The “I Always Mess This Up” Identity Loop (and How to Break It)
You know that moment when you hear yourself say, “I always mess this up”?
It’s rarely said with a laugh. More often, it’s muttered under your breath, or sits there as a heavy thought that follows you through the day. Maybe you whisper it when you’ve raided the pantry late at night. Maybe it creeps in after you’ve skipped another planned workout. Maybe it’s what you tell yourself as you crawl into bed at 1:30 a.m., phone still in hand, knowing tomorrow morning will feel like payback.
That phrase becomes more than a passing frustration. It becomes a story you start to believe about yourself.
“I always blow it with food.”
“I can never stay consistent with exercise.”
“I’m just not disciplined.”
“This is who I am.”
I hear this from clients all the time. Sometimes it comes with a laugh, as if humour can soften the sting. Other times it comes with a sigh, resignation written all over it. Hell, I do this stuff for a living, and I still hear that shit in my own head too…ALL…THE…TIME.
But here’s the important part: the behaviour, whatever it is (the overeating, the skipped workout, the doom-scrolling), THAT isn’t actually the issue.
The real problem is the loop that follows.
The loop goes like this:
Mess up. You slip. You eat off-plan, stay up too late, skip your training.
Overcorrect. You swing to the other extreme. Strict diet rules. Punishing workouts. Big declarations.
Burn out. Because no one can sustain extremes, life crashes into the plan, and it all collapses.
Shame spiral. The voice grows louder: “I always mess this up.”
Give up… or start over. Some people throw in the towel entirely. Others white-knuckle themselves back to step two.
Around and around and around it goes, spiraling down.
That cycle is exhausting. It’s also avoidable. But before we talk about breaking it, let’s talk about why it happens.
Why the Loop Happens
At its core, the loop is about identity and self-belief.
If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “I’m just the kind of person who always fails at this,” you’ve experienced it first-hand. When that belief takes hold, your brain starts looking for evidence to back it up. Psychologists call this confirmation bias, and it is remarkably powerful. One slip doesn’t stay just a slip. It becomes “proof” that you were right all along. Miss a workout, and suddenly you’re not someone who simply had a busy day, you’re “the person who can’t stick to anything.” Overeat at dinner, and instead of chalking it up to a bigger appetite that day, you tell yourself, “I always lose control.”
The more often you repeat those interpretations, the more fixed they become. What started as a passing frustration slowly turns into identity. And identity is sticky.
But it’s not just identity at play. The loop usually has fuel sources — specific conditions that keep feeding it. I see the same ones crop up again and again.
Unrealistic expectations. This is the “all in” mentality. You tell yourself, “From now on, no carbs, no sugar, no alcohol, no missed workouts, no excuses.” On paper, it sounds decisive. In reality, the list of “no’s” piles up so high that your life quickly becomes unrecognisable. You last a few days, maybe a week, before the weight of it all comes crashing down. And when it does, you don’t just let go of one rule, you let go of everything.
Perfectionism. With perfectionism, there’s no such thing as “mostly.” You either follow the plan flawlessly, or it’s worthless. This black-or-white lens leaves no room for humanity, no room for flexibility, no room for life. A client once told me she felt like a single cookie at a work event meant she had “ruined” her whole week. That’s the tyranny of perfectionism. You’re either winning or failing, with no middle ground to stand on.
Lack of strategy. Motivation can get you started, but without a plan, it fizzles fast. This is why New Year’s resolutions so often collapse by February. You leap in on a wave of enthusiasm, but without a system to fall back on when life gets messy, that enthusiasm evaporates. It’s not that you lack willpower, it’s that you lack structure. Hoping sheer determination will carry you is like trying to build a house without a foundation.
Guru hacks. This one frustrates me the most, because it’s often people’s first entry point. You copy someone else’s routine, whether it’s the influencer with the shredded six-pack, the podcaster promising a miracle shortcut, or the coach online selling a “perfect morning routine”, and for a few days you think you’ve found the secret. Then reality hits. Their life isn’t your life. Their priorities aren’t your priorities. And when the hack doesn’t fit, you blame yourself instead of recognising the mismatch.
Put these together, and you’ve got a recipe for failure before you even start. And when things fall apart (which they inevitably do) most people don’t question the approach. They don’t stop to ask whether the plan was flawed, or the expectations too rigid. They assume the flaw is in themselves. “See? I knew I’d screw it up.”
That’s the part that stings the most, because it corrodes self-belief over time.
Every failed attempt makes the “I always mess this up” loop feel more true, even though the real problem was never you in the first place.
I explored this dynamic more fully in Why You Are Not Broken (Even If It Feels Like It Right Now). That article digs into the shame scripts we run on autopilot, and why they’re so convincing. Shame tells you there’s something wrong with you at the core, not with the behaviour or the plan. It convinces you that a single setback is a reflection of your character, not just a bump in the road. And when you buy into that story, the loop tightens: the identity of “someone who always fails” becomes heavier and harder to shake.
In that piece, I wrote about how many people confuse making a mistake with being a mistake. There’s a world of difference. Missing a workout, overeating at a meal, staying up too late — those are actions. They’re moments. They don’t define you unless you let them. The loop makes you forget that. It whispers that your worth is tied to flawless execution.
But you are not broken. You are not the sum total of your missteps.
You are a human being learning to navigate habits, emotions, and a messy life. The fact that you’re even trying says far more about you than the fact that you sometimes stumble.
That reminder matters, because identity works both ways. If shame can trap you in the loop, self-compassion can start to free you from it. Every time you choose to see a slip as a data point rather than a definition, you’re building evidence for a different identity: someone who learns, someone who adapts, someone who persists. And that identity is just as sticky as the old one…it simply points you in a better direction.
Stories That Illustrate the Loop
Sometimes abstract concepts hit harder when you see them in action. Let’s revisit a few stories that show how this loop plays out in real life.
The Nutrition Side: All-or-Nothing Eating
Picture this: you’re dialled in Monday through Thursday. Meal prep’s on point, protein’s high, veg are plentiful. Then Friday rolls around and a friend suggests pizza.
One slice in, you feel the pang. “Well, that’s it. I’ve blown it.”
Instead of stopping there, you let the guilt snowball into more slices, then dessert, then “what the hell, I’ll reset Monday.” By the end of the weekend, you’ve eaten more than you meant to, you feel physically lousy, and the shame is crushing.
That’s the loop: slip, overcorrect plan, burn out, shame.
I broke this down more in Stop Trying to Be ‘Good.’ Start Aiming for Well.. In that piece I wrote about how “being good” with food often turns into a cage. The language itself sets the trap. You start labelling foods as “good” or “bad,” then attach your own worth to those labels. If you eat salad with grilled chicken, you feel virtuous. If you eat chips, you feel guilty.
Pretty soon, eating isn’t about nourishment or enjoyment anymore, it’s about morality. You measure your worthiness by compliance: no sugar, no bread, no wine. You feel proud when you’re in control, and panicked when you’re not. You say no to dinners out because you can’t control the menu. You weigh every gram of food and can’t enjoy a meal without guilt tugging at you in the background. And when you inevitably step outside the “rules,” the shame is immediate.
The trouble is, when perfection is the standard, one “slip” feels like failure. And failure doesn’t just sting in the moment, it feels like confirmation of a deeper belief: “See? I always mess this up.” The loop tightens.
The alternative is to aim for well.
Well doesn’t mean reckless indulgence. It means flexibility. It means your health includes connection, pleasure, and joy, not just a checklist of restrictions. It means a slice of birthday cake at your kid’s party is part of a healthy life, not evidence of weakness. It means you can enjoy Friday night pizza without it erasing the rest of the week’s balanced meals.
That shift doesn’t just prevent blowouts. It changes the story you’re telling yourself. Food stops being a test you either pass or fail, and becomes a practice of making choices that support both your health and your life. And when you make that shift, the loop starts to lose its grip.
The Mindset Side: RAIN
Another client once told me she couldn’t stop herself from “emotional snacking” after stressful days. Chocolate was her go-to. The guilt was immediate. “I knew I’d screw it up.”
What helped wasn’t a stricter food rule. It was the RAIN process: Recognise, Accept, Investigate, Non-identify.
Recognise the craving. Accept the stress that led to it. Investigate what she really needed (rest, connection, decompression). And most importantly, remind herself: “This craving isn’t who I am. It’s just a moment.”
Sometimes she still ate the chocolate. But the spiral lost its grip.
I wrote about this more deeply in How To Talk To Yourself When You Mess Up. That article explores how identity-level shame fuels the loop, and why your self-talk is often harsher than anything you’d say to another human being. You stop saying, “I made a mistake,” and start saying, “I am a mistake.” And that subtle shift in words is anything but subtle in impact. It reinforces the loop until it feels impossible to break.
The RAIN process interrupts that by giving you new language to work with — words that separate what happened from who you are. And that’s where the real power lies. Instead of berating yourself with blame, you create space for curiosity. Instead of judgment, you offer understanding.
In practice, it looks like this:
Recognise. “I’m stressed, and I’m craving chocolate.” Naming it gives you distance.
Accept. “That’s a normal reaction. Lots of people feel this.” Acceptance takes the sting out of the moment.
Investigate. “What do I actually need right now? Food, or rest? Connection, or a release?” Curiosity invites better options.
Non-identify. “This craving doesn’t define me. One choice doesn’t tell the whole story of who I am.” Here’s where you change the narrative.
A useful way to think about this is to imagine how you’d speak to a close friend in the same situation. Chances are, you wouldn’t say, “You always mess this up. You’re hopeless.” You’d say something like, “Yeah, that was a rough day. Tomorrow’s a fresh start. You’ve got this.” The way you talk to yourself matters. Tone matters. The stories you tell yourself matter.
Clients who practise RAIN along with gentler self-talk report that the spiral of guilt softens. A slip stays a slip. It doesn’t expand into a week-long binge or a month of shame. Over time, those new stories add up to a new identity: not someone who always fails, but someone who notices, learns, and chooses better more often.
The Training and Identity Side: Building vs. Undoing
A lot of people train to undo. Undo the weight gain. Undo last night’s indulgence. Undo the guilt.
But training as punishment reinforces the idea that you’re always behind, always fixing, always in debt. It turns movement into a chore, something you “owe” for past mistakes rather than something you choose for your future.
The shift comes when you start training to build. Build strength. Build capability. Build confidence.
That’s the message in Train for the Life You Want, Not Just the Body You Miss. In that post, I wrote about how most people show up chasing the body they used to have, not the life they actually want. They focus on undoing years of aging, desk work, stress and softness, thinking that a few hard workouts will rewind the clock. And when the scale doesn’t move quickly enough, or they miss a session, or life interrupts their plan, they feel like they’ve failed again.
But when you start training for the life ahead of you, everything changes. It’s no longer about calories burned or punishing yourself for indulgences. It’s about what you’re building and why. Training for life means developing the energy to keep up with your kids or grandkids, the independence to travel or take on projects without fear, and the confidence to say yes to last-minute adventures. It’s about becoming the capable, resilient version of yourself that your future actually needs.
In that article, I described how training for life looks different in practice. It means less isolation and more integration. Fewer single-muscle vanity lifts, and more whole-body movements that prepare you for the awkward, functional demands of real life. It means embracing “weird stuff” like sandbags, weighted carries, crawling patterns and rotational strength, because real life is messy and your body needs to be prepared for it. It means shifting cardio from punishment on a treadmill to purposeful activity outdoors, like hiking, running, or rucking, where the reward is both physical and mental. And it means seeing fitness not as a separate box you tick, but as a way of living: walking more, taking the stairs, saying yes to play, exploring your environment, using your body because you can.
That’s the heart of the identity shift. You stop being the person trying to get their “old body” back, and you become the person who is ready for whatever comes next. Instead of thinking, “I blew it, I’ll never get back to where I was,” you start thinking, “Every rep, every walk, every session is building me into someone stronger and more capable for what’s ahead.”
And when training carries that kind of meaning, the loop loses its grip. Exercise is no longer about fixing mistakes. It’s about building a future.
Breaking the Loop
So if the loop is real, how do you break it?
Here are five principles I return to again and again:
1. Self-Compassion
This is the foundation. Without compassion, mistakes spiral into shame. With compassion, they become data points.
Compassion doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook. It means treating yourself like a human. Instead of “I’m useless,” it’s “That happened. Now what?”
2. Small Wins
Big overhauls feel exciting, but they rarely stick. Small wins do.
A client once started by fixing just breakfast. That was it. Protein at breakfast, every day. Within weeks, the consistency spread. Lunch got better. Snacks stabilised. Dinner shifted.
Small wins create evidence. Evidence builds trust. And trust rewrites the story.
3. Redefine Success
If success means flawless compliance, you’ll fail every time.
Instead, make success about process. Did you show up? Did you try? Did you learn?
This shift turns failure into feedback. And feedback is useful.
4. Real Self-Love vs. Self-Indulgence
Here’s where nuance matters. A lot of people conflate self-love with indulgence. “I deserve this.” “Treat yourself.”
But real self-love isn’t always the easy choice. Sometimes it’s the harder one. Going to bed instead of watching another episode. Cooking instead of ordering. Saying no to the third drink because tomorrow matters more.
Discipline, when it aligns with your deeper values, is self-love.
5. Chunk It Down
Most goals feel overwhelming because they’re too big. The trick is to chunk them into manageable steps.
Want better sleep? Start with shutting your phone off 30 minutes earlier.
Want to eat better? Start with adding one palm of protein to lunch.
Want to move more? Start with a ten-minute walk after dinner.
Easy enough to succeed. Significant enough to matter.
The Takeaway
If you’ve been stuck in the “I always mess this up” loop, here’s what you need to know:
You are not broken. You’re caught in a pattern. And patterns can be changed.
Breaking it isn’t about punishment. It isn’t about another guru hack. It’s about combining three things:
Compassion. So you don’t spiral into shame.
Empowerment. So you stack small wins into momentum.
Challenge. So you learn the difference between indulgence and real self-love.
Put those together, and the loop doesn’t stand a chance.
So next time that voice shows up saying, “I always mess this up”, just pause, notice it, and instead say:
“That happened. And that’s totally OK. What matters is what I do now.”
Because what you do next is the part of the story you actually get to write.