Maybe you’re not trying

This is an idea that philosophers have played with in countless varieties, perhaps the one closest to the author's wording is Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of bad faith. Faced with anxiety, guilt or overwhelming weight of responsibility, it's often easier to subconsciously sidestep the problem and pretend you don't have a choice, even if you do. This is not even a conscious decision, it's hard to be aware of our own quirks and biases.

Paradoxically some things with human bodies work like that: Back pain? One of the best ways of usually getting rid of it is using your back more and building muscle.

I once worked with a guy who was a grandmaster at finding rational explainations of why they needed to do the thing that clearly was bad for them. He was overweight, but every time he ate both extremely unhealthy and much next to us he would explain how his body needs that because he would get a bad mood etc. His excuse not to make sports was some sports accident he had 30 years ago as a 18 years old (a medical condition I happened to knew very well because my marathon-running brother had it as well). For every other sport he also had some excuse, be it cost, traffic, weather, other people doing it being douchebags or whatever. This went all the way to making up a medical condition that gave him a excuse why he cannot visit his estranged child.

This guy had an absolutely phenomenal skill level when it came to self deception. And it only became better when his overweight led to a medical condition and his doctor hammered home that he is going to die if he continues on at this path.