I just participated in a reality TV show. This is how I ruined my chances at winning $2,500 and an author’s retreat. 

I am prone to procrastination. My latest bout with this distasteful habit surrounds the show America’s Next Great Author. The premise of the show’s pilot was a “Pitchapalooza”—the challenge of pitching a novel to a panel of bestselling authors. 

I was sold by the idea of competing; so before auditions even came out, I told everyone I was ready to submit a writing sample and self tape–but when the audition calls came out, I did nothing. 

A week went by, and nothing. A month went by… nothing. With only a few hours until the deadline, my ambition kicked in and I applied.

Recently I’ve become aware of another guest sitting beside procrastination at my table: self-sabotage.

This guest is a cruel, spiraling vicious cycle. Self-sabotage is constantly undermining myself out of fear that my impostor syndrome is real, and I am not the golden child I promised to be.

An email two weeks later: Out of 800+ applications, I was one of 100 still in the running.

I thought about writing my pitch every day of October. And then (you guessed it) I did nothing. My chances of getting chosen as the final 20 were slim. There were other authors with published books, literary agents, and awards that would get chosen before I did. 

I only practiced my rushed pitch the night before the competition in a hotel room. I kept pausing the timer because I couldn’t get past the first paragraph—sometimes the first two words—without messing up the blueprint in my head. 

The day of, I was nervous. I pretended to be calm, but my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I was sure the judges could hear it next to me.

The cameras began to roll, and the presenter began calling names for finalists to stand up and pitch at a podium. With every new name, my heart would race with desire, hoping to be called next…and then it would relax, relieved that it wasn’t me. The entire pilot I spent caught between two extremes–a desperate hunger to be next, and a guilty peace at not embarrassing myself. 

And then, I was called.
My anxiety morphed into a beam of bright light emitting from my chest and my smile. That was me! I had been chosen! I had been deemed worthy of such merit! I strutted to the podium, letting my long red coat glide behind me like a cape. I beamed with pride and then…

I stuttered and shook; I tripped on my words. I was not prepared. I did my best, a mediocre job that failed to win the competition. 

“I recognize that often people are doing the best they can,” Melanie Matson from Emerson College’s Healing and Advocacy Collective mentioned when asked about the topic. “When I reviewed articles about self-sabotage, many seem to be about undermining oneself or destructive behavior towards oneself, and then how to change yourself.

It makes me think about internalized oppression and how forms of ideological, institutional, and interpersonal oppression can become internalized. For example, as a result of discrimination, institutional gaslighting, and harassment, it’s not uncommon for people of color, queer, and disabled folks to experience imposter syndrome. They are being made to feel like an imposter.

My immediate inclination is critical analysis of the term ‘self-sabotage,’ thinking about how power is operating through this term. For example, what does it mean when we add ‘self’ in front of words like ‘sabotage’? Is someone covertly trying to destroy oneself? Who benefits when the term ‘self-sabotage’ is used? Could institutions avoid social justice efforts, improving policies and practices, recruitment, hiring, accepting, promoting, and supporting marginalized folks if they can say that folks are ‘self-sabotaging’?

In addition, those in power have often labeled actions by activists seeking liberation from power, dominance, and oppression as ‘sabotage.’ For example, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for what was referred to as ‘sabotage’ for countering white supremacy. 

Activist and author Arundhati Roy writes, ‘Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege on it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.’ What would happen if people rejected the term ‘self-sabotage’ and recognized it as a way that oppression operates that needs to be disrupted?

Just as institutions refer to exploitation as ‘burnout,’ thus shifting the blame from oppressive systems and structures to the individual, I encourage folks to consider how ‘self-sabotage’ is also being used by systems and structures to shift blame to individuals. Instead, how is neoliberalism, capitalism, ableism, white supremacy, and transmisogyny sending people the message that they are sabotaging themselves when it is in fact part of an intentionally toxic culture?” 

Melanie’s words are comforting because they reframe my experience as one of learning, rather than one of shame. Prefacing my story as one of self-sabotage implies it was a static experience in which I failed. Recognizing the toxic framework of the word itself opens the experience to the questions: Why did I expect the world from myself? Why did I put that pressure on myself in the first place?

On one hand, I do know better than freezing at the cusp of my dreams. I must trust myself enough to believe in my power and act upon it with confidence. Nevertheless, I must not falsely believe I am a fully formed person that is done with learning. Every experience is an opportunity to do better than the last time, and an opportunity to jump higher, wiser, towards the next time. 

I’m learning to learn: do not put off tomorrow what can be done today. Do not give in to  paralyzing doubt. 

If the version of you from five years ago could see you right now, they’d be proud. You owe it to yourself to be kind. Prepare. Do not self-sabotage.