Self-Sabotage: Why You Do What You Shouldn’t, and How to Stop

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2025

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’ve all had moments where we watch ourselves make the exact wrong choice: procrastinating on an important task, picking a fight in a good relationship, or pulling back just when things are starting to go well. This is self-sabotage, and in this episode Dr. Rick and Forrest explore why we do it and how to stop. They talk about how self-sabotage often serves as a form of psychological self-protection, and why doing well can feel like a threat to our identity, before discussing avoidance coping, the conflict between aspects of who we are, and why we stay safe rather than stepping forward. Along the way, they offer practical strategies for updating outdated internal models, working with different parts of ourselves, and building the inner resources that make real change possible. Change Your Mind with Rick: Learn how to break old patterns and change the thoughts that keep you stuck with Rick’s six-week online course on the science of changing your mind. Learn more at RickHanson.com/changing and use coupon code BeingWell25 to receive a 25% discount. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 2:05: What is self-sabotage, really? 6:10: Why self-sabotage is often a form of protection 10:20: Avoidance coping and the logic of “safe failure” 14:40: The identity cost of doing well 18:55: Internal conflict and the parts model 26:15: Challenge vs. threat: how the brain evaluates risk 32:05: Real-life examples of self-sabotage 37:30: How to begin working with self-sabotaging parts 45:45: Working with self-destructive parts 51:10: Creating safer conditions for growth 57:25: Building a feedback loop that reinforces trust 1:02:40: Recap and additional take-aways Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Head to acornsearly.com/beingwell or download the Acorns Early app to help your kids grow their money skills today. Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/beingwell, and try the inbox that thinks like you For a limited time, get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Go to ZOE.com and find out what ZOE Membership could do for you. Use code WELL10 to get 10% off membership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the show,
0:11.1	thanks for joining us today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. Have you ever had that
0:15.9	experience, you know, that feeling where you are almost watching yourself make a bad decision. You've got something
0:22.1	important coming up, there's that deadline looming, but for some reason you are deep in a YouTube
0:26.8	rabbit hole about, I don't know, beekeeping. Or maybe you have that moment where you catch
0:32.4	yourself. Again, third person perspective, almost like saying something incredibly stupid to another
0:39.8	person.
0:40.8	And there's this part of you that's going, oh no, please stop, but you can't stop.
0:44.4	It's already happening.
0:46.2	This is self-sabotage, and it's a great example of the kinds of internal conflicts that
0:50.2	we talk about on the show all the time.
0:52.8	It's a topic that's come up a lot as a piece of other
0:55.3	episodes, but I don't think we've ever done a focused episode on it. So that's what we're doing
0:59.4	today. We're going to be talking about what self-sabotage is, why it's not as irrational as you
1:04.4	might think, and how we can do it hopefully a little bit less often. So to help us do that, I'm joined by Dr. Rick Hansen,
1:15.1	Rick is a clinical psychologist. He's a best-selling author, and he's also, hey, you know, my dad.
1:16.4	So, Dad, how are you doing today?
1:21.5	Really good. I don't know. Every single time, I've done, how many have we done of these?
1:25.1	500, several hundred. I, together, probably like 300.
1:31.6	Well, total. Yeah, or together. Oh, over the whole course catalog, I think we're over 400 episodes.
1:33.6	Yeah, about 100 of them are guest interviews.
1:34.0	Yeah.
	...

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