Short answer…there is NO such thing as self-sabotage.
Your conscious and your unconscious minds simply have very different value systems. In other words, they prioritise differently. Your conscious mind is only interested in what you want whilst your unconscious is only interested in your needs.
Let’s use public speaking as an example. You’re absolutely fine talking one to one but whenever you’re faced with a room full of colleagues, you just want to run and hide. This is a learned unconscious response. Just like the fear of failure or the fear of not being good enough. It’s your unconscious thinking it’s doing the right thing, in other words self-preservation……no matter how frustrating that may seem to you and your conscious, rational, logical mind!
This applies to everything…
So it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Coronavirus anxiety, fears or phobias, performance motivation, mind-management, weight loss etc. Once upon a time, in evolutionary terms, this response was most useful, but it isn’t helpful now.
It is important to note that even behaviours that may appear as self-defeating were helpful in some way when those were first learned. At an earlier time those behaviours were the best choice to try and achieve some useful purpose. Just consider it outdated software…..and we all know that software updates are needed regularly!