You get a brand-new million dollar idea, you're ready to start building it, it's just that, you're not really that good at coding, and you'll need to spend weeks learning brand new skills, developing and working on yourself just to start building that idea.

You brush it off, after all you're too busy to sink that many hours into what might be a gamble.

So you wake up one day and find that a new AI model is trending, does all the coding you may need and gives you more than enough coding-power to start building that million dollar idea!

You start to wonder; what's the point of building this if someone can just build something like it in a few seconds using the same AI model? You're pretty persistent, and do not want to simply let go of that idea, so you decide that the correct course of action is to think bigger, so you start upscaling the project, putting in pieces that would push the AI model to its limit!

Uh-oh, to implement your plan, you'd need the highest tier available of the AI-model, and financially it would just not make sense to invest in that sort of thing right now into what might be a gamble.

Now you're scrolling through Instagram, and see that someone is posting ads for the same million-dollar idea you had originally, a state-of-the-art system pumped to millions of people, releasing to high praise and a huge following.

You're filled with envy, that the resources were just not available to you at the time you needed them, that the stars simply did not align for you to develop your idea into something that could grow into a whole empire like you imagined it would.

You could start competing with this system - you think to yourself - , push out something that could blossom into what your vision is, but what if you fail because of the lack of innovation? You need something truly ground-breaking to enter the market now.

You brush it off, no use crying over spilled milk, and the idea has been taken, there's no point trying to build a brand new thing and putting in so much time into what might be a gamble.

Self-handicapping

What you thought was a gamble - a risk not worth taking when resources seemed limited - is actually a defense mechanism put in place by your sub-conscious to protect you from failure, even when you were ready to start, ready to go, you got cold-feet and stopped yourself in your tracks, that's Self-handicapping (SH).

SH is a psychological phenomenon where you create obstacles intentionally for yourself, blocking you from reaching your goals, with many scientific papers diving deep into what causes you to constantly self-sabotage.

While most studies were oriented towards SH in the academic field, we can see that once this personality trait is gained, it continues to be an affliction haunting you even in your professional career.

Most people have a strong tendency to avoid taking blame for their own short-comings, but hop on the first chance to attribute any and all success to themselves, a behavior originating from needing to protect one's self-esteem and image, and to avoid being seen as someone who has failed at something they were passionate about at some point in time.

A 2026 study suggests that we may engage these mechanisms to appear in front of others as more competent, while other papers state that the uncertainty of the outcome to your endevours is enough to trigger this mechanism in your brain.

Curing the Poison of Perfectionism

Recognizing perfectionism flavored SH is easy enough to do - you've already done that in the few minutes you've spent reading - but to actually beat it you must take the steps necessary to stop yourself from delaying further before your time runs out.

When developing an idea, always focus on setting a floor expectation, a baseline at which the project will start running without any hitches, to prevent yourself from dragging on a project beyond what is needed.

Decide why an upgrade, a new feature or delays are needed, write down the pros and cons of why such a thing might benefit you or if it's simply another symptom of a mind driven towards unattainable goals.

Finally, minimize the amount of risk you're taking, the higher the risk, the more likely SH will start oozing out, when the amount of risk is reduced then you'll subconsciously start feeling more comfortable releasing the project.

The person who beat you to that idea was never smarter, better or more motivated than you, they simply knew when to stop and launch.