Self-sabotage can stop you from achieving your goals and living the life you want. But here’s the good news: you can overcome it! In this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, I’m breaking down why self-sabotage happens, where it comes from, and how to stop it. We’ll explore the fears that drive self-sabotaging behaviour, how cultural pressures impact our sense of worth, and simple ways to stop getting in your own way. If you’ve ever felt like you’re holding yourself back or missing out on opportunities because of fear or self-doubt, this episode is for you. Let’s work together to shift those patterns and start trusting yourself again.
Stop Self-Sabotaging: Get out of your own way and grab the success you deserve Are you standing in your own way? Self-sabotage can show up in our lives in subtle but powerful ways, keeping us stuck, frustrated, and disconnected from our goals. Whether it’s procrastination, perfectionism, or negative self-talk, these behaviors block us from reaching our full potential. The good news? You CAN break free from self-sabotaging patterns and start living in alignment with your true self. In this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, I’ll help you uncover the root causes of self-sabotage, recognize the patterns holding you back, and share actionable strategies to overcome them.
This episode is packed with relatable examples and simple steps to help you stop self-sabotaging and start living the life you deserve.
✔ Understand Self-Sabotage: Learn what’s really behind the actions that hold you back.
✔ Be Kind to Yourself: Self-compassion is the key to reducing fear and building trust in yourself.
✔ Let Go of Labels: Stop identifying with self-sabotage as part of who you are—it’s just a behaviour, not your identity.
✔ Shift Your Focus: Replace overthinking with actions that bring you joy and purpose.
✔ Rewrite Your Story: Every day is a new chance to make different choices.
Thank you so much for listening to Ask Dr. Jodi! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
[00:00:00] Dr. Jodi Aman: Hey everyone. Stop. Stop self-sabotaging. In this episode of Ask Dr. Jody, we are going to talk about why people sabotage themselves, why they sabotage success or opportunities, what it means. How to stop it. We're going to first talk about the negative consequences of, because I gotta convince you that you need to work on stopping it.
[00:00:28] Dr. Jodi Aman: This is the thing that a lot of [00:00:30] us have this sense of unworthiness because we don't think we're perfect enough. We don't think we're smart enough or cool enough, or skinny enough, or young enough, or lovable enough, and so that chips away at our sense of worth. We have all these high expectations in our culture, and it chips away at our sense of worth because we cannot meet them.
[00:00:54] Dr. Jodi Aman: They're unrealistic, and we cannot meet those expectations. And so we're judging ourself [00:01:00] on these expectations all the time. And when we do that, which we do, we're going to find ourself unworthy or inadequate, or less than adequate. And what that means is we begin to stop trusting ourself. And so when we're faced with a challenge or we're faced with a goal, or we're faced with an opportunity or a desire we might get in our own way, and in a way we think that we're trying to [00:01:30] protect ourself.
[00:01:31] Dr. Jodi Aman: We're trying to protect ourself from being hurt or being disappointed or losing hope. We're trying to pretend that we don't want it that bad. We don't really desire it. It's not even worth it. It's not worth our effort, because then we're going to feel worse and we sabotage it. So sabotaging yourself is usually based in fear, and there's three kinds of fear that people have.
[00:01:54] Dr. Jodi Aman: There's fear of failure. Check. We're afraid of failure. There's [00:02:00] fear being trapped, and then there's fear of rejection or abandonment. So fear of failure, fear of rejection or abandonment, same thing. And fear of being trapped. Those are our three main fears. All of our fears could fall into one of those categories.
[00:02:18] Dr. Jodi Aman: Those are overgeneralized. I started thinking about this because, as a therapist for this long, I have talked to so many people and we talk about their problems obviously. 'cause that's what they come to therapy about. When they're [00:02:30] talking, they want to unload and they want to figure it out and they want to make meaning and they want to move past the experiences that they have in their life and they can.
[00:02:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: Even if you have been stuck for a really, really long time, it is possible to heal. I've seen the most unlikely people heal and they heal. It's amazing. As I've had these conversations over and over and over about all kinds of problems, I realized that the root of every problem, 'cause we unpack it and [00:03:00] see what's under that, and we unpack it and see what's under that, and then we unpack it and see what's under, under that.
[00:03:05] Dr. Jodi Aman: And at the base of all of them, sometimes it's, they're easy to find. Sometimes it's like layers over there. But there's one of these three fears. And when I think about them, I think that really they're all the same fear. They're all fear of being unworthy. Fear of being unlovable because you're unworthy of love, so fear of rejection.
[00:03:28] Dr. Jodi Aman: Obviously [00:03:30] you're afraid of being unworthy of love, of being accepted, or being wanted or being included. The fear of being trapped is like you're trapped alone without help. You're unworthy of. Being free, you're unworthy of having sovereignty. You're unworthy of having your own free will. So that's the fear of being trapped, right?
[00:03:54] Dr. Jodi Aman: Your fear of being unworthy and unlovable so much that you deserve being [00:04:00] trapped. Not all trap ness. So if we're stuck in traffic, a lot of people have anxiety about traffic. They don't want to be stuck in traffic. It's not a rational anxiety because you're relatively safe. Stuck, stuck in traffic.
[00:04:14] Dr. Jodi Aman: We're relatively safe everywhere and relatively in danger everywhere, right? Something unusual could happen in any given situation, but relatively, you're safe sitting there, stopped in traffic. You're safer than when you're moving, right? [00:04:30] People are really, they're afraid of having anxiety when they're trapped and being trapped in there with anxiety.
[00:04:37] Dr. Jodi Aman: Right. So it's not necessarily about being trapped, it's feeling overwhelmed and anxious when you're trapped. 'cause that, and there's nothing you could do about it. That is a huge trigger for anxiety. And if you want to watch last week's episode when I talked to Tom and Tom's talking about in his own experience that he struggles with, if he was alone.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] Dr. Jodi Aman: Something happened, an emergency happened, he'd be trapped in his anxiety and he couldn't react to that situation. So go ahead and watch that episode. We're talking about intrusive thoughts. We're talking about clearing, decluttering your negativity in your mind. And I do live coaching on the show, and you could sign up to be a calling guest.
[00:05:17] Dr. Jodi Aman: You don't have to have, you don't have to use your name and people don't have to know where you're from or any identifying details about your life, but you could get. Free coaching, free counseling on the show. [00:05:30] Of course, it's only about 20 minutes but it's free and it's available and I'm here to help you.
[00:05:35] Dr. Jodi Aman: So you could go to my website, jodiaman.com/live, jodiaman.com/live, and you could sign up to do that. Sign up. Okay, so I don't have a guest tonight, so I'm just going to talk to you about self-sabotage because we want to stop doing that. We think we're protecting ourself. This is what anxiety does. It makes you think that it's [00:06:00] protecting you from some future disappointment by making you not try, because you've concluded that you'll probably fail, and if you conclude that you'll probably fail and you try really hard, then you're a big loser.
[00:06:14] Dr. Jodi Aman: That you are no, not skilled at all. And so if you sabotage the effort, either not making it, oversleeping, not going there's a lot of different ways you can sabotage an opportunity. Not trying in general is the biggest [00:06:30] way we get in our own way and take technically. Usually it's either we.
[00:06:36] Dr. Jodi Aman: Put it out of our mind and try not to think about it. Sometimes we use substances to try to forget about it, and basically it's our overthinking that has us hesitate. So if you were going to go to a task or you're going to put some effort in something, our mind is trying to protect us from running outta calories.
[00:06:56] Dr. Jodi Aman: Because we evolved for millions of years and hunter gatherer [00:07:00]times and there wasn't always food. And so anytime you're, you have a task ahead of you, your brain is going to be like, do we need to do that? I don't think so. Unless it's very clear in evolutionary terms, in biological terms, that activity is for surviving or thriving.
[00:07:19] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's going to put some biological resistance. It's going to make you feel like, I don't feel like doing that. And then we put all kinds of meaning around that. I'm going to fail anyway, so why try? [00:07:30] So we have this resistance I'm tired, or I don't want to, we have this feeling like, I don't want to make that effort, and we think that it means something.
[00:07:40] Dr. Jodi Aman: We think that's a sign or a message for us, and it's not. It's just this biological thing that we have through evolution that we don't really need anymore. So we think, okay, I don't feel like doing this. And sometimes it feels like somebody is oppressing us by making us do it. [00:08:00] It feels like, we shouldn't have to, we get protesting about it.
[00:08:04] Dr. Jodi Aman: And then we decide or we think that's pointless. There's, the chances of me winning or getting it are so slim. I'm not going to put the effort in. That just seems too hard, right? We sabotage our own successes because it just feels hard, or we just distract ourself away from it or whatever we have to do, and we get 0% of the opportunities that we don't try for.
[00:08:29] Dr. Jodi Aman: [00:08:30] 0% of the opportunities that we don't try for. So this is a thing also, I want to put a caveat in here. This is a thing about self-sabotage. It is a description of an action that somebody takes. I'm using it as a description of an action that sometimes people take to sabotage their goal, or their desire, or their hope because.
[00:08:57] Dr. Jodi Aman: There's a fear that they're going to fail. [00:09:00] A fear that they're unworthy of succeeding. A fear that they're not going to get it or they're going to be rejected. A fear that they're going to be stuck in something that they don't like and can't get out of it. Those three fears, really all the same fear, really All the same fear.
[00:09:16] Dr. Jodi Aman: Okay, so I'm using it as a description, so it's a description. Self-sabotage is something, is an action that we take. I'm saying that because I don't want you to think about it as a term, like a term, like a self saboteur or a [00:09:30] self-sabotage. I do self-sabotage, like we take that stuff on this negative coping mechanism of self-sabotage.
[00:09:38] Dr. Jodi Aman: We almost wear it as an identity. And we use it again to judge ourself against something. Am I self-sabotaging? Probably, and yes. And so then we get that negative label on ourself. I don't want that, right? I didn't make this video so that you have more labels on you. Please do [00:10:00] not do that because you have too many labels on you because you, if you're in Western culture, we tend to pull all the labels on ourself and just keep piling them on.
[00:10:09] Dr. Jodi Aman: And I want you to get rid of those labels. You don't deserve any of them. We take actions for our conscious purpose. If we want to change the purpose, we change the action. We're not stuck. We're not stuck in the way that we act. We could change that. And any time, every day is new, every hour [00:10:30] is new. So you're you're never stuck.
[00:10:33] Dr. Jodi Aman: Identity. But when you take on these negative coping mechanisms, or these negative thoughts, or these negative ideas about yourself or these labels about yourself as part of your identity, you're going to perform those. And when you perform those negative identity conclusions about yourself, life is not fun, not easy, not hopeful not joyful.
[00:10:58] Dr. Jodi Aman: And that's. [00:11:00] Not good. It's not good. That's where we have increases of anxiety and depression, and this is cultural. Like I always say, this is cultural. This is a regular human response to our world because we have all of these high expectations. But if we understood them and we understood it wasn't us, it wasn't us, that knows were not good enough, we're encultured to judge yourself really harshly irrationally harshly. [00:11:30] We are enc cultured to judge ourself lest we miss something that we're wrong about and people leave us out and reject us and dismiss us from the community. We're so afraid of that happening.
[00:11:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's innate us. We're so afraid of being kicked out. That we try to overreach these unreachable expectations, and we're always going to find ourself inadequate. And when we do that, we stop trusting ourself. We think we're unworthy. And so of course, it's going to [00:12:00] bring in those negative coping skills like self-sabotage.
[00:12:03] Dr. Jodi Aman: But this is not this is who you are. You're a person who self sabotages. I self-sabotage. I self-sabotage. I self-sabotage you. Here. It's like that's the identity. It's not your identity. It's something that sometimes you've done unfortunately and you missed out on something probably, but there's unlimited opportunities.
[00:12:28] Dr. Jodi Aman: That wasn't your last one. [00:12:30] Don't worry about it. If you've done this a couple times in your life, that's fine. Don't worry about the pattern that could change. And if you start seeing yourself as someone who sabotages all the time, you might as well keep going. See how I, what I mean by you perform it, when you bring in these identity conclusions and think that it's you perform them, you're going to continue to do that.
[00:12:51] Dr. Jodi Aman: If that's the narrative that you have about yourself, you're going to continue to act that out. But you could change that narrative. Because that is not [00:13:00] you. That's a couple actions you took sometimes and because maybe you did more than one, they're like standing out like beacons in your story. But there was tons of time that you wanted something bad enough that you went for it or something was easy and you knew it was easy and you went for it and got it.
[00:13:15] Dr. Jodi Aman: And I'm not talking about like a big prize or big contests or something. Sometimes it's little things like you studied really hard and did well on a test. There's tons of things that we do not self-sabotage our ourselves for, but if we have [00:13:30] some in our memory, like even if it's a couple, we start to think that is us and I want to undo that.
[00:13:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: We think that's us. We think that's our identity. We're going to keep performing that. Nope. Done. Done today, we're going to stop self-sabotaging and then let's go in this video, let's go in this episode here to talking about what then you can do about it. Okay? So [00:14:00]easy. So easy. I bet you could guess. I wish the, I wish I was like, live with you all and we're all in a room together and so that you could raise your hand and guess what I'm going to say, because I think you'll get it.
[00:14:13] Dr. Jodi Aman: The way to stop self-sabotage is ready drumroll to be kind to yourself. To be kind to yourself. 'cause if you think about it, the fear of unworthiness or the fear that you're not good enough [00:14:30] is feeding this kind of behavior, this kind of action that you've taken. Sometimes it's not who you are, it's not what you're about.
[00:14:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: It does not speak to your potential. It speaks to a couple times when you felt overwhelmed and your fear got ahead of you, and you got in your way of whatever you wanted. Sometimes you worked hard and didn't get the thing. That's not what I'm talking about. But if you're somebody who has [00:15:00] this pattern of getting in their own way, so when you're getting close to somebody, you get scared and you blow up that relationship.
[00:15:09] Dr. Jodi Aman: You get this interview that you've been wanting for a really long time, and then you oversleep you, you miss a miss appointment or show up late for your job that you're really excited to get or whatever, right? Those are big kind of self sabotages, but sometimes it's really little. Sometimes it's [00:15:30] eating something that, doesn't make you feel good.
[00:15:32] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's good on, it's good for a moment on your mouth, but it does upset your stomach later. But you eat it anyway and you get your upset stomach. Like sometimes it's little like that. Or like me, last two weeks ago, I didn't have my microphone on. I did the whole episode live. I'm on YouTube live and there was no sound.
[00:15:55] Dr. Jodi Aman: Halfway through, I got a text from my aunt saying there's no sound. So I was [00:16:00] really hoping that the recording had sound, but no, my microphone was off, so nothing had sound. So I kept recording to blank room, like everybody, and so many people watched and wrote to me. It was like, there's no sound on this. I turned the video off, but people still saw it.
[00:16:14] Dr. Jodi Aman: It was really funny, not funny, funny, not funny. But you know, I know to check my microphone, you could say that I sabotaged myself or I made a mistake. I wouldn't necessarily have judged myself at that, but other people, because I have a lot of tech [00:16:30] problems. I really shouldn't be continuing to do this show because I have so many tech problems.
[00:16:34] Dr. Jodi Aman: Everyone would've given up by now, but I'm like, whatever. I have tech problems. I still want to show up and be here for people and eventually I'm going to get it right. I think eventually I'm going to stop making mistakes. And I should have stopped a long time ago, probably making mistakes that is not doing the show, but.
[00:16:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: This is life. So I wouldn't call this self-sabotage, but if I had a, if I had a narrative about myself, about self-sabotage. [00:17:00] For sure, I would've said that's what I was doing by mistakenly not putting my microphone on or not checking. Really, I need to put a checklist. I need a checklist on my desk.
[00:17:12] Dr. Jodi Aman: So every Monday I go through the checklist. I change microphones today, so I know I'm on, you learn from mistakes. I learned so much from my mistakes. I wrote a blog. I mentioned this in an episode a few weeks ago. I don't even know what the episode was about, but I remember a lot like 10 [00:17:30] years ago, I wrote a blog post called,
[00:17:33] Dr. Jodi Aman: I learned so much from mistakes that I'm going to keep making more of them. I don't know, I can't remember what the title was now. I learned so much from my mistakes. I'm going to keep making them or something like that. And I believe in that because I don't see myself as a self saboteur. I probably am sometimes.
[00:17:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: We all are. Sometimes, sometimes I wish I could get out of bed at five and work out and get my day started, but I stay in bed reading. [00:18:00] And then, I lose some really productive hours. But you could also say that my reading is really productive and I'm intentionally doing that though.
[00:18:09] Dr. Jodi Aman: Not always intentionally. In the moment I'm like, I'm going to stay here and read. But sometimes at night I go to bed, I'm like, I'm going to get up early. I'm going to start working. And then in the morning I'm like, ah, I want to read. I'm making that conscious decision and I'm not making it to sabotage my success or anything.
[00:18:29] Dr. Jodi Aman: It does [00:18:30] affect. My work because I get less done. I'm on social media less. I'm teaching less and less out there. But I don't know, I don't think it's, that's not, it's not my story, but if someone came in and they also had a story of themself as a self saboteur, they might look at my situation and they might judge me that way.
[00:18:53] Dr. Jodi Aman: Remember, because if they're judging themselves that way, they start to judge because they're afraid. So they [00:19:00] start to judge everyone else. If they really cared about me, they might be worried about me being disappointed or being sad because that's what they're worried about too. Being disappointed, having failure, having rejection.
[00:19:14] Dr. Jodi Aman: Being trapped in something. Being trapped in failure, right? How about that being trapped in failure and then nobody likes you because of that, there's such a huge fear that people have. So when they worry about someone they love, [00:19:30] maybe teetering on that and maybe failing themselves, then they might judge me because they're afraid for me.
[00:19:44] Dr. Jodi Aman: Who knows what I'm going to be talking about when I'm live on air. So I don't see any questions here, but, so this is the thing. This is a fix. Again, let me summarize. Be kind to yourself because if you have self-compassion and you're kind to yourself, your fear [00:20:00] about failure, your fear of rejection and your fear of being trapped are going to go down.
[00:20:06] Dr. Jodi Aman: If you have self-compassion and you build trust in yourself and you're kind to yourself, you'll stop getting in your own way and stop judging yourself. This is the thing about judging yourself. It's so distracting. It takes up so much time, so much energy, so much bandwidth and headspace that you have less time to heal or do the things that [00:20:30] you want to do.
[00:20:31] Dr. Jodi Aman: So when you are sabotaging yourself, that's another way to sabotage yourself is overthinking. Be overthinking. Overthink and overthink. And we get stuck. We get so stuck. Giving all of our attention to that thinking that we're protecting ourself, but really causing so much suffering and getting in the way of the things that our heart and our soul want to do so bad.
[00:20:59] Dr. Jodi Aman: [00:21:00] Build community, have fun, laugh, have adventures, be silly. Just be silly. We're so worried about doing it right or perfect or everything that, that we lose some of the silliness. And really the silliness is what changes everything is that laughter and that silliness and that play increases our neuroplasticity.
[00:21:22] Dr. Jodi Aman: And then we could change. We could be doing something for a really long time, but with that laughter, we [00:21:30] change. Easier than before. We change our beliefs. We change how we feel about ourself. We change that record in our head from that negativity to something positive. So that is how you fix self-sabotage.
[00:21:47] Dr. Jodi Aman: That's how you stop self-sabotage. You be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. So thank you so much for listening to this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi. You [00:22:00] could find this as a podcast on all podcast apps, or you could find me on YouTube if you're reading on the blog or on social media, just. Come on over to jodiaman.com/live
[00:22:13] Dr. Jodi Aman: you could sign up for email updates so you know what topic's coming up, or you could sign up to be a guest on the show. I would love to have you, even if you're talking about something private, you can be private. Private. All right I will see you next Monday at 8:00 PM right [00:22:30] here live. Put it in your calendar and I'll see you then.