PDF Summary:Stop Self-Sabotage, by Judy Ho

Have you ever wondered why you undermine your own success, despite having clear goals and the ability to achieve them? In Stop Self-Sabotage, psychologist Judy Ho provides strategies to help you identify your self-sabotaging tendencies, understand those habits’ psychological origins, and break your self-defeating habits.

This guide will start by explaining the root cause of self-sabotaging behavior: the conflict between the desire to get what you want and the desire to avoid what your mind perceives as danger. Then, we’ll discuss how you can recognize and disrupt the psychological processes that block your progress. Finally, we’ll explore how self-sabotaging behaviors turn into self-destructive habits, and how you can replace those habits with better ones.

We’ll support Ho’s ideas with background information from psychology and neurology and also explore how self-sabotaging tendencies can affect different people in different ways, particularly those with underlying mental health conditions. Lastly, we’ll provide ideas to help you put these principles into practice and start overcoming your self-sabotaging habits.

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Practice Radical Acceptance

Ho says that you can develop emotional resilience so that your self-sabotaging thoughts don’t push you into self-sabotaging actions. One way to do this is by practicing what psychologist Tara Brach calls Radical Acceptance. In essence, Radical Acceptance means overcoming the two fundamental human drives: Rather than pursuing what you want and avoiding what you dislike, you simply accept each moment as it comes. By doing so, you break the connection between thought and behavior so you’re able to carefully choose your actions—acting rather than reacting.

Brach says there are two components of radical acceptance. The first is recognition: understanding what’s happening to you at any given moment, as well as understanding your thoughts and feelings about it. So, if the overwhelmed person from the previous example were to practice radical acceptance, they might take a moment to think “I have a difficult task on my to-do list. I’m now thinking of ways to avoid having to face it.” This component is crucial because you can’t accept an experience until you understand what that experience is.

The second part of radical acceptance is compassion. This means responding to your experiences with love and kindness, rather than judging or berating yourself. This doesn’t mean that you indulge your every whim, it just means recognizing that thoughts and feelings aren’t inherently good or bad—they simply exist. So, instead of being angry or disappointed with themselves, the overwhelmed person from our example might say, “Right now I feel the desire to slack off, and that’s OK.” Instead of trying to fight the urge with willpower, they simply accept the feeling for what it is, allowing it to run its course and fade away.

Self-Sabotage Is Learned Behavior

Ho urges you to remember that self-sabotage is a behavior, which is an important fact for several reasons.

First of all, behaviors serve specific purposes, primarily helping you either attain rewards or avoid threats (the two fundamental motivations we discussed earlier). However, while many learned behaviors do help you navigate your environment effectively, others are maladaptive: They’re inappropriate for the situation. For instance, a bullied child might learn that the only way to stay safe is to be quiet and avoid notice. However, once they grow up, those behaviors that once protected them will make it difficult to find jobs, meet people, and so on.

Furthermore, these maladaptive behaviors often start as coping mechanisms. This means that such behaviors offer immediate relief from negative feelings or uncomfortable situations, but are harmful in the long run. Drug use is a common example of this: People get high in order to escape from problems or negative feelings, but end up doing serious damage to their mental and physical health, their relationships, and their careers as a result.

More About Maladaptive Behaviors

There’s a wide variety of maladaptive behaviors. Some common ones include avoiding stressful situations, excessive daydreaming, hiding or suppressing feelings, binge-eating, substance use, and social withdrawal. The common theme is that these are all ways for someone to avoid feeling bad or to boost their mood.

Unfortunately, in addition to the harm such behaviors can cause directly, avoiding difficult situations and negative emotions only makes people even less able to handle them. This creates a vicious cycle of self-sabotage as the person tries more and more desperately to find ways to feel good and to avoid feeling bad.

It’s also worth noting that such behaviors are especially common among people with mental health conditions like anxiety or PTSD. This is because people suffering from such conditions tend to seek out ways to ease their symptoms, even if just for a short time. Therefore, if you struggle with maladaptive behaviors like this, it may mean there’s an underlying cause that needs to be addressed.

How Self-Sabotage Becomes a Habit

We previously discussed the mental process by which a stimulus leads to you taking action in response. The method by which those actions become habits is similar, consisting of a cue, a behavior, and a result that reinforces the behavior. This three-step model helps to explain why people not only self-sabotage, but engage in the same self-sabotaging behaviors over and over again.

Cues are the triggers or circumstances that precede a behavior, setting the stage for specific actions to occur. This is essentially the same as the stimuli we discussed before: Something happens that starts a chain reaction, with the end result being that you take an action.

However, Ho adds that the power of cues lies in their ability to trigger learned behavioral patterns—in other words, habits. This means that certain cues always, or nearly always, prompt the same responses (like the person who scrolls social media for hours whenever they feel stressed).

Consequences also play a critical role in determining whether a behavior turns into a habit. The author says there are two types of reinforcement: Positive reinforcement means receiving some kind of reward that encourages you to repeat the behavior, such as positive attention or a small gift. Conversely, negative reinforcement means avoiding unpleasant experiences or feelings. They’re both called “reinforcement” because if something you do leads to either of those outcomes, then you’re likely to keep doing it—the results reinforce the behavior.

Ho warns that negative reinforcement is especially powerful in driving self-sabotaging behaviors. By providing immediate relief from unpleasant feelings, such behaviors reduce short-term discomfort while masking long-term consequences. For instance, procrastination might temporarily reduce your anxiety about a difficult or tedious task, even though it ultimately increases stress and lowers performance quality because of the time you’ve wasted.

Habits Rely on Obvious Cues, Easy Routines, and Satisfying Rewards

In Atomic Habits, James Clear further clarifies the role that cues, behaviors, and rewards (consequences) play in habit formation by separating them into two phases: problem and solution.

The problem phase consists of a cue that triggers your urge to perform your habit. In the previous example, the cue would be feeling stressed about a task you need to get done, which gives you the urge to procrastinate on that task.

The solution phase is when your habitual behavior solves the problem (if only temporarily) and provides a reward. Continuing the example, your habit is to procrastinate on a stressful task, and the reward is the relief of not having to deal with it right now.

Additionally, Clear explains that habits specifically rely on obvious cues, easy routines, and satisfying rewards. Consequently, Clear suggests that you consider how to make your self-sabotaging habits as inconvenient and unsatisfying as possible. For example, make it harder to procrastinate by removing distractions from your workspace, such as putting your phone in another room or locking it in a drawer. Alternatively, add negative consequences to offset the rewards of your habit, such as promising to pay a friend $50 if you don’t finish your work in time.

Overcoming Self-Sabotage

So far we’ve discussed the psychological roots of self-sabotage, and how it manifests in maladaptive behaviors that eventually turn into bad habits. In this final section we’ll explain Ho’s methods for breaking free of your self-sabotaging behaviors and building the kind of life you want.

We’ll start by exploring how you can regain control of your thoughts and feelings—and therefore of your actions. We’ll explain why focusing on your deeply held personal values can help you stay in control and resist the impulse to self-sabotage. Finally, we’ll discuss how you can replace your bad habits with better ones, and why it’s necessary to replace those habits rather than just resisting them.

Regaining Control of Your Thoughts

Ho emphasizes that your thoughts aren’t objective truths. Instead, they’re mental constructs built around your past experiences and influenced by your personality and (to some extent) by genetics. Recognizing thoughts as subjective mental events rather than immutable facts is crucial to breaking out of self-sabotage patterns. Ho offers several methods to help you recognize and transform self-destructive thought patterns.

One method is to rationally examine the thought and question its validity. This means determining what evidence supports your idea, what evidence might refute it, and what assumptions you made to arrive at your conclusion. It’s also helpful to consider other possibilities and perspectives to see if a different thought might be closer to the truth.

(Shortform note: One exercise that can help you rationally examine your ideas is to write down something you believe and why you believe it, then identify the assumptions linking the belief to the reason. This can help you recognize when you’re relying on flawed assumptions. For example, people often believe they have to stay in jobs they dislike because those jobs pay well. However, in between the belief (they have to keep working that job) and the reason (the job pays well) are the assumptions that they need that amount of money and that they can’t make as much doing a job they like. Ho would urge this hypothetical person to examine those assumptions carefully, perhaps by seeing if they can reduce their living expenses or find other jobs that pay equally well.)

Ho says another technique is to distance yourself from a negative thought to lessen its impact. One way to do this is to identify and label the thought, rather than simply accepting it as true.

For example, suppose you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see. Instead of internalizing the idea that you’re unattractive, you could take a mental step back and say, “I’m currently having the thought that I am unattractive.” This will help you to recognize that it’s only a passing thought, and not an accurate representation of yourself or of reality.

(Shortform note: Another way to separate your sense of self from your negative thoughts is to create a character in your mind to be your “inner critic,” meaning the part of yourself that has those self-defeating thoughts. This is especially effective if you picture your inner critic as someone you can’t take seriously: Try giving them a ridiculous name, appearance, and voice. For example, imagine the old Saturday morning cartoon version of Dr. Robotnik trying to call you unattractive—that wouldn’t be discouraging, it would just be amusing.)

Regaining Control of Your Feelings

The author says that, along with thoughts, emotions play critical roles in self-sabotage. Therefore, she introduces several techniques for gaining control over your feelings, reducing the likelihood of negative feelings turning into self-sabotaging behaviors.

One of these strategies is to “vent” your emotions by physicalizing them. This means turning abstract emotions into concrete forms or actions, such as hitting a punching bag or drawing a picture that represents your feelings. The key here is to work through your feelings by choosing a behavior that’s beneficial to you, or at least not self-destructive.

(Shortform note: There’s debate over whether physicalizing your emotions is an effective way to work through them. Some psychologists argue that this method actually forces you to experience your negative feelings all over again, rather than helping you let go of them.)

Another method the author suggests is opposite action, meaning you intentionally act in a way that’s the opposite of what you’re feeling. So, if you’re feeling sad, you might force yourself to laugh; if someone makes you angry, you could speak to them kindly instead of lashing out. The disconnect between your emotions and your actions will disrupt your thought patterns, helping you to regain control before negative feelings can push you into self-sabotaging behaviors.

(Shortform note: Opposite action is a technique used in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to help people stay in control when they’re experiencing overwhelming emotions. By practicing opposite action, you can train yourself to recognize and subvert your self-destructive impulses, allowing you to choose more rational actions even in the face of powerful feelings. Some DBT therapists add that it’s not just about self-control—deliberately doing something other than what your emotions are urging you to do actually causes the feelings to become weaker and more tolerable. Notably, the opposite is also true: If you want a certain feeling to become stronger, you can choose to act on it, such as expressing your joy through laughter.)

Grounding Yourself in Your Values

Ho says that identifying and focusing on your personal values—deeply held beliefs that guide your decisions—is a crucial part of overcoming your self-sabotaging impulses. There are two key reasons for this.

First, setting personal and professional goals that are aligned with your core values creates powerful intrinsic motivation: a drive that’s based on your desires and sense of purpose, rather than on external rewards like money or status. This internal drive empowers you to overcome challenges and keep working toward your goals, even when doing so becomes challenging or unpleasant.

On the other hand, when you pursue goals that don’t resonate with your core values, you’re likely to suffer from a lack of motivation, inconsistent effort, and a sense of dissatisfaction upon achieving those goals (if you ever do). In short, Ho argues that if your goals aren’t aligned with your values, you’re much more likely to self-sabotage.

(Shortform note: Neurochemistry can help explain why aligning your work with your values creates such strong motivation. In The Molecule of More, Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long explain that we’re motivated by a chemical called dopamine. Your brain releases dopamine when you make progress toward goals that are important to you. The release of dopamine creates intense feelings of pleasure, which motivates you to keep working toward your goals in order to recapture that dopamine high. Conversely, working toward goals that aren’t important to you—such as doing a job you don’t care about just for the money—doesn’t produce that same rush of dopamine, and therefore it doesn’t keep you motivated nearly as effectively.)

Furthermore, your values can guide your moment-to-moment decisions and steer you away from self-destructive behaviors. When you have a self-sabotaging urge you can pause, think about your core values, and then make a choice that aligns with your beliefs and goals.

For example, suppose you promised you’d take your child to an event, but when the day comes you’re feeling tired and don’t want to go. Your impulse is most likely to find a reason to stay home, which would upset your child and possibly damage your relationship with them. However, if you have core values like honesty (which includes keeping your promises) or nurturing (raising a healthy and happy child), you can take a moment to reflect and recognize that living up to those values requires you to go to the event.

(Shortform note: Your values can be helpful guides for your decisions, but this method isn’t foolproof. As Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney explain in Willpower, there will be times when your mental energy is simply depleted from making too many choices throughout the day, leaving you in a state known as decision fatigue. When you’re mentally exhausted from decision-making, you’re more likely to default to whatever option takes the least effort—even if that choice conflicts with your deeper values and long-term goals. So, continuing the previous example, there may be times when it doesn’t matter how committed you are to honesty or nurturing your child, because you’re simply too tired to go to that event.)

Replacing (Not Breaking) Self-Destructive Habits

To conclude, Ho discusses how to transform good intentions into behavioral change, thereby freeing yourself from self-sabotaging habits. She explains that the key is not to “break” your bad habits through willpower, but rather to replace bad habits with better ones. She also suggests two psychological techniques that can help you accomplish this.

The first technique the author discusses is contrasting, which means vividly imagining the future you want for yourself, and comparing it against your present circumstances. The disconnect between where you are now and where you want to be will create cognitive dissonance: an unpleasant sensation that happens when you try to hold two conflicting ideas at once. That feeling will naturally motivate you to resolve the dissonance by overcoming your self-sabotaging habits and working toward your ideal future.

(Shortform note: Harnessing cognitive dissonance like Ho describes can motivate you to improve yourself and your life, but it can also backfire. In Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), the authors explain that another common way people resolve dissonance is through self-justification. This means that they create narratives to bring their conflicting ideas into alignment with one another. In this case, you might resolve the dissonance between your current life and your ideal life by reasoning that you must actually be happy with your current situation, or else you’d already be working to change it. Alternatively, you might justify inaction by convincing yourself that your ideal life is impossible to achieve, so there’s no point in trying.)

The second method Ho suggests is called implementation intentions. Come up with an “if-then” statement that identifies a cue for one of your bad habits, then replaces that behavior with a better one.

For example, say you have a bad habit of snacking late at night. In that case, you might set the intention: “If I feel like eating a snack before bed, I’ll drink a glass of water instead.” Setting intentions like this ahead of time helps because instead of trying to fight your bad habit as it arises, you’ve already made a plan for success—all you have to do is carry it out.

(Shortform note: Research has shown that implementation intentions are an effective way to change your behavior and develop new habits. An analysis of 94 studies on this topic found that this technique had a moderate to strong effect on achieving goals—people who used implementation intentions were more successful at working toward their goals, remaining focused, and incorporating rest periods as needed to avoid exhaustion and burnout.)

Willpower Isn’t Enough

In conclusion, Ho says that techniques like contrasting and implementation intentions are necessary because, contrary to popular belief, willpower isn’t an infinite resource. Just like your muscles get tired with use, your willpower becomes weaker as you make difficult decisions throughout the day. Furthermore, even when your willpower is at its strongest, there may be things you can’t do through sheer resolve, especially when it comes to breaking bad habits.

Because your willpower is limited, it’s crucial to find ways to reduce your reliance on it, such as redirecting your existing habits instead of directly resisting them. After all, if you could break your bad habits through sheer willpower, you wouldn’t have needed to read this guide in the first place.

(Shortform note: In Willpower Doesn’t Work, psychologist Benjamin Hardy expands on this idea by saying that willpower isn’t just limited, it’s actually not very strong at all. As a result, trying to make significant life changes by relying solely on willpower is almost sure to fail. Instead, Hardy recommends setting up your environment in such a way that you’re practically forced to overcome bad habits and achieve your goals. For example, if you have a bad habit of eating junk food, you could make sure there’s no junk food in your house. This doesn’t make it impossible for you to indulge your bad habit—you could, of course, go out and buy more—but eating junk food would now take more effort than simply eating what you already have at home.)