The Real Reason You Feel Stuck

(And Why Motivation Isn’t the Answer)

Feeling stuck is the single most common reason people come to work with me.

Not because they’re lost, or lazy, or lacking ambition. But because they can feel, very clearly, that something in their life wants to move and they don’t know how to let it.

They’ll usually say it quietly. Almost cautiously.

“I feel stuck.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I don’t know how to move forward.”

What’s striking is that these are often intelligent, self-aware women who have already done a great deal of work on themselves. Many have been to therapy. Many understand their patterns. They can trace behaviours back to childhood, relationships, or earlier experiences with impressive clarity. Yet, despite all of that insight, nothing seems to shift.

That’s usually the point where self-blame creeps in. The assumption that motivation is missing. Or confidence. Or discipline. Or something essential that everyone else seems to have and they somehow missed out on.

But, feeling stuck is rarely about a lack of anything. More often than not, it’s about one decision that hasn’t been made yet.

Not because the person is incapable of making it, more so because making it would mean facing the emotional consequences that come with change.

From a psychological point of view, stuckness is less about indecision and more about avoidance. The human nervous system is wired to prioritise safety, and safety doesn’t always mean happiness or growth. Sometimes it simply means familiarity.

When a decision threatens something familiar… an identity, a relationship dynamic, a sense of security, or even the story we’ve told ourselves about who we are, the nervous system steps in to slow things down. It doesn’t shout “no don’t do this.” It’s far more subtle than that.

Instead, it encourages thinking. Analysing. Reflecting. Revisiting the past. Waiting for confidence. Waiting for the moment where the decision feels easier.

All of which can look like progress on the surface, while quietly keeping everything exactly as it is.

Behavioural science refers to this as decision avoidance. It’s a well-documented tendency, particularly when choices involve emotional risk rather than practical complexity. When the perceived cost of making a decision feels higher than the cost of staying the same, the brain will default to delay… even if that delay is uncomfortable.

That’s why being stuck is rarely neutral. It’s exhausting. Low-level stress hums in the background. The same questions circle again and again, never quite coming to a conclusion.

What really matters here is that understanding yourself doesn’t always lead to change. You can know exactly why you feel the way you do, where it came from, and how it all fits together and still find yourself in the same place.

Sometimes, continuing to analyse what’s going on can actually keep you stuck… because it’s familiar. Thinking, reflecting and looking back can feel safer than taking a step forward when you don’t know how things will turn out.

That doesn’t mean therapy or self-reflection hasn’t worked. It just means you may have reached a point where insight has done its job, and what’s needed next is something different.

There comes a stage where the work stops being about understanding the past and starts being about tolerating the discomfort of forward movement.

When we slow things down and really look at what’s happening beneath the stuckness, there is almost always a decision sitting there waiting to be made.

Sometimes it’s obvious.
Sometimes it’s deeply uncomfortable.
Sometimes it’s something we’ve known for a long time but hoped would resolve itself without us having to choose.

It might be a decision about staying or leaving. About committing or letting go. About allowing life to change rather than keeping everything just as it is because it feels safer that way.

Often, people know exactly what the decision is, but they also know what making it would cost them. Not practically, but emotionally.

So they wait.

Often, that waiting doesn’t feel like a choice at all. It doesn’t register as avoidance. It feels like being sensible, or careful, or realistic. It can look like gathering more information, giving it more time, or telling yourself that things will feel clearer later on.

Underneath that, though, something else is usually happening. The nervous system has clocked that this decision carries emotional risk… a shift in identity, a loss of certainty, the possibility of disappointing someone, or stepping into a version of yourself that feels unfamiliar. Without us consciously deciding it, the system moves into holding mode.

From the outside, nothing dramatic appears to be happening. Life continues. Responsibilities are met. On the inside, however, there’s often a low-level tension, a sense of being slightly misaligned, or a quiet frustration that never quite goes away.

This is why feeling stuck is so exhausting. It isn’t inactivity. It’s sustained internal effort. The mind keeps circling the same territory, trying to resolve something that can’t be solved by thinking alone.

Over time, this can start to erode confidence. People begin to question themselves, their motivation, even their character. They assume that if they were stronger, braver, or more disciplined, they’d have moved by now.

But what’s usually missing isn’t willpower. It’s permission, permission to acknowledge the size of the decision, to accept that it feels scary for a reason, and to move anyway without needing certainty or reassurance.

Change, in these moments, doesn’t come from forcing a leap. It comes from gently bringing the avoided decision into the light and recognising it for what it is: not a test of worth or capability, but a turning point.

Once that happens, something often shifts. Not everything resolves overnight, but the stuckness loosens. Energy returns. Direction starts to form, and movement, even tentative movement, becomes possible again.