You can name the pattern. You've probably explained it to a friend. You've read enough to understand why you do what you do. And you're still doing it. That's not a discipline problem. It's a method problem.
For years I read financial statements looking for the one detail that didn't match the story everyone believed. The thing that was broken before anyone could see it. I was good at it. I just never applied it to myself before.
I'd been gambling recklessly, damaging friendships, getting called out by people who cared about me and brushing it off. I tried everything. Hard deadlines, schedule changes, a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat. I still drank at a wedding the night I got out. I held two beliefs at the same time and they were both wrong: I'm fucked, this is the rest of my life. And: it's not that bad, nothing catastrophic has happened, so I can keep going. One made me hopeless, the other kept me stuck.
Then my grandmother died and something cracked. The 13-day mourning period was the longest I'd been sober in years. It gave me hope. My friends saw it before I did. One asked how I wanted to be remembered. Another told me how disappointed everyone was, how many opportunities I'd been given and was wasting. I don't know why I was finally able to hear it after years of brushing off the same thing. It finally held. "I don't drink" became a fact.
I thought quitting would fix everything. It didn't. I had to figure out who I was without the most supportive crutch I'd ever had. The work is closing the gap between who I think I am and what I actually do. It doesn't close on its own.
I repaired what was broken. Relationships with parents, friends, people I'd hurt. I rebuilt slowly, without a map. Some things didn't come back. That's ok. Others told me I'd helped them start making changes in their own lives, some asked me to talk to people they knew who were struggling.
I find what's broken in people the way I used to find what's broken in companies.
Stopping drinking didn't fix my life. It cleared the field so I could start building. I'm still building. That's why I know what the work actually looks like. Most people can tell me what they're struggling with. I can tell you what you're avoiding.