Josh TrentIdentity Transformation Architect and award winning Host of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast—a decade-strong show with over 750 episodes and 15M downloads.

Why You Secretly Sabotage Your Own Success

28 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this segment of the YouTube video, speaker Josh Trent introduces the "upper limit problem," a self‑sabotage pattern where people unconsciously set invisible glass ceilings based on how much they feel they deserve. He explains that goal‑setting is often constrained by self‑perception: we choose targets that fit within our perceived worth. When we achieve those goals, the sudden rise in success triggers fear and self‑doubt, leading us to question whether we can maintain the new level of achievement or whether we truly deserve it. This internal conflict creates a self‑limiting belief system that can cause us to backtrack, lower our ambitions, or avoid further growth, effectively sabotaging our own success.

Chapters

what I call the upper limit problem. And the upper limit problem essentially comes down to whether or not they feel they deserve it. So I'll use an example from business where I always say, like, whenever I set these goals and I get— and I achieve these goals, I'm like, oh man, I should have, like, set bigger goals. I only set the goals based on the container of how I perceive myself. So we all set these glass ceilings of what we feel we deserve. And then once we hit the temperature, that we, that, that will make us say like, okay, this is too much work. How am I supposed to maintain this? What am I supposed to do? This all goes into what is called this upper limit problem, which is this idea that you're reaching a, uh, this, uh, this glass ceiling, this invisible ceiling of something that's gonna happen. That's gonna break everything down. You're not gonna deserve this regardless of whatever, uh, actions that you're gonna put.