Why You Keep Sabotaging Yourself (Actually)

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

How to Finally Make the Changes You Want

You know the drill:

You decide that it’s time to eat better, go to the gym, finally write that business plan, or stop binge-scrolling at midnight; you’ve read the articles, understood the logic behind whatever it is that you want, and even feel motivated – at least for the first day or two – and, then…something happens (or, more accurately, something doesn’t happen).

It might look like this:

You avoid the gym; you order a takeaway instead of cooking, or you open up Netflix again instead of writing your plan until you eventually find yourself sitting there, frustrated with yourself and asking:

Why am I like this? Why can’t I just do the thing I know I want to do?

If that sounds familiar, then I want you to know that you’re not broken, lazy, or weak:

What’s actually happening is much deeper than just a lack of willpower because the problem you’re dealing with is almost always rooted in unresolved pain that drives unconscious intentions (which we can define as intentions that actively work against your conscious desires).

In this article, we’ll explore why you keep sabotaging yourself, how to identify the hidden forces behind your behaviour, and practical strategies to finally make the changes you consciously want.

Let’s dig a little deeper:

You sabotage yourself and kick yourself out of the life you want to be living (your real life)

Why You Keep Sabotaging Yourself (Actually): What We Cover in This Article

How to Finally Make the Changes You Want
The Core Problem: Conscious Desire vs. Unconscious Intention
Step 1: Identify the Hidden Benefits of Not Changing
Step 2: Deal With the Emotional Payoff
Step 3: Align Your Intentions With Your Goals
Step 4: Understand That Change Is a Dialogue, Not a Battle
Step 5: Practical Exercise to Tap Into and Rewire Intentions
Stop Sabotaging Yourself: Why This Works
Sabotage Escape Plan: Some Key Takeaways
Stop Sabotaging Yourself (Actually): The Final Word

The Core Problem: Conscious Desire vs. Unconscious Intention

At some level, you do want change and so you actually understand that eating better, exercising, or working on your goals is good for you:

You’ve read the books, watched the videos, and maybe even made detailed plans and so – at least on paper – it looks like you’re fully committed.

And yet… nothing happens.

The reason for this is that your unconscious mind often has a different agenda:

While your conscious mind believes it wants progress, your unconscious mind may be motivated by an entirely different, often hidden, benefit that outweighs this ‘belief’.

This is why we can say that the crux of self-sabotage:

Unconscious intentions can outweigh conscious desires.

In simpler terms this means that even if you consciously want to eat healthily, your unconscious mind might gain something from not doing so – examples might be security, avoidance, familiarity, or emotional numbing – and until you uncover and address this, no amount of planning, willpower, or motivation will make the change stick.

Let’s look at how you can unblock yourself and start moving forward:

Step 1: Identify the Hidden Benefits of Not Changing

The first step in overcoming self-sabotage is awareness – specifically, you need to discover the emotional payoff of your current behaviour.

You can start to do this by asking yourself:

“What do I get by NOT doing the thing I believe I want to do?”

It might feel counterintuitive at first, because our culture frames self-sabotage as failure or weakness but the unconscious mind isn’t interested in logic – it’s only focused on your survival, comfort, and avoiding pain.

Some common examples of hidden payoffs include:

Avoiding Vulnerability: Not starting your business or pursuing your dream keeps you safe from the possibility of failure, embarrassment, or criticism.
Emotional Numbing: Choosing junk food, social media, or TV over productive action can be a way of avoiding unresolved sadness, guilt, or shame.
Control and Familiarity: Staying in your current patterns – even if they’re unhealthy and go against your values – maintains a predictable emotional environment and uncertainty, even for positive change, triggers discomfort.
Unprocessed Trauma: Past experiences can create unconscious associations between effort, success, or pleasure and danger. For instance, someone who grew up being criticised for achievement might unconsciously sabotage success to avoid repeating painful patterns (almost always linked to the Unholy Trinity of shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

Here’s a practical exercise to uncover your unconscious intention so that you can become AWARE of it (‘Awareness’ is always the first step when it comes to changing your life):

Pick the area where you keep sabotaging yourself.
Ask: What do I get from NOT doing this?
List every possible emotional benefit, without judging yourself (but be brutally honest).
Notice any patterns tied to past experiences of shame, guilt, trauma, or fear.

The goal here isn’t to shame yourself but to shine a light on the invisible forces that have been quietly guiding your behaviour.

Once you see them, you gain power over them and can start to change them.

Step 2: Deal With the Emotional Payoff

Awareness alone isn’t enough and so, once you identify the hidden benefit, the next step is to address the unresolved emotions that keep this pattern alive and to work on ACCEPTANCE of it.

(Awareness, Acceptance, and Action are the three steps to transformation that I use in my coaching containers with clients and they always work).

Think of the unconscious intention as a locked door and the ‘key’ to unlocking and unblocking is to process the underlying feelings.

Here are practical strategies to start working with those emotions:

1. Name and Validate Your Feelings

Write down what comes up when you imagine taking the action you’ve been avoiding – notice any resistance, fear, guilt, or shame and, then, simply acknowledge it.

For example:

“I feel anxious about starting this project and that’s okay”.

“This fear has a purpose: it’s keeping me safe in a way I used to need”.

Validation reduces the unconscious mind’s need to sabotage you because you no longer resist and start shifting into acceptance.

2. Reframe the Emotional Payoff

Ask yourself the following question:

“Is there a way to meet the same emotional need in a healthier way?“

For example:

If procrastination protects you from failure, can you experiment with small, low-risk wins to train your brain to feel safe with success?
If comfort food numbs old shame, can you create healthier rituals that offer the same soothing effect, like a short walk, journaling, or mindful breathing?

In other words, you need to find a way to start dealing with these underlying emotions in a way that’s aligned with your real values and your real vision for who you want to become.

3. Release Unprocessed Pain

Unresolved trauma, guilt, or shame often fuels self-sabotage but and you can start to heal it via small, consistent practices done consistently over time:

Journaling: Write about past experiences that trigger your self-sabotage and explore the emotions without trying to fix them.
Mindfulness: Sit quietly and notice where tension or discomfort arises in your body when you think about change. Observe it without judgment.
Somatic release: Simple movements, stretching, or deep breathing can release emotional energy stored in your body and start to regulate your nervous system.

The key is always to face and integrate the pain, rather than suppress it.

When you do this the unconscious intention loses its grip as the associated emotional payoff starts to become acknowledged and processed.

Step 3: Align Your Intentions With Your Goals

Once you’ve identified the unconscious intention and addressed the emotional payoff, it’s time to align your intentions with your conscious desires.

Here’s how you can get started:

1. Set Tiny, Non-Threatening Goals

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and large goals can trigger the unconscious resistance you just uncovered.

Try this approach instead:

Break your goal into micro-actions that are manageable and totally achievable without stretching yourself too much (though you want to stretch yourself a little).
Make the first step so small that your unconscious mind can say ‘Yes’ without resistance.
Example: Instead of “I’m going to eat perfectly for the whole week”, start with: “I’ll prepare one healthy meal today”.

Braking it down into chunks means it’s less of a shock for your system and you’re more likely to build momentum without unconscious resistance blocking your path.

2. Pair Action With Emotional Rewards

Your unconscious mind responds to emotion more than logic so celebrate small wins and reward yourself in a way that doesn’t sabotage your progress.

For example:

Completed a 20-minute workout? Enjoy a hot shower, a favourite podcast, or a mindful cup of tea.
Cooked a healthy meal? Notice how good your body feels afterward, rather than focusing on what you “gave up”.

3. Track and Reflect

Another simple tool is to keep a simple log of actions and emotions.

Each evening, reflect on:

What action did I take today?
How did it feel before, during, and after?
Did any resistance arise? Where might it have come from?

Tracking makes unconscious patterns conscious, strengthening your ability to make deliberate choices and to make sure the unconscious intentions are pulling your strings without your awareness and acceptance.

Step 4: Understand That Change Is a Dialogue, Not a Battle

One of the reasons people keep sabotaging themselves is that they treat their unconscious mind like an enemy to be defeated but this approach rarely works because it just adds unnecessary layers of resistance (and what you resist persists).

Instead, see change as a dialogue between your conscious and unconscious selves.

For example:

Your conscious mind is saying “I want to go to the gym regularly“.

But:
Your unconscious mind is saying “I feel anxious and unworthy; exercise feels risky“.

Rather than pushing through with sheer willpower, ask:

“What does my unconscious mind need to feel safe while I make this change?”

When you honour the underlying need while gently guiding behaviour toward your goal, you create alignment and so lasting change becomes much easier.

Step 5: Practical Exercise to Tap Into and Rewire Intentions

To sum all this up, here’s a simple, repeatable process you can use whenever you find yourself sabotaging a change:

Stop and observe: Notice when you avoid the action you intended to take.
Ask why: “What am I getting from not doing this?” List all emotional benefits.
Validate: Accept that these feelings are real and understandable.
Reframe or release: Find healthier ways to meet the emotional need or process the underlying pain.
Take a micro-action: Do the smallest possible step that aligns with your conscious goal.
Celebrate: Reinforce the positive behaviour with a reward or acknowledgment.

Repeat daily and, over time, your unconscious mind will shift to support your conscious desires, rather than fight them.

My book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace will help you to understand your unconscious intentions even more so that you can free yourself to live your real life.

Stop Sabotaging Yourself: Why This Works

Self-sabotage feels frustrating because the conscious mind believes it’s in charge but until the unconscious mind is on board, nothing sticks.

This three steps will help you to gradually change the internal programming that has been keeping you stuck:

Identifying the hidden emotional payoff,
Processing unresolved pain, and
Creating small, emotionally aligned actions,

It’s not about willpower but about realignment which means bringing unconscious intentions into harmony with conscious goals.

Once this happens, what once felt impossible becomes inevitable because all ‘part’s of you are pointing in the same, real direction.

Sabotage Escape Plan: Some Key Takeaways

Conscious desire alone is rarely enough: Your unconscious mind often drives behaviour more powerfully than your rational goals.
Self-sabotage is a symptom of unresolved emotional pain: Understanding the hidden benefit of your resistance is the first step to change.
Emotions need to be acknowledged, validated, and processed: Only then can conscious action take root because you’re acting on a foundation of acceptance.
Micro-actions and emotional rewards build alignment: Small wins shift your unconscious intentions over time.
Change is a dialogue, not a battle: Honour the emotional needs behind your sabotage, rather than fighting them.

You sabotage yourself at every level when your unconscious intentions and conscious desires aren't aligned.

Stop Sabotaging Yourself (Actually): The Final Word

If you’ve been struggling with simple changes, then you’re not failing – you’re ‘just’ human:

Your unconscious mind is simply protecting you in ways that once made sense but no longer serve you.

By uncovering the hidden payoff, working with your emotions, and taking aligned action, you can finally break the cycle of self-sabotage once and for all in a REAL way.

Imagine what life would feel like if your conscious desires and unconscious intentions finally worked together instead of against each other:

The gym would no longer feel like a battlefield, your healthy meals would cook themselves in a way, and your goals would start moving forward naturally.

That alignment is what real change feels like and unlike ‘motivation’ – which comes and goes – real alignment lasts because it’s built from the inside out at the deepest level.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

P.S. If you’re ready to get out of your own way and to start taking real action once and for all then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you become aware of how you’re blocking yourself.

Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.

It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.

This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).

Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.

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Real Always Works

How to Finally Make the Changes You Want

Why You Keep Sabotaging Yourself (Actually): What We Cover in This Article

The Core Problem: Conscious Desire vs. Unconscious Intention

Step 1: Identify the Hidden Benefits of Not Changing