From time to time, you may undermine yourself on the job with your behaviour. This form of self-sabotage not only prevents you from performing to your full potential, but also gives colleagues and customers an opportunity to think less of you as an individual and professional. With self-awareness, determination and practice, you can minimise this negative behaviour. Try this three-step process.

Name your behaviour

The first step is to understand exactly how you undermine yourself. Three of the most common ways are:

Dwelling on the Negative: Whether in a recurring internal dialogue or conversations with colleagues, the themes are the same. You focus on what is bad about your situation versus what is good, what is not possible versus what is. You remember all the bad things that have happened to you, not your accomplishments.

Falling into Work-habit Traps: We all have bad work habits that act as traps we walk into again and again. Some examples are procrastination, tardiness and sloppy work.

Listening to Your Gremlins: Gremlins are the limiting beliefs and assumptions that tell you that you aren’t good enough somehow ? that you’re just not smart or worthy enough. They embody your biggest insecurities.

Zero tolerance

The second step is to decide which behaviour you will commit yourself to improving. Recognise that it’s easier to overcome some behaviour, such as bad work habits, than others, such as deeply-held, limiting beliefs. Also consider how failing to change certain behaviour could cost you professionally both now and later. Once you decide, put your personal integrity on the line and make a commitment not to tolerate these kinds of behaviour from yourself any longer.

Support the positive

The third step is to create structures and systems to support the positive behaviour and discourage the negative. Here are some examples:

Begin noticing when you’re undermining yourself. When you find yourself complaining, falling into a work-habit trap or heeding a gremlin, stop. One common way to raise self-awareness is to snap a rubber band around your wrist each time you realise you’ve fallen into one of your old patterns.

Remove yourself from environments that encourage the behaviour you’re trying to change. For example, if you always talk negatively about work with the same people at lunch, break the pattern by refusing to engage in such conversations or by having lunch elsewhere.

To avoid falling into work-habit traps, design ways that support your good behaviour and discourage or minimise your bad ones. If you undermine yourself by being late, schedule buffer time in your calendar. If you procrastinate, set an early deadline for projects. This strategy can also help combat some forms of negative thinking. If you think your failures outweigh your successes, objectively reflect on your wins. Collect positive performance reviews as well as e-mails and letters containing positive comments about you and your work.

Build the collection and refer to it whenever you need a boost.

To quieten your gremlins, you might need a therapist, mentor or coach to help you focus on your goals, highlight your strengths and encourage your progress. If, for example, you avoid challenging assignments because a gremlin tells you you aren’t up to snuff, a therapist can help you understand why you think this way and work out strategies with you to overcome that limiting self-perception.

When it comes to undermining yourself, you are both the cause and the solution. By successfully managing such behaviour, you allow yourself and others to experience your best qualities.