The Mindset Mentor - How to Hack Your Brain to Stop Self-Sabotaging

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Have you ever tried to change a bad habit, made progress, and then suddenly felt like everything got harder right before you gave up? In this episode, I’m going to explain why you self-sabotage when you’re actually closest to change and the psychological reason your brain fights back when you try to become a better version of yourself. If you understand what’s really happening and learn how to push through it, you’ll realize that the hardest moments in your growth are actually proof that your life is starting to change. Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you want to get some inspirational texts directly to your phone. If you live in the United States or Canada, text me right now. 512-5-8-9305. Once again, 512-5-80-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about why you self-sabotage.

And then I'm going to teach you. exactly how to stop. Now, I want you to think about this. Have you ever tried to break a bad habit and you really want to break that bad habit? You're starting to break it. But just when you think that you're making progress, bam, it comes back even stronger than it ever has before. You ever wonder why that is? Why, when you get so close to breaking it and you're doing so good and you have so much momentum, you ever wonder why it's so hard and how it just comes back stronger? why is it so easy to make change in the short term, but then you don't just come off the rails at the end. You come off the rails, you crash, you burn, and then you give up on yourself and you give up on the change that you were trying to create.

That's because there's a psychological phenomenon that's called the extinction burst, and that's exactly what's going on when you're trying to break a habit. The extinction burst is like a temper tantrum that your brain's conditioning is throwing. And so your brain's conditioning creates an intense last-ditch effort to get what it wants before finally giving up and starting to change. And if you're serious about it, if you're serious about rewiring your mindset, breaking your toxic cycles, or stepping into a new version of yourself, then you have to understand exactly what this is, how it works, and then how to get past it. And so if you look at the science behind it, this concept comes from something that's called the operant conditioning. It's a principle that was developed by B.F. Skinner. And so he found that when an

expected reward is removed in some sort of way, all of the subjects initially increased the intensity of the behavior before the behavior dies out. And so the classic study of the way they discovered this was with lab rats. And so Skinner placed lab rats in a box where they went over to a lever. If they pressed the lever, it would give them food. And after a while, they realized over days and days and weeks, if I go over to this, I just pushed the lever and it gives me food. And so the rats start eating and overeating, they start getting fatter. And then he had it where once they push the lever, no food comes out.

And once he stopped rewarding them, the rats, guess what? They didn't give up immediately. They pressed the lever more times. They pressed it faster. And they pressed it with more force before eventually giving up a couple days later and stopping. And so this pattern isn't just for lab ratsdom. It shows up in humans all the time whenever we're trying to break our own habits. Your brain operates exactly the same way when you are trying to break a habit. And so how does this show up in your life? How does this show up in your self-development?

Well, let's say that you're working on yourself. You've decided you're going to ditch the self-doubt. You're going to quit all of your bad habits and you're going to just level up your mindset and become a different person. But suddenly, things kind of feel a little bit worse. You get overwhelmed. Maybe some of your old fears start to resurface or these negative habits, these bad habits start to flare up. And they don't just flare up. They flare up with more intensity than normal. Why is that? It's because your brain hates change. This is why so many people self-sabotage. And they're like, I don't know why I self-sabotage. Because it's not even you consciously doing it. It's It's the last ditch effort of your brain trying to hold on to its old conditioning.

Even if that change that you're trying to create your life as positive in some sort of way, your brain has gotten used to operating in a very specific way for a long time. And it knows that if I do this, I get that. If I do this, I get this. If I do this, I get this. And then it does this and I don't get this. well then your brain's going to throw a minor freak out. Why is that?

Because it's so used to being rewarded in certain ways, even if those rewards are harmful in the long run. And so when your brain creates a pattern, it creates a habit in some sort of way, believe it or not, no matter what your brain does, it has some sort of reward that it's going to get at the end of this thing. And so let me give a couple of examples of how this might show up in your life. let's say that when things get really stressful for you,

you have turned to in the past, emotional eating or stressful eating. And so the temporary reward is when you're stressed, you go and you grab a cookie so you get some sugar. Or you get a bag of chips, so you get a lot of carbs and you get some salt. It gives you, in that moment, instant comfort because sugar and carbs and salts and all of that trigger a dopamine release in that moment, which is a feel-good chemical in your brain. So you feel, oh my gosh, I'm stressed, I'm stressed, I'm stressed. Okay, I feel pretty good. So the long-term harm of continuing that,

if the habit continues to be reinforced and you reinforce emotional eating, it's going to make it harder to break. And so your brain starts associating stress equals food. Literally creates unhealthy cravings whenever you feel overwhelmed. So then you go, go and get stressed out, you have a bad day at work, you go to food. Your boss is an asshole, you go to food. You get in a fight with your spouse, you go to food. So over the short term, it feels good. Over the long term, this habit's not going to be good for you. And so the way that you want to rewire it is you want to figure out a way when I feel stress and I want to go to food, I need to go to something else. Now, is this going to be easy? No, because your brain's

going to be like, whoa, it was way easier to go to a bag of chips. It was way easier to eat a cake than to do deep breathing or to go for a walk or to do some form of journaling. And so you want to find something to replace the food with that is a different form of stress relief, which is, like I said, going for the walk, doing some form of journaling, doing deep breathing. At first, your brain is going to be pissed. And it's going to throw a temper tantrum. And you're going to get stressed. You're going to feel anxious. You might feel sad. You might feel mad. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. It's going to demand basically the old habit, which is the extinction burst that I'm talking about. But if you hold strong, eventually the craving will fade. And you're going to go, okay, I don't feel as bad.

And then the next time you notice yourself, it gets stressed. And you want to go to food because it's an old habit, old habits die hard. You go, no, I'm going to do my deep breathing, whatever your new thing is. Right? So another example would be like, if you're the type of person that procrastinates and you avoid the things that you need to do, that temporary reward that I'm talking about is you might put off a difficult task by scrolling on social media or watching Netflix. Why? Because it relieves your anxiety in the moment. So it gives you this quick dopamine hit with the entertainment.

You see how I'm saying all of these habits have some form of a temporary reward. But in the long term of avoiding what you need to do, procrastinating, every time you can procrastinate, your brain is learning that avoidance equals relief. And so it reinforces this habit, which makes it harder to face challenges in the future. And so how do you rewire it? Well, at first, your brain is going to fight for distractions. That is its extinction burst. but once you push through it and you decide to take action and take action and take action, that is your new habit you're creating, your ability to focus and to be better at taking action will strengthen over time and the old habit will start to die off.

Let's say that you're in a toxic relationship. The temporary reward, you know the relationship isn't healthy, but you stay in it because it gives you some form of temporary comfort or familiarity or attention, even if that tension is negative. And so that's a temporary reward. The long-term harm is that you reinforce this fear of being alone, which makes it harder for you to walk away, even if you know that you deserve better. And so your brain associates familiarity with safety, even if that safety feeling is a toxic person. And so you got to recognize that your discomfort is not a sign that you should go back to that person. It's your brain's way of grasping and trying to hold on to old patterns. So you're a lot of, you're

You've got to stay in no contact long enough. And eventually if you do that, the emotional pull is going to start to fate. And then, like, the last example is quitting addictions or quitting really bad habits. You cut sugar or alcohol or toxic relationships in some sort of way. Suddenly, those cravings are all going to just be really, really strong. The emotional pull is going to pull you way stronger. And you think to yourself, like, maybe I should just give in, right? Like, I'm trying to change, but this isn't working because I want to go back.

to this old thing so much. But the fact that it's getting so hard, and I want you to remember this, like, get this in your bones, the fact that it's so hard is a sign that the change is starting to work. You know, if you look at this, it's withdrawal symptoms of somebody who is an addict and most addiction recovery. The withdrawal symptoms usually spike before they fade. And so your brain fights to restore old dopamine patterns before it learns to regulate itself without whatever this addiction or thing that was your bad habit. Makes sense? And so you've got to figure out some sort of way to push through whenever you feel like going back to bad habits. You know, most people, it starts to get really hard. And so they think to himself, this is too hard. I must be doing something wrong. You know what?

I'm just going to quit. And they quit whenever they feel the extinction burst come in. they think something like, if this was working, it wouldn't feel this hard. Have you ever thought that to yourself? Like, if this was worth it, it wouldn't be so hard. If I was changing, I would have gotten results by now. But you have to understand all of that is a trap. It's your old conditioning trying to get you to quit changing. It's trying to get you go back to what you used to do. And so you've got to remind yourself about this.

Like, this is the exact reason. What we're talking about today is the reason why the, phrase old habits die hard exists this habit is trying really really hard not to die and it is its last ditch effort and so you've got to be able to be like nope I'm going to fight through no matter what because the good news about this is if you keep going in the direction that you want eventually the old behavior will fade I promise you this it won't fade as fast as you want everybody always wants everything to happen faster than it's going to happen but if you just don't stop eventually the old behavior will fade.

And so let's talk about real quick how to get through an extinction burst, right? When you're starting to change, there's a couple different steps. The first thing, when you're starting to change yourself, you need to just expect that you're going to have this extinction burst. When you know that you're needing to change and you know that it's going to be coming up, when it comes up, it kind of loses its power. Because if suddenly things get worse, you just remind yourself. you're just like, ah, here it is. That one podcaster told me about it. This is my brain throwing

its fit, which is actually a good thing because this means I'm really close to change. So I've got to just keep pushing through. So that's the first thing. Just expect it. It's not going to be easy to change any habit ever, especially if you've been doing it for a really long time. The second thing, you just got to start riding the wave. Don't judge yourself for this really deep urge to go back to old ways, just observe it. Because if you just observe it, it will eventually pass without you acting on it. Most of the time, though, what I've found with coaching people over years and years and years now is that when we have an old habit start to rear its ugly head back in, a lot of people will beat themselves up. They will guilt themselves. They will shame themselves.

They will start talking trash to themselves. Don't. Just ride the wave. Just observe it. And then just let it pass without acting on it. Breathe through it. Give yourself some time. It's going to be uncomfortable in your body. You might feel stress, anxiety. You might feel sadness, anger. You're going to feel something in your body. It's a last ditch effort. Just breathe through it. Eventually it's going to pass. Or if you want, I don't recommend this necessarily, but you can try it if it gets really bad. Just go do something else. I don't want you to distract yourself with something from to try to not feel feelings. I think it's important to feel feelings and to breathe through it and to work through it. But if it's a point where it's just so intense, just keep yourself busy doing something else.

Okay, so that's the second thing. You just ride the way. The third thing is you have to stay the course. Whatever you are changing, whatever you're working down, when you feel that come in and you want to give up, that is the moment where you need to double down on your commitment. So if you do this, you keep reinforcing the new behavior versus the old behavior. I'm going to focus on this new behavior, this new habit that I'm trying to rewire myself because it is so important and I'm reminding myself of if I create this habit, what my life is going to be like and how my life is going to change. I don't want to stay the same. So I've got to get rid of this habit. I want change because I see what my future could look like. You have to understand this. Here's a secret to it.

You cannot lose if you just don't stop. It's the truth. It's the truth of most things in life. Most people just give up. So if you just don't give up, you're usually going to lose. But in this case, if you just don't give up on changing your old bad habits, eventually you will win. So number four that goes along with that is make it hard to go back to your old self. If your extinction burst is making you crave distractions, whatever those distractions are, for instance, remove all of the easy access surround you. So if you feel like, hey, I really need to get away from this app. Maybe I really need to get away from TikTok.

Spending way too much time on it. Instead of going, oh my gosh, I'm going to put my phone away and then you find yourself in your phone 10 minutes later, delete the app. Like stop screwing around. Just delete the app already. Throw out the junk food if you're trying to lose weight. If you have a toxic X and you keep going back to them, you keep, oh my gosh, I have these emotions.

I want to go back to them. Just block them. Whatever you can do to make going back to old patterns, you have really hard. So like just remove the easy access, make it hard to go back. And the number five, which is a very important part of this, is I want you to start celebrating your progress more. The fact that you're even experiencing extinction burst means that you have interrupted an old pattern. That's a win, damn it. And it shows that you're on the right path. And so you've got to celebrate this. Don't be an asshole to yourself because you feel like you want to go back to this.

You feel anxious about it. Not like you should celebrate. Oh my gosh, I'm feeling really anxious because of fact that I'm not doing this old habit. But that's a good thing because I'm experiencing this extinction burst, which is showing me that I have interrupted an old pattern. to exactly what I want to do. I am on the right path. Let's double down. Right. And so if you're on this journey of self-development, I want you to understand this. You will have moments where your old self fights back. And it's going to keep rearing its ugly head over and over and over again. And sometimes, I'm just going to be very transparent with you. It's going to be very, very hard. But here's the truth to it. It's not a sign that you're failing. It's a sign that you're rewiring yourself.

So it's not proof to you that the change isn't working. It's actually your proof more than anything else that the change is working. You've just got to keep pushing ahead. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-A-L-J-R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it.

So if you would share this, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it so we can impact more people's lives. and it's just a way of you being able to pay it forward. And once again, if you want to get my inspirational text messages in the United States or Canada, text me right now. 512-5-8-0-3-05. Once again, 512-5-8-0-305. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way to leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better.

I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.