The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is back!!

Will Midge continue to sabotage her career this season?

There are no spoilers in this post, but it may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy.

FINALLY the Amazon darling, and one of my favorite shows, is back for its final season!! The premiere reminded me that Midge Maisel is a case study in self-sabotage.

Because even though Midge is a preposterously successful comedienne in 1960s New York, she also has a terrible habit of sabotaging herself.

It’s been 2 solid years since the end of Season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel hit our screens. So in case you forgot this existed, here’s your reminder!

I broke this entire theory down in a podcast episode, The Self-Sabotaging Mrs. Maisel (which does have spoilers).

Listen on Apple:

Listen on Spotify:

Midge’s Career Sabotage

How did Midge sabotage her career? Without giving away any spoilers, here are the 4 biggies between seasons 3 and 4:

1. Made a joke she subconsciously knew was going to get her kicked off the tour

2. Used that mistake to create a goal so big, she’d never reached it

3. Created a new comfort zone she was subconsciously afraid to leave

4. Turned down what could’ve been the opportunity of a lifetime

Watch the lastest episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Self-Sabotage

So what can self-sabotage look like for you?

According to this Forbes article, here are 6* common self-sabotaging behaviors:

1. Procrastination: putting things off, sometimes indefinitely

2. Courting temptation: enticing yourself to engage in behavior that’s counter to your goals

3. Reprioritization: realigning your goals to the detriment of yourself

4. Self-medication: overuse of drugs or alcohol to avoid difficult emotions or scenarios

5. Perfectionism: a special subset of procrastination, creating goals that are impossible to reach

6. Defensiveness: hiding emotional weakness with a mask of strength or happiness

Recognize any of these behaviors in yourself? Do any of them sound like familiar habits?

Here’s another one Forbes left off the list: fear. And this fear can manifest in a few ways. Fear of:

• getting hurt

• emotional pain (like defensiveness above)

• what other people think

• failure

• success

Funny how we can be afraid of both failure and success, huh? And yet, it’s true! Fear of failing is easier to understand, but success? Isn’t that what we’re always striving for?

Yes, and yet sometimes what’s on the other side of success becomes too scary to face, so we sabotage our attempts at it. Because what if once we do succeed the expectations become bigger? Or people will realize we’re just frauds? What if we can’t handle the pressure?

It can be a lot, so it makes sense that some people are afraid of success.

If it feels like some of these behaviors apply to you, know that you’re not alone!

In the episode (which is only 17 minutes long, you can get it done in a drive to the grocery store and back!**), I covered 3 takeaways about self-sabotage:

1. It’s an emotional response tied to protecting yourself

2. Overcoming self-sabotaging tendencies starts with how you talk to yourself

3. It takes patience to overcome these habits but it will happen in tiny steps

The full transcript is here.***

And if you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It’s included in Amazon Prime!

Do you think she’ll continue her self-sabotaging ways in Season 5? Let’s talk about it in the comments ⬇️

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*The article says there are 7 common behaviors but only lists 6 🤷🏻‍♀️

**My preferred way to listen to podcasts, personally

***The episode does contain spoilers!