The Psychology of Self-Sabotage w/ Dr. Ben Steel, Doug Larson, Travis Mash & Dr. Mike Lane #847
Barbell Shrugged
Doug Larson
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Ben Steel joins Doug Larson and Dr. Mike Lane to break down the psychology of self-sabotage, performance anxiety, and why high performers often get in their own way. Ben shares his background as a former wrestler, certified mental performance consultant, and mental health counselor, explaining how his own experience with pre-performance anxiety led him into sports psychology. The conversation centers on how athletes and driven people often use avoidance, perfectionism, all-or-nothing thinking, and "paralysis by analysis" as protective mechanisms, not because they are lazy or weak, but because they are trying to avoid shame, embarrassment, failure, or exposure.
The team also explores how self-sabotage shows up differently in athletes, lifters, business owners, and high performers. For some people, it looks like blowing a diet, skipping competition, overtraining, or waiting until everything is perfect before taking action. For others, especially successful people, it can look like over-indexing on work or performance while avoiding uncomfortable emotional conversations, relationships, or deeper personal issues. Ben explains how tools like CBT, visualization, breathing, self-talk, arousal regulation, and pre-performance routines can help, but the deeper solution often starts with empathy, trust, outside perspective, and helping people feel understood rather than judged.
Big takeaway: self-sabotage is usually not a character flaw. It is a protection strategy. The goal is to identify what pain the person is avoiding, reduce the perceived threat, build confidence through small actions, and help them step into a challenge without needing everything to be perfect first.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Shrug family, Doug Larson here, and this week on Barbell Strug, we're talking with our good friend Dr. Ben Steele about the psychology of self-sabotage. |
| 0:07.5 | Ben is a certified mental performance consultant and has worked with elite performers at the highest level of sport. |
| 0:13.1 | And in this episode, we get into why athletes and high performers sometimes, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, possibly accidentally, maybe intentionally, get in their |
| 0:21.0 | own way and can therefore block their own success. |
| 0:24.0 | We also talk about practical tools like self-talk, visualization, breathing, and pre-performance |
| 0:29.0 | routines, and how to build confidence through small actions instead of waiting until |
| 0:32.6 | everything feels perfect. |
| 0:34.1 | And so if you, or maybe somebody that that you coach has ever prepared well and still |
| 0:38.3 | found yourself somehow sabotaging your own success, this episode is for you. Enjoy the show. |
| 0:44.7 | Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm Doug Larson here with Dr. Mike Lane. Mr. Travis |
| 0:49.1 | Mashed is stuck in jury duty today. So he can't make it. Unfortunately. He said he's bored out of his mind and would |
| 0:55.5 | much rather be here, but can't make it today. We got Ben Steele here with us. Ben, you've been |
| 1:00.5 | working with us here at Rapid here just recently, and I know you've known Dr. Andy Galpin for a while |
| 1:05.5 | now. You're more on the psychological side of things, even though we're primarily a kind of physiological |
| 1:10.5 | organization here. You're tying a blue sense on the psychological side of things, even though we're primarily a kind of physiological organization |
| 1:11.3 | here, you're tying a blue sense on the psychological side of things. |
| 1:14.8 | And I know, Mike, you guys have been working together with a mutual client. |
| 1:17.6 | So, Ben, give us your background. |
| 1:19.6 | How did you get into athletics? |
| 1:21.6 | How did you get into the world of psychology academically and athletically? |
| 1:26.8 | How did you get here? |
| 1:29.4 | Yeah. I mean, I grew up as an athlete, played pretty much all the typical sports, kind of focused in on wrestling in junior |
... |
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