dig a hole for oneself—(also: dig oneself into a hole) get oneself into an awkward or restrictive situation:
- Melton has dug a hole for himself that will take the remainder of his term to come out of. He has made so many promises in his few months in office…
dig one’s own grave—be the cause of one’s own failure or downfall:
- When a plot was disclosed he did not use the occasion to make a comprehensive purge. However humane this behavior may seem, politically it was digging his own grave.