Why You Self-Sabotage: The Patterns Behind Overthinking, Procrastination and Perfectionism

“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.”

Alyce Cornyn-Selby

Self-sabotage sounds dramatic, as though you’re deliberately wandering around wrecking your own plans, but most of the time it looks much more ordinary than that.

It can look like procrastinating on something that matters, overthinking a decision until you can no longer remember what the original question was, saying yes when you wanted to say no, comparing yourself with somebody else and deciding you’re miles behind, or waiting until you feel completely ready before you do the thing you’ve been talking about doing for months.

I know this one well. I’ve procrastinated on writing by suddenly deciding my emails urgently needed checking, convinced myself something wasn’t ready because I could still see ways to improve it, and found several highly important household jobs that apparently needed doing the minute I sat down to tackle something uncomfortable.

There is nothing quite like a difficult task for making the stationery drawer seem absolutely fascinating.

The frustrating thing is that we often know we’re doing it. We can see ourselves circling the thing we need to do and still find another perfectly reasonable excuse not to do it.

So rather than treating self-sabotage as another thing to criticise yourself for, it’s more useful to understand what the behaviour may be trying to protect you from.

Self-sabotage often has a perfectly sensible story attached to it

Most self-sabotaging behaviour does not feel ridiculous while you’re doing it. It usually comes with a very convincing explanation.

You’re not procrastinating; you’re ‘waiting until you can give it your full attention’.

You’re not avoiding a decision; you’re ‘making sure you’ve considered every angle’.

You’re not frightened of being judged; you’re ‘just making a few more tweaks before anyone sees it’.

You’re not people pleasing; you’re ‘trying to be helpful’.

That’s why these patterns can be difficult to spot, and what lies beneath them is a fear of getting something wrong, being criticised, disappointing somebody, standing out, wasting your time or finding out that the thing you really wanted doesn’t work.

None of those fears makes you weak. They make you human, but they can become expensive if they’re allowed to make every decision for you.

The aim isn’t to stop feeling uncomfortable. It’s to get better at recognising when discomfort is steering the car.

Perfectionism is often procrastination wearing better clothes

Perfectionism gets praised because it looks like high standards, but there’s a point where improving something stops being useful and starts becoming a very sophisticated way of not finishing it.

You rewrite the email seven times. You keep researching after you already have enough information.

You wait until you know exactly how something will turn out before you begin. You tell yourself you need the perfect plan, perfect timing or perfect level of confidence.

The problem is that none of those things exists.

There will nearly always be something you could improve, something you haven’t predicted or someone who would have done it differently.

At some point, you have to decide what good enough to move forward looks like.

One thing that helps is treating more things as experiments rather than final verdicts on your ability.

Try it. See what happens. Adjust.

That approach leaves room for learning, whereas perfectionism tends to demand that you somehow know everything before you’ve had the experience that would teach you.

Bit of a logistical problem there.

Comparison can turn into self-sabotage

One of the ideas worth keeping about starting something new is this: somebody else already doing what you want to do does not mean there is no room for you.

There will always be somebody further ahead, more experienced, more confident, fitter, calmer, wealthier, more organised or apparently better at adult life than you are.

If you use that person as evidence of what is possible, comparison can occasionally be useful. If you use them as evidence that you are late, inadequate or shouldn’t bother, it’s just another way of keeping yourself small.

You also have no idea what their full reality looks like.

You’re usually comparing your messy behind-the-scenes footage with their edited highlights, which isn’t a fair contest.

When you notice yourself spiralling into comparison, bring the question back to your own life: What am I actually trying to create, change or improve here, and what would progress look like for me?

You don’t need to be unique enough, impressive enough or further ahead than everyone else, but you have to stop allowing someone else’s path to become instructions for yours.

You don’t have to figure everything out by yourself

Another form of self-sabotage that can look remarkably like competence is insisting that you should be able to manage everything alone.

Capable women are particularly good at this because, inconveniently, you probably can figure most things out eventually - the question is what it costs you.

You can spend six weeks wrestling with something somebody else could help you sort out in an hour. You can carry a decision around in your head because asking for another perspective feels like admitting you don’t know what you’re doing. You can take responsibility for jobs that belong to other people because explaining or delegating feels like more hassle than just doing it yourself.

Being independent is useful. Turning independence into a rule that says I should never need help is less useful.

Sometimes the next step is not trying harder. It’s asking a question, getting support, delegating something, talking the situation through or admitting that you’re stuck.

There is no prize for reaching the answer in the most exhausting possible way.

Make the action smaller than the fear

We often imagine that getting out of our own way requires one huge act of courage, but most useful changes are much less dramatic.

If you’re procrastinating on something, asking yourself to “finish the whole thing” may be exactly why you keep avoiding it.

Make the action smaller.

Open the document. Write for ten minutes. Send one email. Make one phone call. Put one date in the calendar. Have the first five minutes of the conversation.

When a task feels enormous, your brain naturally looks for escape routes or distractions. Breaking it into a smaller action gives you something concrete to do rather than something huge to contemplate.

This is also why short, focused periods can work surprisingly well. You don’t necessarily need the mythical free Saturday when nobody needs anything, and you wake up filled with motivation, you may just need twenty useful minutes.

The key question is:

What is the smallest action I can take today that makes this slightly easier to continue tomorrow?

Progress creates its own momentum.

Start collecting evidence that contradicts your inner critic

Self-sabotage and self-doubt tend to have excellent memories for anything that went wrong and remarkably poor filing systems for anything that went well.

A mistake from 2017? Available immediately in high definition.

The compliment somebody gave you last Tuesday? Apparently lost forever.

This is why I like the idea of keeping a success bank.

Write down things you handled well, decisions you’re pleased with, compliments you received, boundaries you held, difficult conversations you had, opportunities you took and moments where you surprised yourself.

They don’t have to be huge achievements; the point is to give yourself a fuller picture.

When someone compliments you, practice saying thank you rather than immediately explaining why the thing wasn’t really that impressive.

When something goes well, let yourself register it before rushing to the next task.

When you do something that frightened you, notice that too.

You build self-trust partly by collecting evidence that you can cope, learn and recover.

If your internal evidence file contains nothing but your mistakes, it isn’t surprising that your confidence takes a battering.

Notice the pattern without turning yourself into another project

You’re probably not going to eliminate self-sabotage, and I don’t think that has to be the goal.

You’ll still have days where you procrastinate, overthink, compare yourself with someone you barely know on Instagram or convince yourself that cleaning the kitchen is suddenly a matter of national importance.

The useful change is noticing the pattern sooner.

Instead of spending three months avoiding something, perhaps you spot the pattern after a week.

Instead of saying yes and resenting it for days, you notice the familiar urge to keep everybody happy and give yourself time before answering.

Instead of polishing something endlessly, you recognise that perfectionism has taken over and decide what finished looks like.

That’s progress.

You don’t need to become fearless, endlessly disciplined or completely immune to other people’s opinions.

You need enough awareness to recognise when an old pattern has turned up, enough self-trust to make a different decision, and enough compassion not to turn every wobble into evidence that you’re back at square one.

Self-sabotage usually wants to keep you safe, not ruin your life. The problem is that its definition of safe can become very small.

So when you notice yourself hiding, delaying, overthinking or waiting for certainty, get curious before you get critical.

Ask yourself:

What am I worried might happen if I actually do this?

Then ask:

What is the next useful thing I can do anyway?

That’s usually where the way forward starts.

If you recognise yourself in these patterns — the overthinking, procrastination, second-guessing, perfectionism or quietly talking yourself out of what you want — this is exactly the kind of work I do inside BLAZE Your Trail. We look at what keeps repeating, what it’s costing you, and how to build enough self-trust to respond differently when the old pattern turns up again.

Not by becoming a completely different woman, but by getting much better at backing the one you already are.

Blaze Your Trail. Not theirs. Yours.