Lot's and lot's of variables but it looks like the first thing you might want to address is how you start. There are three schools of thought - 1) widen your range a bit while you can get opportunities cheap (blinds are small) - 2) tighten your range a bit and let the donks sort themselves out - 3) what's a range? Just play cards.
I;m going to guess you are doing either #1 or #2. If it's not working for you try the other for a while.
Personally I do both and it is predicated on how deep the starting stack is. In my deeper stack one ($5500 to start) I pretty much allow myself $1500 of it to donk around with. See a bunch of flops, establish myself as loose, yada, yada. The other live tourney I play is a faster stack ($2000 to start) with more accelerated blinds. It's going to be a shove fest very quickly so I am pretty tight up front. There just aren't enough chips to play with on spec
hands. Not that you can't recover (got down to $400 with blinds at $50 and ended up winning it) but why make it hard on yourself. Let some donk chip up and then take them away from him later on.
What is the blind structure? You're biggest opponent in this game is the blinds. Know what they are doing at all times. One weapon is your stack of chips. let it get too small and it is no longer a threat to anybody, but instead a feast - don't let that happen.
POSITION, POSITION, POSITION -