Horrible flaw in anyone’s tournament play is that right there.
Being 'afraid of going home'.
The only way you can EVER win tournaments is to accept the fact that you may be going home within fifteen minutes of the first deal. You must come to terms with this in your own mind.

The moment you are 'afraid of going home' you have resigned your game to protective play and you will get squashed fast.
I harvest at least a 3rd of my chip stack within the first hour of play, knowing that 90% of all the players are 'afraid of going home early' and will let me steal from them.
Has this cost me?
Yes. The occasional slowplay or the occasional brave call foils this plan, but tournament poker isn't about hands, tables, sets or even tournaments. It's about months and years, and in the long term, this strategy is winning.
It's also native to EVERY winning player NLHE save for maybe Harrington or Gray (Or Hansen who tends to be very quiet early on but blows up like a rocket once the blinds get big or the table is short handed)

This dynamic (being 'adraid of going home') is very acute in larger buy-in tourneys like WSOP or some of the larger events.