From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfall into/avoid the trap of doing somethingfall into/avoid the trap of doing somethingMISTAKEto do something that seems good at the time but is not sensible or wise, or to avoid doing this Don’t fall into the trap of investing all your money in one place. → trap
Examples from the Corpus
fall into/avoid the trap of doing something• Don't fall into the trap of comparing your wages and conditions with other volunteers and development workers.• Duffy refuses to fall into the trap of spoon-feeding the material to passive students, which only increases their passivity.• During the 90s Washington fell into the trap of allowing events to dictate the relationship, with increasingly destabilising results.• Journalists can fall into the trap of being hypercritical.• She was not going to fall into the trap of thinking she wanted Vitor as Vitor.• So answer this question truthfully, lest your smart organization fall into the trap of continuing to outsmart itself.• When we tie it to jobs, or to survival needs, we fall into the trap of mechanistic literacy.• But do not fall into the trap of doing something I saw recently. 