(RNS) Our train was leaving Trenton, N.J., when a passenger shouted, “How do I get out? Was that Trenton? Stop the train!”

It wasn’t happening. As the train rolled on, the man fussed about missing his stop. “I really screwed up this time. I have a job interview back there.”

Then he took hold of himself, found a seat, called his contact, and did a job interview over the phone.

In this drama I sensed a self-defeating pattern in his life. Despite obvious intelligence and drive, he manages to “screw up,” probably the same way each time. Misses a meeting, shows up late, compensates, leaves a trail of doubt.

Most of us have such self-defeating patterns. When the same train got to Philadelphia, I pushed too hard at a business meeting to make my points and to assess a potential collaborator. She, in turn, acted out her own self-defeating patterns. I think we both walked away frustrated.

This is what people do. We fall back on defenses, responses, ideas and assumptions that aren’t rational or helpful yet they promise short-term rewards, like an easing of anxiety.

The list of self-defeating behaviors is almost endless: We eat too much, drink too much, shout, sigh, parade our intellect, cling to discredited ideas, resort to prejudice, procrastinate, give in too easily, retreat into stereotypes.

I often work with church leaders whose Plan A has come up empty, but they don’t have a Plan B. So they tinker with Plan A, try another round of high-level conferences and pilot projects, even though such methods haven’t worked in the past. They express surprise when outcomes aren’t different.

So how do we get out of our own way?

If it were easy, we would have done it long ago. Therapists spend careers helping patients escape self-defeating behaviors by identifying their origin, documenting their destructiveness, and teaching better methods for dealing with stressors like loneliness, childhood trauma and fear.

Here’s the first step: reflect, don’t react. Examine physical warning signs and feelings such as anger or fear. Imagine consequences before acting and consider alternate responses.

One common form of self-defeating behavior is addiction. Any 12-step recovery program will tell addicts that nothing will get better until they stop their addictive behavior. That requires owning personal defects and turning them over to a higher power.

Pain is the great motivator to life change, and self-defeating behaviors are, in a sense, “self-medication” to escape pain. Our way to sanity, therefore, will require us to endure pain, not escape it.

So what does all this mean?

In the marketplace, it means poorly performing businesses need to fail. The financial industry didn’t learn much from the recession they caused because they were largely spared the pain of bank failures and lower compensation. Small entrepreneurs, by contrast, feel the full brunt of their mistakes and usually learn from them.

In religion, it means ineffective congregations need to fail, not be propped up by sympathetic denominations. Constituents and leaders should hold each other accountable for poor results. Defects must be named, not excused.

In personal life, it means parents need to let children bear the consequences of bad decisions. Adults need to feel the pain of overspending. Partners need to know the pain of communicating poorly and being self-serving.

Accepting pain is counterintuitive. The woman sitting next to the man who missed his stop in Trenton assured him his mistake didn’t matter. A better response would have been, “Yes, you did screw up. What will you do differently next time?”

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)