50 Important Self Sabotaging Quotes For Reflection

Reading self sabotaging quotes can be an easy way to find a window of reflection on your own life and behavior and to find triggers and behaviors that steer you in the wrong direction.

We have collected 50 of the best self sabotaging quotes to inspire you and to help you examine your own self sabotaging thoughts and behaviors, on your path to a better version of yourself.

Check the list below or save your favorite as an image version of the quote.

What is Self Sabotaging?

What is self-sabotaging?

It covers a range of behaviors that go against your own best interests and wishes, behaviors and personality patterns that divert you from your chosen path and over which you feel like you have very little control.

Self-sabotage can take many shapes and forms, and it requires a certain amount of self-awareness and self-reflection to recognize this in yourself.

Some of the core foundations of this behavior include poor self-confidence, negative self-talk, and repeating negative emotions which reinforce this behavior and form a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why Read Self Sabotaging Quotes?

Sometimes we need to reflect on our behavior to discover hidden patterns and subconscious behaviors that we keep repeating and find it difficult to find the root causes.

Reflecting on self sabotaging quotes may be one of the helpful tactics that will allow us to spot patterns of our own behavior that we want to stop and work towards improving.

Quotes are especially useful if you use them as a form of positive affirmation and display them somewhere you can see them every day.

How to Use Self Sabotaging Quotes

We have designed this article to be as useful as possible. With the list of the 50 self sabotaging quotes, we have also designed pretty quote cards that you can save on your computer, for a quick and easy reference, or save them on your phone as a wallpaper for the everyday reminder.

Find a quote that inspired you the most, and have it displayed somewhere visible as a point of reference and reflection every day.

Reading the quote becomes a form of self-affirmation and it will help you get your mind and behavior on the right track. These quotes can be also combined with self-confidence affirmations for best results.

50 Best Self Sabotaging Quotes

Here is our selection of 50 important hand-picked self sabotaging quotes for your self-reflection:

“Withholding love is a form of self-sabotage, as what we withhold from others, we are withholding from ourselves.” – Marianne Williamson
Human beings invent just as many ways to sabotage their lives as to improve them. Mark Goulston
It’s the fear of not being as good as you want to be. If you give over to that fear, it will sabotage you. As much as I can, I try to use that fear to guide me. Chris Pine
“I decry the injustice of my wounds, only to look down and see that I am holding a smoking gun in one hand and a fistful of ammunition in the other.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
Cry wolf often enough and you eventually get eaten by the wolf, even if the wolf is you. Chris Kidd
Fear can sabotage your everything. It can be such a loud overwhelming voice in your head. Quiet this voice now and live. Christine E. Szymanski
“The barrier to our future is often the very plans that we’ve created to get there.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
Chicken exits are self-sabotage. They give you a false explanation for why you don’t have something you want. Ali Vincent
“Ultimately, the biggest fear inside you is that you will be destroyed. You must ask yourself if this fear is rational. In certain situations, you may be faced with losing certain things or people from your life, but will this kill you?
I craft most of my own tragedies without ever having even the remotest understanding that it is I myself who have done the crafting. Craig D. Lounsbrough
Self-sabotage is the smartest thing you can do if you’re sabotaging a self that is not really you. Armand DiMele
“I manufactured the stream of painful images because I was feeling good! Some part of me was afraid of enjoying positive energy for any extended period of time.” – Gay Hendricks
We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own “I’m not worthy” mindset. Steven Pressfield
Stop standing in your own way. Stop making excuses. Stop talking about why you can’t. Stop sabotaging yourself. Decide which direction you are going in and take action. One decision at a time, one moment at a time. Akiroq Brost
“Ultimately, the biggest fear inside you is that you will be destroyed. You must ask yourself if this fear is rational. In certain situations, you may be faced with losing certain things or people from your life, but will this kill you?
I’m big on setting goals, but I also think that if you have too many lofty ambitions and set goals for everything, you can sabotage your efforts by overextending your brain. Jean Chatzky
I’m doing everything I can to sabotage my career. It’s a little thing called “fear of success”. Jon Stewart
“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry, or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane.” – Eckhart Tolle
Our inner beliefs trigger failure before it happens. They sabotage lasting change by canceling its possibility. We employ these beliefs as articles of faith to justify our inaction and then wish away the result. I call them belief triggers. Marshall Goldsmith
No matter how well-meaning your intention, doing too much is not always an act of love but of sabotage. Judith Orloff
“Forgiveness is mental floss! Build the capacity to forgive slowly – start with little unkind acts, otherwise you’ll sabotage yourself. When we forgive, we forgive the actor, not the action.” – Stephen Levine
One simple thing to do and destroy the spirit of self-sabotage is to admire the beauty hidden in ugly circumstances. Israelmore Ayivor
Withholding love is a form of self-sabotage, as what we withhold from others, we are withholding from ourselves. Marianne Williansom
“Complaining becomes a habit. Focusing on the negative also becomes a habit. It’s one of the most detrimental habits you can possibly have. It can negatively impact you socially, affecting your personal happiness, but it can also subconsciously sabotage your money and success.” – T. Harv Eker
“I manufactured the stream of painful images because I was feeling good! Some part of me was afraid of enjoying positive energy for any extended period of time.” – Gay Hendricks
You can’t imagine just how much believing in negative thoughts is affecting your life…until you stop. Charles F. Glassman
Sometimes we self-sabotage just when things seem to be going smoothly. Perhaps this is a way to express our fear about whether it is okay for us to have a better life. We are bound to feel anxious as we leave behind old notions of our unworthiness. The challenge is not to be fearless, but to develop strategies of acknowledging our fears and finding out how we can allay them. Maureen Brady
The reason that I can’t find the enemy is that I have yet to look within myself.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
“Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.” – Steven Pressfield
“Lack of forgiveness causes almost all of our self-sabotaging behavior.” – Mark Victor Hansen
Don’t sabotage your own greatness by succumbing to failure! Terry McMillan
“I’ve never trusted collaborations because most people in this world are not closers. They don’t finish what they start; they don’t live what they dream; they sabotage their own progress because they’re afraid they won’t find what they seek.” – Neil Strauss
“Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn’t happen.” – Alyce Cornyn-Selby
“I am really fascinated by self-sabotage. I think that there’s not a person I know who doesn’t fall victim to it. It’s essential to the human condition, and relatable.” – Kit Williamson
I think that sometimes love gets in the way of itself – you know, love interrupts itself. We want things so much that we sabotage them. Jack White
“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.” – Gay Hendricks
This is how women self-sabotage and self-destruct. Unless we have constant witnesses to our hard work, we are convinced we pull off every day of our lives through smoke and mirrors. Sarah Ban Breathnach
What is required for many of us, paradoxical though it may sound, is the courage to tolerate happiness without self-sabotage. Nathaniel Branden
“No matter how well-meaning your intention, doing too much is not always an act of love but of sabotage.” – Judith Orloff
“A well-defined backup plan is sabotage waiting to happen. Why push through the dip, why take the risk, why blow it all when there’s the comfortable alternative instead? The people who break through usually have nothing to lose, and they almost never have a backup plan.” – Seth Godin
“If I could consider, even for a moment, that I was not upset for the reason I thought I was, I could break out of the trance I was in. Then, I could begin to see what the real issues were.” – Gay Hendricks
I am really fascinated by self-sabotage. I think that there’s not a person I know who doesn’t fall victim to it. It’s essential to the human condition, and relatable. Kit Williamson
“When we are succeeding – that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level – that’s when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.” – Steven Pressfield
Much of your self-esteem doesn’t come from what happens to you on a given day or what somebody says, but what you know about yourself on the inside. Dr Judy Ho
Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others. Epictetus
The question “Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?” is one you must consistently ask yourself if you are committed to having all that you want and all that you deserve. When you love yourself you feel worthy and deserving of claiming the gifts of this world. Self-love gives you peace of mind and balance. Self-love gives you self-respect and the ability to respect others. It gives you the confidence to stand up and ask for what you want. Self-love is the main ingredient in a successful, fulfilled life. Debbie Ford
“I craft most of my own tragedies without ever having even the remotest understanding that it is I myself who have done the crafting.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
Art is a war – between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior. Steven Pressfield
“I have a limited tolerance for feeling good. When I hit my Upper Limit, I manufacture thoughts that make me feel bad. The problem is bigger than just my internal feelings, though: I seem to have limited tolerance for my life going well in general. When I hit my Upper Limit, I do something that stops my positive forward trajectory. I get into a conflict with my ex-wife, get into a money bind, or do something else that brings me back down within the bounds of my limited tolerance.” – Gay Hendricks
We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own “I’m not worthy” mind-set. Steven Pressfield

Closing Thoughts on Self Sabotaging Quotes

We hope you found this collection of self sabotaging quotes super useful and found the inspiration you needed.

Whether you decide to write a journal with your reflections on self sabotaging quotes or just save your favorite in your phone, remember that working on yourself is a lifelong education process that takes a lot of patience, so be kind to yourself as you get started.