I’m always spinning my tail

The speaker was lamenting about his unproductive efforts.  This is a classic congruent conflation of “spinning my wheels” and “chasing my tail”, both meaning to take action that is ineffectual or does not lead to progress.  The speaker may have had an image of a cat or dog spinning around trying to catch his tail.  A tip of the hat to Steve Grieme who heard this one uttered by a friend and passed it on.