“When the inner voice runs amok… it can also lead us to do things that sabotage us.” Ethan Kross
We all do things we tell ourselves we shouldn’t: we overeat, we buy things we don’t need, we lash out in anger, we over worry. And we often don’t do things we tell ourselves we should do: exercise, get work done, meditate, say no to unreasonable requests, speak up, call a friend when we are feeling lonely. Then we beat ourselves up for doing or not doing. Often, we self-sabotage because we are trying to protect ourselves. We are trying to avoid rejection, failure, criticism, or emotional exposure, but the very strategies we use to protect ourselves end up limiting our lives. We become more focused on avoiding mistakes than learning. While we don’t want to fail, we self-sabotage because we are trying to protect ourselves from shame, rejection or vulnerability.
Adam Grant tends to talk about self-sabotage less as a character flaw and more as a pattern of thinking and behavior that unintentionally blocks growth, learning, or performance.
Self-sabotage is a protective strategy that has outlived its usefulness. You learned that survival strategy to protect you from pain, rejection, danger or disappointment. It is your brain trying to prevent future hurt. It happens more often when your nervous system is dysregulated. That is correct, it is a nervous system issue, not a willpower issue.
Ethan Kross says that self-sabotage often happens when “chatter” takes over.
“Chatter” is the repetitive negative thinking that can hijack attention, performance, relationships, and decision-making. The mind becomes so focused on threat, embarrassment, or imagined failure that it interferes with effective action.
Judson Brewer says sometimes self-sabotage becomes a habit.
A typical self-sabotaging loop might look like:
- Trigger
Stress, fear, uncertainty, loneliness, shame, boredom - Behavior
Procrastination, overthinking, doomscrolling, perfectionism, emotional eating, avoidance, reassurance-seeking - Reward
Temporary relief, distraction, comfort, numbing, feeling safe
The brain then learns: “This behavior helped me feel better.” Even if the behavior causes suffering long-term, the short-term reward keeps the cycle going.
Rick Hanson says that the brain learned strategies to protect you from pain, but some of those strategies now create suffering.
Healing comes not through self-attack, but through awareness, compassion, and gradually building new experiences into the nervous system.
Brené Brown says that many self-sabotaging behaviors are actually protective strategies rooted in shame and fear.
We try to avoid rejection, failure, criticism, or emotional exposure, but the very strategies we use to protect ourselves end up limiting our lives. Her work describes the behaviors that function as self-sabotage — especially perfectionism, people-pleasing, numbing, hiding, and avoiding vulnerability.
The problem is that strategies designed for short-term emotional safety can create long-term suffering or limitation. Self-protection becomes self-sabotage when:
- the protective behavior blocks growth, connection, authenticity, or well-being
- the strategy reduces immediate discomfort but reinforces fear over time
- avoiding pain becomes more important than living fully
We self-sabotage when we feel shame. We tell ourselves that something is wrong with me, therefore I should not even try. Then we beat ourselves up for not trying, continuing the shame cycle. We think self-sabotage happens because we want to fail, we are lazy, we are stupid or we don’t care.
If we could get curious about it, we would say, “Something important is happening here. Let me understand it.” We might see that our self-protection goals lead to self-sabotage.
| Self-protective goal | Self-sabotaging behavior |
| Avoid criticism | Perfectionism |
| Avoid failure | Procrastination |
| Avoid rejection | People-pleasing |
| Avoid disappointment | Never fully trying |
| Avoid vulnerability | Emotional withdrawal |
| Avoid shame | Overcontrolling |
| Avoid uncertainty | Overthinking |
| Avoid painful feelings | Numbing/distraction |
| Avoid abandonment | Hiding needs or boundaries |
The behavior makes sense when you see what it is trying to protect you from. That is why trying harder does not eliminate self-sabotage. Laziness is not the problem, although we often attribute our self-sabotage to laziness adding to our shame.
When you do something that you know is not good for you, curiosity works better than judgment. Consider asking yourself these questions:
- What is this behavior trying to protect me from? What am I trying to avoid feeling? What fear or shame is underneath the behavior?
- What does this behavior actually feel like in my body?
- What need am I trying to meet? What reward am I hoping for? What am I predicting will happen?
- Does this behavior truly help? What would help instead?
- What story am I telling myself?
- What would happen if I try something different?
When you don’t want to do an activity that you know is good for you, treat that activity as an experiment. Get curious about the reward you think you are getting by not doing it, and about the actual reward you would get by doing it.
“Don’t fight it. Get curious about it.” Judson Brewer
Curiosity is one of the most consistently recommended antidotes to self-sabotaging patterns across psychology, mindfulness, neuroscience, and behavior change research. What makes curiosity powerful is that it shifts the nervous system and mind from:
- threat → exploration
- judgment → observation
- shame → learning
- automatic reaction → conscious awareness
Self-sabotage often thrives in rigidity, fear, and unconscious habit. Curiosity interrupts those loops.
People stop self-sabotaging not merely by resisting old habits, but by discovering experiences that feel more deeply fulfilling. And healing often begins when a person can say: “This pattern may have developed to protect me, but it no longer needs to define me.”