of times people, they're in their 40s or 50s, their 50s, they come to me and they're like, oh, I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm getting older. I'm getting tired. No, you're not getting tired because you're aging. You're tired because for 20 years you've been overriding every signal your body has sent you. Your body's saying, no, we don't, we don't want this, while at the same time your body is trying to keep you safe.

unknown: 10:51

Right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:51

It's this vicious cycle that loops around. This is why it is really important if sabotage, self-sabotage is something you experience to get help, because there's so many blind spots with sabotage. One of the reasons why I like to help people with sabotage, and I can get down to the root and map out a plan very easily is because I've gone through it myself. And it can be very tricky as the blind spots will show themselves as real when they're not, or the roadblocks, I should say, as real roadblocks. But they're not. They're an illusion. And they're just an illusion to keep you safe. That's it. So midlife, when you're in midlife, mid-season, the midseason of your life, it does not tolerate hustling nonstop, overgiving, emotional labor, proving yourself, performing, suppressing your needs. It's not going to cut it anymore. Your body starts telling you a different story. You suddenly may realize that you've been living according to everyone else's values, but your own. And then everything starts to slip, right? The mask starts to slip. You start to see things with more clarity. You start to ask questions. What do I want? What do I not want? What feels completely dead now? What feels alive to me? What can I no longer tolerate? And this clarity can be quite scary when your life has been built around a certain framework, a certain identity. And then you're, ooh, what? This is not working for me anymore. I want something else. I want something else. And sometimes that something else can feel so big. It can feel so new and so fresh. That part of you comes in and is no. This is not, this isn't gonna work for us. This is new. This is big. This pushes us out of our comfort zone. And that's where these sabotaging patterns come in. Sabotage is just it's a group of patterns meant to keep you exactly how you are. That's it. Releasing the shame, because the shame and the judgment that comes with sabotage is typically the worst part of it. If you can see it as just a pattern, it's just something operating within you that is doing its job when you don't put yourself out there, when you don't take action, when you don't do the thing, it's doing its job. That's the only thing it cares about. We can start to depersonalize what it actually is. So how it can show up in your life is in many different ways. So it can sneak in subtly with overthinking every decision, feeling just a constant low grade anxiety, procrastinating on the things you normally do quite easily. It can show up as starting projects and then dropping them. And a lot of times you're in your mind, you're gonna have a reason why you dropped it, and it's gonna be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But it's not actually a valid reason, it's simply the pattern operating. So you can start to feel like, uh, meh, but the work you used to love, avoiding opportunities that you used to pray for, feeling resentful, but you're not sure why, can look like self-isolating, shopping, scrolling, overeating to soothe yourself, distracting yourself. You might feel like something is missing, but you can't really name it, just kind of loop around that thought pattern. So part of it is there's a deeper part within you, your soul, why you came here, beyond the human identity, and it's trying to move you forward, but your survival patterns are trying to keep you safe. It's like you're ch s someone trying to pull you forward, and someone's trying to pull you backward. Imagine if you can just visualize that. Someone's pulling you one arm, someone's pulling you the other. What's gonna happen? You're not gonna really go anywhere. You're just gonna be in the middle, in pain, hurting. The sabotage is the tug of war between who you've been and who you are becoming. So in midlife, when you're noticing these patterns, nothing is wrong with you. You're not becoming undisciplined or losing your edge, you're not falling behind. And it's really important you don't allow yourself to indulge in these thought patterns. And when I say indulge, this is usually the victim shadow archetype coming out because it loves to indulge in the stories, and this just perpetuates the sabotage, it continues it. You're not falling behind, you are awakening. Sabotage in midlife isn't something you need to fix. A lot of times, people go in it with a fixing mentality, especially if you're a high achiever, you want to fix things. It's not about fixing anything, it's about listening to it. It's your inner knowing coming through, saying the old way. It's not coming with us. We're not going to self-abandon, we're not gonna prove anymore. It's time to lead differently, it's time to get clear and truly honor our real values. It's time to become the next version of you. Not a better version. A lot of times the word better or become my best self is thrown around in personal development. It's quite harmful, right? It often perpetuates this idea that we're not good enough as we are right now. It's not about becoming a better version of you, it's becoming the next version. You're here to grow and expand and experience life. So often the resistance is just part of the rebirth. The tricky part of it is people can stay in their resistance way, way too long. Way, way too long. People can stay in the resistance for years and years. And unfortunately, some people never get to where they want to get because the resistance is too overpowering. Can you use your will to break free from sabotage? Yes, you can. I've done it. Sheer will, when I've been absolutely rock bottom, literally could not go any lower, or I'd probably be dead through addiction. However, a lot of times in midlife, things aren't rock bottom, even though they may seem like rock bottom if you've experienced something challenging. But usually they're okay, even if it's not where you want it to be, in whatever area comes up for you. It's usually not rock bottom. So that will often isn't strong enough to push you forward, right? This is where complacency comes in, right? Or golden handcuffs, or it's just good enough. And people can get really complacent with that. So it's truly honoring your values. What are you here for? If you're listening to podcasts, you obviously have a desire for something more. Not everyone listens to a personal growth, a development podcast. So if you're listening to it, you obviously have a value of growing and expanding. And part of that is really understanding and working through the resistance. Because as soon as we let go of resistance, we close the gap on where we are to where we want to be. And that's part of the experience here on planet Earth is seeing resistance for what it is: fear. That's all it is. Resistance is simply fear. You're either in fear or you're in love. You can't have fear and faith at the same time. You can't be in fear and an inner knowing that all is well at the same time. And the path to releasing the sabotaging patterns is leaning more on the side of faith, more on the side of love, more on the inner knowing that you are a divine being here for an experience, and you can let go of the fear and truly move forward in the path that your soul is calling you towards. I had a client who was in her late 40s, very successful, respected. Inside, however, she didn't feel great. She had a history of really not seeing her true value, as many of us have. It's so easy for us to see ourselves with dirty glasses on and see all the fault and none of the good stuff. And this client would often say she should be happier, she should be further ahead, she should be more grateful for what she's created, but part of what got her there was her creating from what she thought she should create. From her ego driving, this form of proving. And then in the mid-life, she started to awaken to something different, something more. She started to sabotage her growth, things such as missing deadlines, avoiding calls, starting to fantasize about leaving everything and running away, running away to a mountain somewhere. She would doubt herself. And it was an inner story that was happening. She felt like she was coming apart at the seams, but she wasn't breaking down. She was really breaking through. Part of the work that really helped this client was on deep identity work, uncovering her true values, what she valued, not what she learned to value through other people's story. We reconnected her to what lit her soul on fire. I know that sounds a little bit cheesy, but it's true. And she started to build from there. And one of the hugest parts to this client's journey was she started to feel safe. She started to feel safe moving in the direction, which allowed her to be in congruence. Where she was going, her thoughts, her emotions were all in alignment. So when you are feeling safe, when you feel worthy, your inner saboteur does not need to come on strong and keep you safe anymore. So it settles down. It calms down. You integrate the inner saboteur. It's remember, all it is, sabotage is only protection. That's it. So you working on getting into alignment, true alignment with your values, with your thoughts, with your beliefs. You start working on your body feeling safe. You will start moving in the direction and making progress. It's not always easy, but this is the beginning. Right? Sabotage is not all always the enemy. It's often the compass showing you exactly what needs to be worked through to get to the other side. I highly suggest if you've been in a pattern for a while to get support, get the support. Again, it can be challenging to do this on your own because of the blind spots and because of the subtlety that can show up. It's really helpful to have someone shining a spotlight on certain things that can go unnoticed when you're in these patterns. And it's often the things that kind of go unnoticed, like the subtle sabotaging patterns that are the ones that are really keeping you from experiencing and living the life and the business or the career that you truly desire that's calling you forward in this season of life. Again, if this is calling you and you want to have a conversation about the magnetic leader accelerator, the magnetic leader accelerator is your gateway to understanding what it takes to achieve your vision from the clarity, from the confidence, from the practical, and from the courageous actions. It's built to take you through a sequence to help you to understand what are those core values that you need to know and have in place for congruence, your vision, which we develop, a 12-month vision, which is completely aligned with those values. Because if our vision is not aligned with our values, again, this is where a lot of sabotage happens. And then the accountability to actually take the actions, because we can do the inner work, we can do all that stuff, we can have our vision, but if we don't actually have accountability to take the actions, nothing is gonna happen. So it's built on that to really help get you to the place in your business or in your work that is calling you forward. Leader, I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. And as always, let's stay connected.

SPEAKER_00: 29:10

Big dreams believing in wisdom, we seek and make up everything that you're looking for. Brought to you by Lisa Jack. The magnetic leader is done.