Doubling-back aversion and self-narrative dissonance

How this psychological self-sabotage ends up costing us more time and effort to get where we want to go

Have you ever known in your gut that the right move was to turn around, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it?

I’ve found myself in those situations a couple of times in my life, and have grappled with a big one of those lately.

There’s something I thought I had left behind, something I believed I’d moved on from. And now, returning to it feels like failure. Like going backwards.

But I very recently came across a term/concept that helped me make better sense of it:

Doubling-back aversion

It’s a label given to the psychological discomfort we feel when 'undoing progress', even if that’s exactly what would help us move forward in the longer term.

This idea came up in something I read recently in the excellent newsletter,

🌻 A Year of Mental Health

by

Chris Guillebeau

. His piece landed at just the right moment for me, and it also made me consider the overlaps and differences between doubling-back aversion and sunk cost fallacy.

Sunk cost fallacy is when we stick with something just because of how much we’ve already invested in it.

Doubling-back aversion is when we avoid the better option for us in the moment because it would mean (or at least seem to mean) undoing progress we’ve already made (and that can sting like failure).

Here are 4 examples specific to doubling-back aversion:

1. An employee switches from a technical role into a management position, then realises they miss hands-on work and feel more fulfilled in individual contributor roles.
   

   Despite this clarity, they remain in management because stepping back into their former role would look, and feel, like career regression, even though it aligns better with their strengths and long-term goals.

   
   The hesitation stems not from past investment in management training or responsibilities, but from a reluctance to appear as if they’re moving backwards.

   
   I see this in public service a lot, where pay progression is tied very strongly to rank and level in the chain of command, and not moving into a management role can eventually feel like you're stuck.
   
   So moving back from a management role can feel like falling backwards and everybody knows that you’ve taken a cut in pay and authority in doing so, making it all the more harder to swallow.
   

2. A person moves interstate or overseas for a “fresh start,” chasing a new lifestyle and sense of independence, but finds they’re lonelier and less grounded than they were back home.
   

   They consider moving back, but hold off because it would mean undoing a bold decision they’ve already shared widely with friends, family, and colleagues.
   

   It’s not the cost of the move or the lease that keeps them stuck, but the fear that returning home would look like failure. Even if it would bring them the connection and stability that would help them to better figure out where they actually want to go next, going back feels like giving up and failing their adventure.
   
   So, they waste more time and energy stuck where they are or bouncing randomly to somewhere else.
   

3. A team launches a new internal workflow that quickly proves inefficient, but refuses to revert to the old system.
   

   Even though going back to the previous method would immediately restore productivity, the team avoids doing so because it would mean undoing visible change and admitting the “new way” didn’t work.

   
   The resistance isn’t about the time already spent building the new process (which would be sunk cost fallacy), but about the psychological discomfort of reversing a step that was supposed to represent forward progress.
   

4. A business owner rebrands their company with a new visual identity and messaging, but quickly finds that it confuses clients and weakens recognition.
   

   Even with this clear feedback, they resist reverting to the previous brand because going back would feel like erasing forward movement, so they just keep coming up with new variations instead.

   
   It’s not the money or effort spent on the rebrand that holds them back (which would be sunk cost fallacy), but the sense that returning to the old identity contradicts their desired narrative of progress and innovation.

There’s something powerful about being able to name this pattern. It doesn’t make the discomfort go away, but it can help us recognise when our resistance isn’t about what’s right, but about what feels too hard to undo.

And I think what these situations reveal is something deeper than just hesitation or pride or ego. These scenarios point to a subtle but powerful force in the way we relate to time, identity, and progress.

We often equate forward motion with success, and any step that looks like reversal can feel like a threat to the story we’re trying to tell about ourselves. There’s quite a bit of research on this, including the concept of narrative identity and self-narrative dissonance.

“Narrative identity is the internalized and evolving story of the self that a person constructs to make sense and meaning out of his or her life.” - Dan P. McAdams

But real progress is rarely linear.

Sometimes it asks us to loop back, to retrace our steps, or to revisit something we thought we had outgrown. The discomfort of doubling back isn’t always a sign that we’re failing. It can just as easily be a sign that we are course-correcting with more clarity than before.

At least that’s what I try and tell myself.

To be willing to turn around when needed, to unmake a choice that no longer fits, is not weakness. It is a kind of wisdom. It is a refusal to be held hostage by momentum for its own sake.

Sometimes the most honest and forward-looking thing we can do is to go back, even when it feels hard.

Especially when it feels hard.

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