11 Common Ways You’re Unintentionally Holding Yourself Back

It happens to all of us. We set a goal and even get a little excited about it. But often, a few days, a few weeks, or a few months in, the pursuit of that goal is nowhere in sight. 

Sound familiar? Yeah. Same. 

There are common ways of thinking and behaving that could keep us from following through on the goals we set for ourselves. In fact, these 11 things could even be keeping you from getting started in the first place. Here's how to recognize self-defeating behavior and what to do about it.

We tend to be so hard on ourselves, and all-or-nothing thinking often results. What does all-or-nothing thinking look like? Say your goal is to meditate every day for 30 minutes. For a while, you do pretty well. You use a habit tracking app (I'm a fan of Streaks), and you're motivated as you see your day count go up, up, up. But then, one day, life gets in the way, as it always does. You realize you don't have time for the full 30 minutes. But instead of being flexible in your goal and sitting down for the five minutes you do have available (which, after all, isn't the 30 minutes you promised), you miss your session, breaking your streak. An all-or-nothing thinker gives up at this point because you broke your streak, so why bother?

All-or-nothing thinking is almost always destructive to progress. Flexibility is essential, regardless of what goal you're working toward. So even when life gets in the way of something you're striving for, being flexible means you don't give up. You keep going the next day — even if you broke your streak — because sometimes life happens, and you're going to miss a day here and there. While one streak may have come to an end, it's never too late to start another.

Analysis paralysis happens when you overthink or overplan something to the extent that you feel overwhelmed and unable to get started. I'm a classic overthinker, and I've been in the analysis paralysis boat many, many times.

A quick anecdote from my personal life. From the time I was a child, I always knew I wanted to someday write a book. I made many false starts over the years. I'd sit down and write a long, involved outline and totally overwhelm myself. So before I'd even written a sentence of the book, I'd talk myself out of it.

I was good at writing short-form content, though. I've written thousands of articles, blogs, short stories, poems, and other pieces of content throughout my career. 

So one day, I sat down to write a blog. I wrote a sentence. And then another. And then another. Without thinking about it, I kept writing. Every day, I'd come back and add to it. I emerged a week later with my first (unplanned) book. Once I stopped thinking about it and psyching myself out about everything that must go into writing a book, the book just flowed out of me. I've written 30 books since then. All I had to do was break my analysis paralysis.

No matter what your goal is, stop overplanning. Take one tiny step, whether it's adding 10 steps to yesterday's step count to move toward your 10,000 steps per day goal or putting a few brushstrokes on a canvas to start your masterpiece. 

Don't think about how long it will take to get there or how much effort is involved, or it could paralyze you. Even if something might take a year or two, time will pass regardless of whether you do it, so you might as well do it. 

I've struggled with my weight for nearly my entire adult life. I've gone on so many diets. But almost every time, before I started, I would do what I like to call "the long goodbye to food." I'd tell myself, "I'll start tomorrow, so today, party on!" And I'd do that day after day after day, always telling myself tomorrow would be the day I start.

If you truly want to do something, it doesn't matter what you did this morning or what you'll do tomorrow. You have only this moment, and you absolutely have the power to make a choice that sets you on the path. And then, you take it choice by choice, one decision at a time. Start now, because we're not promised tomorrow. As I mentioned, time passes anyway, so you may as well make the most of the moment you have right now.

Sure, when you're initially working toward a goal, it's motivation that gets you off the couch. But over time, motivation tends to fade (although we have some motivation secrets that can help you get it and keep it). But it's discipline, consistency, and — after a fashion — habits that keep you going. Motivation may be the spark that lights the fire, but discipline, consistency, and habits are the fuel that keep it burning.

I've made a deal with myself that, no matter what, on my scheduled gym days, I will at least drive to the gym. I don't have to go in if I don't want to, but I will get into my car and drive there. Once I'm there, it feels silly to leave and not get some exercise. Even when I'm not feeling motivated (I generally like going to the gym, but trust me, some days the motivation is just not there), I use consistency and discipline to get myself there. Since I've done this so many times over the past year, it's become a habit, and I can't imagine not going.

This goes hand-in-hand with many of the things we've already discussed. Worthwhile things take time, effort, and mindset. And worrying about how long they'll take, how hard they'll be, or how hard you've failed in the past at trying them is an invitation to never start. 

Life is a series of choices. Every moment of each day, you make choices. And you only have to make one choice right now and worry about the other choices later. So all you have to do right now is make the one choice that moves you a tiny bit closer to your goal. For instance, if your goal is to stop drinking, the only choice you have to make right now is not to have a drink right now. Whether you have a drink later is up to future you, and whether you've had a drink in the past has already happened, so no use worrying about it now. 

One simple choice in the moment. That's all you're responsible for.

We are all great storytellers, and we all have stories we tell ourselves and other people. And boy, do we believe those stories with all our might. If we didn't, we wouldn't tell them.

The thing is, you are writing and rewriting your story every moment. So a story about the way you were in the past may have been true of that period, but you get to decide whether it's true right now.

I recently had a conversation with a client, who was telling me that they seemed to have only two modes for weight loss: 100% being in the flow and doing everything perfectly, or 100% off the wagon, eating everything in sight, and not exercising at all.

I asked my client what they thought that was about, and their answer was, "It's just the way I'm wired." 

It was their core belief that these were the only two options for them, and they were incapable of finding a middle ground. This was their story, and as long as the story remained in place, they would act in ways that reinforced it. To get out of it, the client would have to unravel that story and create a new truth for themselves.

It can be a challenge to uncover your stories because they run in your subconscious — and usually have for years, like a background computer program. But you can discover a story and challenge it every time you catch yourself believing it to be true or acting as if it is true. Talk therapy, journaling, and self-awareness can go a long way towards uncovering your stories and unraveling them so you can write a new story that's more consistent with who you choose to be.

I've thought a lot about what makes us so afraid of failure, and I've decided it comes down to a few things: social conditioning/pressure and shame about times we've failed in the past. But fearing failure often keeps us from ever trying in the first place.

Yeah — failing never feels good. I should know. I've failed so many times (and probably will again). Reframing failure can help alleviate the sting, though. Failing is a sign of trying — that's the first reframe. Wear it as a badge of honor, because it means you weren't afraid to try something, and there's tremendous bravery in that (plus, taking big swings can lead to big gains, while taking no swings leads to stagnation). Second, if you learned anything at all from it, was it really a failure? We build our successes on the learnings from our failures, and every time we try and fail, we gain new tools we can use in the future.

I'd rather have people see me fall flat on my face trying things than never try in the first place.

Hi! Reformed perfectionist here. This goes along with all-or-nothing thinking: If I can't do it perfectly, why do it at all?

Perfection is an impossible standard, but imperfection can be beautiful. Imperfection can be better than the perfect form you actually hoped to achieve in the first place.

I'm a huge fan of the Japanese practice of wabi-sabi: finding the beauty in the imperfect. Everything and everyone has flaws, but those don't detract from the beauty of who and what they are.

So don't let the need to be perfect keep you from starting something, because things are seldom perfect, but that doesn't mean they're not worth doing.

Have you ever set a goal because somebody else wanted it for you? How did that go?

If you don't believe in or truly want a goal, you may be able to stay the course for a while, but eventually you'll drop it because it just doesn't matter that much to you. So, when you're setting goals, make sure they're your goals and that you really want them. And if you find your motivation flagging, ask yourself this: Do I still want this? If the answer is no, then it's time to find a different goal. 

If there's one thing I've learned in my 60 years on this earth, it's that nobody is meaner to me than I am. We tend to be our own harshest critics for all sorts of reasons. It may seem impossible to keep that voice from echoing in your head, but that doesn't mean you have to believe it when you hear it.

Believing your inner critic can keep you from reaching your goals. If you believe what your inner critic says about you, you're a lot more likely to give up on your goals because you don't believe you can reach them anyway.

It can be a challenge to decouple how you feel about yourself from the things your inner critic tells you. Talk therapy can help. So can journaling. So can simply noticing how often you think harsh things about yourself and then working on replacing them with a kinder take. 

Related: Negative Self Talk: How It Affects Us & Tips to Change

We're pulled in so many directions every single day, from families to friends to jobs. And I don't know about you, but I've always been much more likely to keep my commitments to other people than I ever have been to myself. Why? Because those relationships are important to me, and I don't want to damage trust by failing to deliver on those things I've promised.

You are worthy of receiving the same treatment from yourself that you give to other people. When you break your commitments to yourself, you lose trust in yourself, which can harm your sense of self-worth. And that can keep you from reaching your goals.

To rebuild that broken trust, start with making a small, easy-to-achieve commitment to yourself and following through. Then, try something slightly more challenging. By making and keeping slightly more significant commitments to yourself over and over, you can build up to a level of trust that allows you to follow through on your big goals instead of knowing you'll break the promises you make to yourself before you ever get started.

Have you been holding yourself back without realizing it? You're not alone. We all have things we think and do that we barely even notice, and those things often keep us from living the boldest, most beautiful lives we can. Don't we owe it to ourselves to live the best version of a life we can create?

It takes kindness, self-awareness, and self-compassion to stop getting in our own way, but it's always worth the effort. It's time you made a commitment to yourself and followed through.