perfectionism

Why You Struggle to Change: Understanding Protections

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Have you ever felt stuck? Like you know what you need to do to change your life, you’ve read the books, you’ve listened to the podcasts, you’re doing all the “right” things… but you just can’t seem to follow through?

Maybe you know you need to set boundaries with someone, but every time the moment comes, you just… don’t. Or you’ve got this project you’re excited about, but you keep procrastinating. Or you want to put yourself out there and meet new people, but when the opportunity comes up, you find yourself making excuses.

You beat yourself up about it. “Why am I such a coward?” “Why can’t I just do it?” “What’s wrong with me?”

Well, here’s the thing. There’s actually nothing wrong with you. What you’re experiencing has a name: Protections. And once you understand what they are and why you’re using them, everything starts to make sense.

What Are Protections?

Protections are psychological strategies we use to avoid the discomfort that comes with taking risks or facing challenges. They’re basically safety mechanisms that kick in when we feel threatened – and I don’t mean physically threatened. I mean emotionally threatened.

See, whenever you’re about to do something that could lead to failure, rejection, or looking foolish, a part of you says, “Whoa, hold up. That could hurt. Let me protect you from that.”

And that’s where protections come in.

Common Protections You Might Recognize

Procrastination – This is a big one. You’ve got a project that matters to you, but instead of working on it, you suddenly need to reorganize your closet, scroll through social media, or take a random nap. Why? Because if you actually try and it doesn’t work out, that would hurt. But if you procrastinate and half-ass it? Well, you can tell yourself, “I didn’t really try, so it doesn’t count.”

Making Excuses – “I would go talk to that person, but I’m too tired right now.” “I’d apply for that job, but my resume isn’t perfect yet.” These excuses give you permission to stay in your comfort zone. They protect you from the possibility of hearing “no.”

Creating Conflict or Drama – Ever notice how some people seem to create chaos right before something important? They pick a fight with their partner the night before a big presentation, or they get into some unnecessary drama when they’re about to make a positive change. This is a protection too. The drama becomes a convenient reason not to move forward.

Getting Sick or Anxious – Sometimes your body literally protects you. You get a headache, your stomach hurts, or you have a panic attack right before you need to do something scary. Your nervous system is saying, “Nope, we’re not doing this.”

Perfectionism – “I can’t start until everything is perfect.” This one looks productive on the surface, but it’s really just another way to avoid the risk of being judged. If you never finish or never start, you never have to face criticism.

Here’s what’s important to understand: Protections are not conscious decisions. You’re not sitting there thinking, “You know what? I’m going to sabotage myself today.” This is happening automatically, below your awareness. Your protective patterns kick in before you even realize it.

How We Learn Protections as Tools in Childhood

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. These protections didn’t just appear out of nowhere. You learned them. And you learned them because, at one point in your life, they actually worked.

Think about when you were a kid. You were small, vulnerable, and dependent on the adults around you. You didn’t have power or control. So you had to get creative to protect yourself emotionally.

Example

Imagine you’re a kid, and you worked really hard on a drawing to show your parent. You’re excited, you’re proud. But when you show it to them, they barely look up. “That’s nice, honey,” they say dismissively, before going back to their phone. That hurts, right? So what does your little kid brain learn? “Oh, if I don’t try too hard, it won’t hurt as much when they don’t care.”

Boom. Procrastination and half-assing things becomes a protection.

Or maybe you were the kid who asked for help with homework, and your parent snapped at you. “Figure it out yourself! I’m busy!” So you learned not to ask for help. You learned to isolate and do everything on your own, even when you’re struggling. That becomes your protection. If you don’t ask, you won’t be a burden, and you won’t get rejected.

Or let’s say you had a parent who was really critical. Nothing you did was good enough. The B+ should have been an A. The A should have been an A+. You learned that to avoid criticism, you had to be perfect. And if you couldn’t be perfect? Well, then you just wouldn’t try. Perfectionism or avoidance are both protections.

Maybe you grew up in a chaotic household. Yelling, fighting, unpredictability. You learned that if you created smaller problems or distractions, you could control the narrative a little bit. You’d act out, get in trouble, and suddenly everyone’s focused on you instead of the bigger scary stuff. That’s where creating drama as a protection comes from.

Here’s the crucial part: As a kid, these strategies worked. They helped you cope. They helped you survive emotionally in an environment where you didn’t have a lot of options. Your protections were tools that got you through childhood.

And what makes this even more powerful is that most of the time the adults in your life weren’t trying to hurt you. They were doing their best. They were dealing with their own stuff. But as a kid, you didn’t know that. You just knew that something felt bad, and you needed a way to make it stop.

So you developed these protections. And they became part of your operating system. They became so automatic that you don’t even think about them anymore. They’re just… there.

Why Protections Don’t Work as Adults

So if these protections worked so well as a kid, why are they a problem now?

Because the situation has changed. You’re not a kid anymore.

As an adult, you have power, options, and resources that you didn’t have back then. But your protections don’t know that. They’re still operating from that old childhood playbook. They’re trying to keep you safe from dangers that may not even exist anymore.

How Childhood Protections Sabotage Your Adult Life

Procrastination – As a kid, procrastinating might have protected you from harsh criticism. But now? Now you’re procrastinating on things that could genuinely improve your life. You’re avoiding starting your business, going to therapy, asking someone out, or pursuing your creative projects. The protection that once saved you from a mean comment is now preventing you from building the life you actually want.

Not Asking for Help – As a kid, asking for help got you snapped at or dismissed, so you learned to tough it out alone. But now? Now you’re struggling in your job, your relationship, or your mental health, and you won’t reach out because that old protection says, “Don’t be a burden.” Except the truth is, asking for help as an adult is a sign of strength, not weakness. People actually want to support you. But your protection won’t let you find out.

Perfectionism – As a kid, perfectionism might have gotten you praise or helped you avoid criticism. But as an adult, perfectionism is paralyzing you. You’re not applying for jobs because your resume isn’t “perfect enough.” You’re not sharing your art because it’s not “good enough yet.” You’re not starting that podcast, writing that book, or launching that idea because it needs to be flawless first. But here’s the truth – nothing is ever perfect. And waiting for perfection is just a protection keeping you stuck.

Creating Drama – As a kid, creating conflict or chaos might have given you a sense of control in an unpredictable environment. But now, you’re sabotaging your own relationships and opportunities. You pick fights before important events. You create problems that don’t need to exist. And then you wonder why your life feels so unstable.

Getting Sick or Anxious – Your body learned to protect you by shutting down when things felt scary. But now, that “protection” is stopping you from going to social events, job interviews, or important conversations. You’re not in danger – your nervous system just thinks you are.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Protections create a self-fulfilling prophecy. How annoying.

Think about it. You have a core belief that says, “I’m not good enough.” So your protection is to procrastinate and half-ass things. And then what happens? You don’t perform well. And what does that prove? “See! I’m not good enough!”

The protection that was supposed to save you from feeling inadequate actually creates the exact outcome you were afraid of.

It’s like you’re looking for proof that you’ll ultimately fail. And your protections make sure you find it.

Moving Forward

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Wow, this is me,” you’re not alone. We all have protections. Every single one of us learned ways to keep ourselves safe when we were young.

The question to ask yourself is “are these protections still serving me? Or are they keeping me stuck?”

If you’re ready to start working through your protections, to understand where they came from and how to move past them, that’s exactly the kind of work we do in therapy. It’s about building up your self-esteem and confidence so you can take those risks without your protections shutting you down.

Remember, you’re not broken. You’re just protected. And you’re ready to grow.

Ready to work through your protections and build genuine confidence? Get started with therapy today and discover what’s possible when you stop letting old patterns hold you back.

What To Do When You Screw Up: A Therapist’s Perspective on Being Human

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Today I found myself thinking about that time I got a ticket for driving with an expired tag. Not just a few weeks expired. Not even a couple of months expired. Nope. A full 15 months expired. Fifteen. Months. I somehow managed to miss not one, but two renewal cycles. And yet there I was, blithely driving around completely unaware of my vehicular delinquency.

When I got the ticket, I was in complete disbelief. This wasn’t me. I’m a responsible person. I pay my bills. I show up on time. I keep track of my obligations. And yet, here I was, face to face with an expensive ticket informing me that I was actually failing as an adult.

If you’re anything like me—a generally conscientious, put-together adult—then you know how disproportionately rattling these small mistakes can feel. They don’t feel small. They feel huge. They feel like cracks in the image we try so hard to maintain: responsible citizen, competent adult, reliable friend, professional leader. And when that image takes a hit, it can set off a cascade of emotional drama that is far bigger than the actual infraction.

How You Automatically Respond to a Mistake

Let’s break it down, shall we? Because whether it’s an expired tag, a missed deadline, a forgotten birthday, or a financial misstep, you may notice having a few different responses. And how you respond is related to the “story” you learned and created about who you are. This story results in an automatic response that is often self-defeating or can even increase discord with others. I will break down some of these auto-responses and how they became your go-to pattern.

Option #1: Denial

In response to a big mistake, you pretend it didn’t happen. You ignore it and procrastinate the cleanup. The brain goes into this self-protective mode of shock and disbelief. Because if we’re “responsible people,” then mistakes like this don’t happen. This can be caused if your family of origin had a pattern of sweeping things under the rug. Things don’t get talked about.

This probably affected you deeply. Think of a time when one of your parents made a mistake that caused hurt or distress, only to then move on like nothing happened. Your feelings were implicitly invalidated. You repeat this pattern through denial and do not give attention or validation to the damage caused to yourself or your loved ones. In short, you invalidate yourself or those you hurt.

Option #2: Excuses or Blaming Others

Next, we scramble for explanations. “Well, I never got the notice.” “You didn’t tell me what you wanted.” And you know what? Some of these excuses may even be partially true. But underneath the rationalizations is a quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) desperation to protect our self-image. Because if we can explain it away, maybe it means we’re not actually flawed. The result is often blaming others.

How did this happen? It’s possible that you learned this from a parent with narcissistic traits, mimicking the behavior of never taking responsibility for actions. Or, you were the golden child and your parent or parents always made excuses for you. In other words, you were never truly challenged to take accountability. Deep down there is a self-belief that “if I let others see that I was a failure, they will not love me.” With that belief running your life, you turn to excuses and blame to protect yourself from the perceived fear of loss of status or respect. Ironically, being someone who always blames others is a guaranteed way to lose respect.

Option #3: Deep Shame

You shut down, feeling overwhelmed with negative thoughts about yourself, calling yourself names and thinking about how stupid and useless you are. Then you start with the fears: “How could I be so careless?” “What will my family think?” “What if the person I’m dating sees this and decides I’m actually terrible at adulting?”

When we turn a simple mistake into a referendum on our entire character, it is likely due to a family history of highly critical and shaming statements. When you were a child, you were learning about the world and probably making mistakes all the time. That’s how we learn. If your parents treated these mistakes with unrelenting criticism or abusive comments, you likely internalized those messages as defining who you are and how stupid or unworthy you are when you make a mistake.

The Myth of Perfect

Perfectionism loves to masquerade as high standards, but in reality, it’s an unattainable, moving target. If your goal is to never mess up, you will live in constant anxiety and disappointment because perfection is, by definition, impossible. Even the most responsible people screw up. In fact, it’s often the most responsible people who feel these mistakes the most deeply because they’ve built so much of their identity around being the one who doesn’t screw up.

Part of the reason these “small” mistakes feel so significant is because they threaten our internal narrative. If you’ve always seen yourself as the organized one, the competent one, or the one who holds it all together, then a simple oversight doesn’t just represent a missed to-do list item—it feels like a betrayal of your core identity.

But here’s the truth: Identity isn’t binary. You’re not either perfectly responsible or completely irresponsible. You’re a full-spectrum human being. You can be 99% responsible and still miss an expired tag. You can be a deeply caring friend and forget a birthday. You can be financially prudent and still overdraft your account one month. One mistake does not define you.

So What Do You Do When You Screw Up?

Here’s where we get to the good stuff. Because while making mistakes is inevitable, how we respond to them makes all the difference. Here are the steps I recommend, both as someone who’s been there and as a therapist who helps people navigate these very moments:

1. Pause and Reflect

First, take a breath. Really. A deep one. Our knee-jerk reaction is often to catastrophize or scramble for excuses. Instead, sit with the reality of the situation. Acknowledge the facts without judgment.

“Yes, my tag was expired for 15 months. That is objectively true.”

Notice that this statement doesn’t include any moral evaluation. It’s not “I’m so irresponsible” or “I’m a failure.” It’s simply what happened.

2. Challenge Your Inner Critic

That nasty voice in your head that says you’re a failure? It’s wrong. Start talking back to it with evidence. This is how you separate the facts and circumstances from the added-on self-criticism:

“I usually pay my bills on time.”
“I show up for my family.”
“I’m dependable at work.”
“I manage a lot of responsibilities well.”

The one mistake doesn’t erase all of that. You are a responsible person who made a single oversight. Period.

3. Normalize Human Error

We live in a world of endless demands: work, family, friendships, finances, health, home maintenance, social obligations, civic duties—the list goes on. Of course something’s going to fall through the cracks every now and then. If anything, missing a detail like a tag renewal might just reflect that you’ve been prioritizing more important things.

4. Extract the Lesson

Perfectionism offers no growth, but mistakes are fertile ground for learning. Ask yourself:

“Is there a system I can put in place to avoid this in the future?”
“Can I give myself permission to delegate or ask for reminders?”
“What does this tell me about my bandwidth and where I need support?”

Instead of stewing in shame, get curious. Curiosity opens the door to self-compassion and problem-solving.

5. Let It Go

Finally, forgive yourself. Fully. Completely. The ticket is paid. The tag is renewed. The world keeps turning. Holding onto the shame doesn’t serve you, and it certainly doesn’t make you more responsible in the future. If anything, it just drains your emotional resources.

The Real Goal: Progress, Not Perfection

As a therapist, I see so many clients who hold themselves to impossible standards. They’re afraid to make mistakes because they believe those mistakes reveal something fundamentally flawed about them. But what I remind them—and myself—is that being a fully functioning adult isn’t about flawless execution. It’s about resilience. It’s about how quickly you recover, how kindly you speak to yourself, and how much grace you extend to your very human self.

So the next time you screw up (and you will, because you’re human), remember this:

  • Your worth is not defined by your mistakes.
  • Responsible people make mistakes, too.
  • The goal isn’t perfection. It’s learning, growth, and self-compassion.

In fact, I would argue that your ability to navigate mistakes with grace and humor is one of the strongest markers of true maturity.

And if you need a therapist to heal the deeper childhood wounds that created all those self-defeating automatic responses, reach out. You deserve healing and a new relationship with your mistakes.