How to Use self-defeating in a Sentence

self-defeating

adjective

• You are stuck in a self-defeating cycle that isn’t going to change.
  — Jeanne Phillips, The Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2024
• Many adults, Gaines believes, are plagued by their self-defeating thoughts.
  — Anna Halkidis, Parents, 8 June 2024
• Self-doubt in the West will lead to self-defeating decisions.
  — Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Foreign Affairs, 11 Jan. 2024
• But will self-defeating emotional patterns block their growth?
  — Usa Today, USA Today, 18 June 2025
• This position is, among many other things, a somewhat self-defeating one.
  — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 8 Aug. 2023
• Rich and Andrew agreed that a line for the bathroom is a self-defeating cycle on airplanes.
  — Zach Wichter, USA TODAY, 13 Nov. 2024
• But sometimes the optics make the self-defeating nature of the task clearer than others.
  — Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 18 Mar. 2025
• Jose said that would create a self-defeating pattern and urged him to reconsider.
  — Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 13 Aug. 2024
• Explaining its brilliance beyond that feels futile at best and self-defeating at worst.
  — Indiewire Staff, IndieWire, 12 Aug. 2024
• As the moon and Pluto clash, self-defeating beliefs prevent you from making progress.
  — USA TODAY, 13 June 2023
• These are people on a quixotic, self-defeating quest for excellence, building their skills in lockstep with the show.
  — Alison Herman, Variety, 19 June 2023
• Europe’s Trump strategy, in other words, is a self-defeating trap.
  — Matthias Matthijs, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2025
• To cut off military aid to Ukraine now wouldn’t be a crime, but an incredibly self-defeating blunder.
  — Rich Lowry, National Review, 8 Dec. 2023
• Being coherent means adding up to one clear signal, rather than acting in confusing, self-defeating ways.
  — Ginny Whitelaw, Forbes.com, 1 July 2025
• However, self-defeating rules that alter the game’s brand should always be discouraged.
  — Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 23 Dec. 2024
• But for Russia, this kind of ambitious, high-risk operation comes with a side of self-defeating hubris.
  — Adam Taylor, Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2023
• This self-defeating all-or-nothing mentality yields nothing, every time.
  — Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 7 Dec. 2023
• The obstacle was the self-defeating thoughts that dominated her mind and eroded her confidence.
  — Helene Elliott, Los Angeles Times, 18 Aug. 2023
• His participation in The Jinx seems to follow the same strange, self-defeating pattern.
  — Ester Bloom, Vulture, 19 Apr. 2024
• And so Republicans will embark on a silly, self-defeating impeachment that is certain to fail.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 14 Sep. 2023
• His own actions, his own writing, provide enough evidence of just how self-defeating and self-immolating violence can be.
  — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 28 Mar. 2024
• Look to the self-defeating machinations of Merrick Garland and Jack Smith.
  — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 20 July 2024
• Online, Biden was a self-defeating candidate—able to attract a critical mass of attention, but only in the worst way.
  — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 21 July 2024
• Most self-help books say anger and grudges are self-defeating — there’s that line everybody uses that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
  — Lane Brown, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2026
• The compassion in this new cut doesn’t undercut the many scenes of bad behavior, rock-star excess, self-defeating egotism, and descent into junkiedom.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 26 Jan. 2024
• For the United States, as the world’s biggest economy, and its second-largest exporter, that would be a self-defeating outcome.
  — John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2024
• Russia has lost most of its major gas markets thanks to the self-defeating gambit of withholding energy shipments from Europe.
  — Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 30 Mar. 2023
• While short-term cuts are tempting, defunding the COFTM would be a self-defeating measure.
  — Noah Smith, Denver Post, 30 Mar. 2026
• Trump has always been incredibly sensitive to the appearance of power and prestige, usually in gaudy and self-defeating ways.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 29 June 2023
• Waiting and watching is a self-defeating strategy and does nothing for desperate Syrians.
  — Delaney Simon, Foreign Affairs, 2 Jan. 2025