Why do I self-sabotage?
By No Rush · Updated November 10, 2026
The short answer
Often to protect yourself from a verdict. Researchers call it self-handicapping. You create an obstacle beforehand, like starting too late or not preparing, so a bad result says something about the obstacle and less about you. That works in the moment. Across 36 studies with 25,550 students, those who did it more had lower results.
What does it mean to self-sabotage?
It means getting in your own way just before something that matters to you. You start the application the night before, skip the practice, or go out the evening before an exam. Researchers call this self-handicapping. You arrange an obstacle ahead of time, and if things go badly, the obstacle takes the blame.
Why do people sabotage themselves?
People do it most when they doubt they can succeed again. An experiment from 1978 shows this. Steven Berglas and Edward Jones told students they had scored well on a test. Some of those students had only guessed, because their questions had no right answer. Before the next test, everyone could choose to make it easier or harder for themselves. The men who had guessed more often chose harder. The women didn't.
If you made the test harder for yourself, a bad score has an explanation. Otherwise it might mean the first score was luck.
Why do I self-sabotage when things are going well?
Going well raises the stakes. Once something has worked, you have a result to lose, and the next attempt could show that the first one was luck. That's the situation Berglas and Jones set up in their experiment. The students who sabotaged themselves were the ones who had just succeeded without knowing why.
What does self-sabotage cost?
It helps in the moment and it costs you afterward. Malte Schwinger and colleagues combined 36 studies with 25,550 students. Students who more often lined up an excuse ahead of time, or prepared less on purpose, did worse at school on average. The difference was modest. Miron Zuckerman and Fen-Fang Tsai followed people over a longer period. Those who kept doing this felt less capable as time went on, and they enjoyed their work less.
In the No Rush app
One step in the app asks you to guess beforehand how something will go, with a score from 1 to 10, and to score it again afterward. The app also asks how you would notice that your guess was wrong. If a step goes worse than you thought, the app says it was maybe too big for this week, and suggests a smaller one.
No Rush app
An iPhone app for people who feel stuck. It sets out one small next step at a time and tells you why that one. It is not therapy.
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Sources
- Berglas & Jones (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(4), 405-417. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.36.4.405
- Schwinger, Wirthwein, Lemmer & Steinmayr (2014). Academic self-handicapping and achievement: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(3), 744-761. doi.org/10.1037/a0035832
- Zuckerman & Tsai (2005). Costs of self-handicapping. Journal of Personality, 73(2), 411-442. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00314.x
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