Stuck Is a Form of Success
You’re Not Failing. You’re Succeeding at the Wrong Goal
There’s a strange possibility most of us never consider.
What if being stuck isn’t failure at all? What if it’s success ...just pointed at the wrong goal?
We tend to explain stalled lives with familiar language. Maybe it’s lack of discipline. Lack of motivation...or no consistency.
But if we observe more closely...
People don’t just randomly repeat the same patterns year after year.
Something is working. Something is being executed with precision.
The uncomfortable thought is this:
Your life may already be running exactly as designed towards a goal you chose a long time ago.
The Invisible Goal Running the Show
Most of us assume setting an intention is enough to change our lives. Set a goal. Decide to change. Apply effort.
Sometimes it moves…but most times, very little actually moves.
Let’s honestly look at how many of our 2025 goals have moved forward?
Here’s where psychology offers an interesting explanation.
Your behavior isn’t governed by conscious goals - the ones you actually chose. It’s governed by an internal operating system or an autopilot software that’s wired for different goals.
Alfred Adler, one of the early influential thinkers of modern psychology, believed behavior is not driven by the past, but by goals.
These aren’t goals we consciously choose - e.g. “I want to lose weight” but rather the goals we serve subconsciously.
If you’re procrastinating, overthinking, hesitating when trying to take action for some of your goals... it doesn’t mean something is wrong.
It actually means a goal is being executed extremely well.
Usually one like:
Staying safe.
Avoiding pain.
Protecting reputation.
Choosing familiarity over uncertainty.
Seen this way, stuckness isn’t dysfunction.
It’s competence!
How the System Gets Built
This operating system isn’t consciously chosen. It’s installed during our early years.
Think about times in your childhood when you encountered a moment of embarrassment, a rejection, or a public failure.
All these are noted in our system as “things to avoid” subconsciously.
That path led to pain.
Avoid it next time.
Over time, avoidance becomes intelligence.
Your mind starts generating hesitation, doubt, overthinking, not as sabotage, but as protection.
It’s doing exactly what a good system does: optimizing and executing the goal perfectly.
Why This System Keeps You Stuck
Fast‑forward to adulthood. Now the goals sound different.
Start the business.
Create something meaningful.
Change your body.
Change your life.
But the operating system hasn’t been updated.
The inner GPS is still pointing to our outdated goals.
So when uncertainty appears, the system responds in accordance to your original goals: Thoughts intensify. Motivation disappears. Logic argues for delay or procrastination. This is all too familiar.
You want change.
But your system is optimized for safety not for change. Now, you’re stuck.
How to Rewire the Operating System
So how do we actually change this system?
Most of us wait for clarity, motivation, or confidence before acting.
But that never comes...because the feelings are produced by the old system.
Here’s the counterintuitive truth to rewiring our system:
Action come first. Feelings later.
This is brilliantly explained by Dr. Russ Harris in his book The Confidence Gap, which I highly recommend reading if you haven’t already.
When you take action despite discomfort, the feelings that arise afterward are different.
When you take courageous action towards your new goals…You feel alignment, self-trust, and a sense of pride for showing up.
Over time, as you keep repeating this, your brain is rewiring to replace your old system of anxiety and fear with these positive feelings.
That’s how the system gets rewritten.
Not by thinking or engaging in logical arguments against the mind. But by doing despite the discomfort.
The temporary pain is there until you upgrade your old operating system to the new one.
The Big Mistake
The most common mistake is assuming thinking will free us. But thoughts and emotions are not truth-tellers.
Thoughts and emotions exist in service of existing goals.
Believing them completely or even fighting them... will keep the same old system intact. You end up not taking action --> reinstating the old system.
So if we can’t use our thinking...how do we rewire our old system?
What if the way forward doesn’t involve thinking at all?
The No‑Choice Idea
There’s an interesting paradox here.
Freedom doesn’t always come from more choice.
Sometimes it comes from less.
The core idea is simple:
Remove thinking as an option at the moment of action.
We can’t use our old system to solve for our new goals.
When action is pre‑decided i.e. scheduled, simple, friction‑reduced, the mind has nothing to negotiate.
The system experiences something new: Action without internal permission.
We remove choice from the equation when it’s time to take action. When there’s no choice, no optionality, there is no room for thinking.
There’s only action...
Over time, your system learns and upgrades: “This is who I am now.”
Ironically, giving your mind no choice is how you give yourself the freedom to achieve your highest potential.
Thank you for reading.
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