Proposal

1. My program of study is Psychology
2. a. I may open up my feature story with a personal anecdote about how I often self-sabotage. For example, I’ll explain how I go to bed late when I know I need to wake up early or how I procrastinate doing work

b. My investigative question is asking why we self-sabotage

c. A conventional wisdom I want to challenge is when people say people self-sabotage for attention. I always hear individuals discuss that people self-sabotage because they want others to pity them and feel bad for them so they can get attention. I know firsthand that this is not the case. As a matter of fact, often individuals engage in self-sabotage without even realizing they are.

3. I want to write about this topic because I find myself engaging in a lot of self-sabotage and it really bothers me. I also know my friends do this as well. It’s infuriating to know that you’re doing something that you know is bad, but you do it anyways. I’m curious to know why we act this way

4. I hope to learn why we engage in self-sabotage. Since I’m in psychology, I’m very interested in the brain and how we function. Therefore, it will be interesting to see why we do things that we know will have a negative impact on us.

5. I think I will find many bigger picture ideas. I think the idea of control will come up. Maybe we self-sabotage because we’re anxious that if we don’t ruin things for ourselves, someone else will ruin them for us. We want to have control over our lives. I also think the idea of procrastination will come up. Often, we procrastinate doing things (even though we know we should do them) which only ends up negatively affecting us in the future. Some other big picture ideas could be fear/mental illness, PTSD from a bad experience, fear of failure and lack of self-worth.

6. This feature story is an investigation because it will find out more about the hidden truth and reasoning behind why we self-sabotage. It will also discuss many causes and effects which many investigation stories do as well.

7. My intended audience can really be anyone but it will probably be most appropriate for young adults who are in high school or university. I’m going to be writing like I speak and this is not going to be a formally written feature article so I think it will be best suited for people around my age. I don’t think this feature story will attract kids because most kids are too young to know what self-sabotaging is.

8. I’ve already mentioned this before but the goal for my feature story is to shed some light on why we self-sabotage. That way, readers can recognize their behaviors and hopefully discover ways to stop engaging in self-sabotage.

9. I think Vox (https://www.vox.com/) would be a great online publication because their articles aren’t very formal and they are appropriate for young adults. Although Vox is often centered around more political topics, after doing some research on the website, they also have many articles about self-help, psychology and pop culture.

10. My feature story will investigate why we self-sabotage. Essentially, when we know doing something will negatively affect us, but we do it anyways. I find myself engaging in self-sabotage way too often and, quite frankly, it pisses me off. I think this topic is super relatable (at least I know it is among my friends and family). There have been countless times when my friends would complain to me that they’re mad because something bad that happened when they’re the ones that caused this bad thing to happen in the first place. I really want to shed light onto the reasons why we self-sabotage because not only do I think it will be something very interesting, I also think it could be very helpful. I also want to include many personal anecdotes in my feature article. I want the readers to feel like they can connect to me and that they find my article to be relatable. Personally, when I read an article that has a lot of relatable anecdotes, I find myself to be a lot more engaged in the written material as well as feeling connected to the author and the message they are trying to send. Ideally, I would also like to provide some solutions as to how to stop self-sabotage but I have a feeling it may be difficult to find solutions. I also want to explore many bigger picture ideas to show that self-sabotage can be caused by a multitude of factors, explaining why self-sabotage is so common among individuals. I’m hoping to branch out and discuss the issue of self-sabotage in politics, psychology, sociology and as many other diverse fields.