Are You Addicted to Starting Over? How Self-Sabotage Keeps You Stuck and How to Break Free.
- Julie Davies
- Apr 13
- 5 min read
We’ve all been there. It's not your fault. You're stuck in
You get the burst of motivation. A new plan. A new diet. A new routine. You feel energised, hopeful, totally convinced that ‘this time, it’s going to be different’. But then... life gets busy. You slip up. You feel overwhelmed. And instead of riding the wave and adjusting course, you stop altogether. You wait for the next Monday, the next month, or the next magical surge of motivation that will get you “back on track.” Before you know it, you’re right back at the starting line. Again.
Sound familiar?
It does for me because I lived in that loop of self-sabotage behaviour for years. I wasn’t just familiar with the cycle… I was addicted to it.
The High of a Fresh Start
There’s something intoxicating about a fresh start, isn’t there? It gives you a rush of hope. A hit of possibility. It allows you to temporarily escape the disappointment of where you are and live in the fantasy of where you could be.
But here’s what I realised, I wasn’t just failing to follow through. I was unconsciously sabotaging myself because the idea of becoming someone new felt terrifying to my subconscious. I didn’t see it. All I saw was how much I yearned for change. To break free of the struggle with food was my particular nemesis but there was also the perpetual dream of running my own business, and in doing so achieving financial freedom!
With each of these goals, I’d start a new ‘programme’ with military precision. The new ‘coach’ or the certification or the online course. I would prep like my life depended on it. Be the most perfect student. Take it all on board and fully ‘buy in’ to whatever they were telling me I needed to do! Convinced that this version of me was going to stick.
But when the discomfort kicked in it all seemed to unravel. The cravings, the resistance, the voice in my head saying “this is too hard’, ‘you’re not meant for this’ and ‘why are you making things so difficult for yourself, life was pretty good already’. I’d find a reason to stop. And every time I stopped, I told myself I’d begin again when I was more “ready.”
But “ready” never came. Because it was never about the food, the business, the money.
If you're looking for motivation - there's no one better than Lisa Nichols. Listen to her story here and how she overcame her own limiting beliefs, changed her mindset, took action and stayed the course!
Why We Keep Going Back to the Beginning
Here’s the truth: starting over feels safer than following through.
Why? Because following through requires you to change. It asks you to let go of the identity you’ve been living in, even if that identity is exhausted, unwell, or stuck - and become someone else.
That’s terrifying to your subconscious mind. Especially if that identity was formed in childhood and feels familiar, even if it’s painful. To the subconscious, familiar equals safe. Most of us have no idea (because we’ve never paid any attention to it) what our subconscous programming looks like. But take a look around at your life now. That’s a pretty darn good indication of what your programming is! Unless you’ve already done a lot of work to reprogramme your subconscious and ‘choose’ for yourself.
Otherwise, for most of us, every time we get close to real, lasting transformation, our old programming kicks in like a bungee cord, pulling you back to safety. Pulling you back to the Self Sabotage Tool Shed and back to the start. Back to what's known, familiar and safe to our nervous system.
It’s not laziness. It’s not lack of motivation. It’s fear disguised as logic and for many people they spend their whole lives totally unaware of this invisible force keeping them from their goals. Keeping them from living into their full potential.
The Child-Mind Behind the Cycle
Most people live adult lives with child-minds still running the show.
Your child-mind craves excitement and instant results. This is perpetuated by society and mind-control media that we are exposed to every single day. Your child-mind doesn’t understand discomfort as a necessary part of growth, it sees it as danger. It wants the dopamine hit of a new beginning, not the slow, steady effort of real change. Again, we are brainwashed to think life should be ‘easy’ and ‘fun’ all the time and when it isn’t that something has gone wrong.
That’s why we jump from one programme to the next. One coach to the next. One clean slate to the next… and when they don’t work you reach for the crutch of food (or alcohol, or shopping, or scrolling….. name your tool of choice)!
I did this for years. I was constantly looking for the next thing that would fix me. A diet, a detox, a new strategy. But I wasn’t broken. I was just avoiding the discomfort of growing up emotionally and stepping into my adult self and staying the course.
The Shift: From Starting Over to Staying In It
The real transformation began for me when I stopped chasing perfection and started committing to consistency ,even when it felt boring, uncomfortable, or hard. In fact especially when it did!
I gave up refined sugar. I cut out caffeine. I removed the foods I used to soothe and distract myself. And yes, I stumbled. But I didn’t start over. I’m not perfect and I don’t profess to be. I’m work in progress. That’s something else I had to learn. Patience. This work takes time. But I would rather be ‘in the work’ building strength and self-confidence, than stuck in the cycle of self-sabotage and beating myself up.
So I stayed in it. I let it be messy. I showed up again and again, even when the child-mind in me was screaming to give up and go back to the tool shed and stay there but I didn't. I visited it from time to time sure, but never stayed there long.... and that… the ‘getting out again' and continuing to show up for yourself every day, consistently applying the tools I share with my clients (which include wall art and conscious reprogramming with power statements, hypnosis, health rewiring) , is how you start to reprogram the subconscious. That’s how you start to loosen the bungee cord until eventually it snaps and you are free!
Ask Yourself This
If you recognise this pattern in yourself, try asking:
Do I get more excited by starting over than by staying consistent?
What part of me feels unsafe or uncomfortable when I begin to succeed?
What do I fear I’ll have to give up if I actually change?
These questions aren’t here to judge you. They’re here to free you.
Because you’re not lazy. You’re not a failure. You’re not broken.
You’re just caught in a cycle that your subconscious has mistaken for safety.
The Way Forward
You don’t need another fresh start. You need a fresh strategy, one that works with your subconscious mind, not against it.
That’s exactly what I help my clients do in self-sabotage coaching. We identify the emotional roots of the pattern, build adult-mind habits that actually stick, and release the child-mind fears that keep you addicted to starting over.
If you’re ready to break the cycle for good, take the self-sabotage quiz today to discover your saboteur type and begin your next chapter, the one where you keep going.
Because this time, you don’t have to start over, you just have to keep going! If you find yourself back in the tool shed. Accept that it's normal and it's just your subconscious trying to protect you. Don't beat yourself up. Just get up, dust yourself down and get out of there as fast as you can! There's no wagon to fall off here!
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