This questionnaire will help you identify irrational beliefs that limit your progress, as well as harmful behaviors. It is worth noting the negative patterns, as the path to change becomes obvious.
Questionnaire Instructions
Read the 30 statements below. Evaluate how applicable they are to your situation, using a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is “Not at all like me,” and 7 is “This is a big problem for me.”
Personal growth
1. You expect that you will be successful in all your endeavors, not giving yourself time to get comfortable with new information.
2. Your productivity depends on the behavior of other people. For example, you will exercise more or save money if your spouse supports and controls you.
3. You are a perfectionist who is not happy with gradual progress. You will be satisfied only if the task is 100 percent complete.
4. You are "too busy chasing cows to build a corral." You are overworked and there is no time left to improve your work process or come up with a system that will allow you to better manage time.
Pleasure and self-care
5. Your approach to pleasure is the denial-binge cycle. You deny yourself simple pleasures for a long time and do not let you relax, and then watch TV shows all night, eating cakes.
6. You ignore the warning signals that you need a break.
7. Minor trifles prevent you from doing what you love, but you do not get rid of them in a timely manner. For example, you like to take pictures and notice a successful shot, but your phone’s memory is full. You never bothered to clean it!
8. You do not do what you want, because you are convinced: "I can’t." For example, you think: "I will not go to dance classes until I lose weight."
Time and emotional energy
9. You spend a lot of time and effort on the "invention of the wheel." For example, make a list of necessary things every time, going on a trip, instead of compiling it once and for all. Or constantly reset passwords, which you then forget, instead of spending time setting up autocomplete.
10. You do not know how to plan and organize things: everyday duties can unsettle you. For example, you go to the store every other day, because you "unexpectedly" run out of food or basic necessities.
11. Your spouse or family members pass decision-making onto your shoulders. And you let them do it without offering to share this burden.
12. In situations where you can choose: to be happy or to be unhappy, you prefer to remain unhappy!
Putting things off for later
13. You create situations that promote procrastination. For example, you think: "I still don’t have enough time to vacuum the whole house, so I won’t do the cleaning at all."
14. You are over complicating any problem. You think for hours and endlessly research the situation, trying to find the perfect solution.
15. You are accustomed to behaviors that are psychologically comfortable, although harmful to you. For example, lingering in an office until late is more familiar and familiar to you than the need to balance work and family.
16. You are obsessively reflecting and worrying, not taking any action to solve the problem. For example, you worry about the security of your Internet accounts, but you don’t do anything to reduce the risk.
Relations
17. When your relationship deteriorates, you try to avoid negativity and avoid interaction, rather than making communication more positive.
18. "He sees a straw in a strange eye, but does not notice a log in his own." You complain about the behavior of other people, although you need to change yourself.
19. You are trying to influence people in ways that cannot be called effective. For example, you constantly nag your husband or whine and complain to friends.
20. You proceed from what, in your opinion, the situation should be, and do not live in the real world. For example, you expect your husband to remember exactly what products to buy at the supermarket. Therefore, you do not write instructions for him and do not put it in a prominent place, although this would solve the problem.
21. You do not take into account the opinions of other people. For example, your wife notices that you are wasting time, but you don’t recognize the problem.
22. You have “pain points”, the impact on which makes you overreact. You are not able to cope with your emotions and behavior when someone's careless word or act resurrects children's insults and injuries.
Job
23. You yourself create stress for yourself. For example, take more projects than the time you have.
24. You are distracted by the little things that absorb all your time, and most importantly remains incomplete.
25. You work a lot and are mired in the fluid, although all you need to do is take a step back and see the whole picture.
26. You criticize and punish yourself excessively, although acceptance and empathy positively affect your behavior and emotions.
Money
27. Are you afraid of investing or investing money because you feel guilty or ashamed about the bad decision you made many years ago. For example, you used money poorly when you were twenty years old. Now you are over forty, but you are still afraid to manage your finances.
28. You overpay due to unwillingness to take risks. For example, you could buy a non-original printer cartridge much cheaper, but you overpay for a brand for the sake of security.
29. You overpay for excessive benefits. For example, you expensively buy the most sophisticated model, although the additional functions that it provides are not so important for you.
30. You succumb to marketing tricks. For example, you pay 3 thousand more to stay at a hotel that belongs to a certain network because you collect loyalty points, while in reality these advantages cost no more than 500 rubles.
How to overcome self-sabotage?
1. Pay attention to negative patterns of behavior that you rated 5 points or higher. If you constantly exclaimed: “Yes, this is about me!”, Focus on the patterns that most affect your life and relationships.
2. Having identified the negative template, develop a specific plan for its replacement. For example, if you spoil relationships with colleagues by over-criticizing, set a goal for yourself - to make one positive comment at each meeting in which you participate. And the first phrase that you say, coming home after work, must also be positive!
3. Any change plan requires context. Tune yourself: "When X happens, I will make Y." For example: "When I participate in a meeting, I will definitely make a positive comment."
4. Improve your habits gradually (by 1, 10 or 20%). Do not try to get rid of unwanted behavior immediately. This attempt is doomed to failure. The gradual improvements that you make over time will bring more success and help you build new positive habits.
