How to make progress when you are stuck? — Tip #15
Pause, reflect, act 🎯
I don’t know about you, but I am amazed at how quickly time is flying, especially post-COVID. It’s already March with ~17% of 2026 now part of the past. It was not long ago that we were talking about planning the year ahead and how to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. In case you need a refresher 👇
If you look back at your intentions for this year, most likely you are falling short in one aspect or another. Not because you are not capable, but because it’s human to not be able to accomplish everything we aim for. When this happens, our brains are wired to convince us to give up. Why? Because the brain evolved, for most of its evolutionary history, in an environment scarce of resources, so only brains that were very careful with resource and energy allocation were able to survive. As soon as the brain senses the struggle, if it’s not tied to immediate survival, it starts considering the energy spent not worth the potential reward.
So now what? Your biology is doing its best to convince you that: it’s not a big deal that you didn’t progress much as per your plans, that it’s okay, and that you will figure it out later or worse, it will suggest you give up altogether and move the goalposts to something else. The last one is the most dangerous: you keep moving the goalposts to feel good and avoid facing the harsh reality, as you get to start fresh on a new goal you haven’t failed at (yet 🤡). Imagine living a life where every time you fall short on something you wanted to do, you pivot so that you don’t feel bad and get to “start again”. You’ll spend an entire lifetime not accomplishing anything, just briefly chasing one thing after another (if that keeps you happy, by all means keep doing it, just make sure you are doing it with awareness).
For the rest of us who would still like to move forward, what can we do? Behavioural psychology would suggest:
❓Explore the why → Reconnect with why you set your goal in the first place. Why is this important to you? If you want to lose weight, why is that meaningful? Do you want to look better for yourself? Feel better?
💡 Is it still relevant? → Things change and it’s normal to adapt the plan: in fact, being adaptable is a core skill for a human being. Just make sure you are not falling for your own brain’s traps.
🔍 Learn from the (lack of) progress → If it’s something you really want to accomplish but haven’t been effective at, try to be very specific about why that’s happening. What can you learn from it so that you can improve in the coming weeks?
Personally, I struggle with this as much as anyone else. My “whys” are generally very strong and I follow a routine that helps keep my actions “relevant” (more on this in a future tip 🔮). Where I still need to improve is focusing on learning and iterating on my mistakes, because attributing the lack of progress to myself (e.g. I should push harder, that’s why it’s not working) is the default option, rather than something that enables further action (e.g. Why is this happening? What can I do to fix it?). The first approach is so vague that it doesn’t contain much actionable information; the second one challenges me to be specific and really think about why things are not moving: Were my expectations wrong from the get go? Am I not taking the right steps? Am I lacking some specific knowledge?
Your weekly tip: If you feel you are falling short on your goals, make sure to reconnect with them. Why do you have these goals in the first place? Are they still relevant? What can you learn from how things have gone so far? Write a full page with all these thoughts, and for the last point, be specific enough that it becomes self-evident where the problem lies and why you are stuck.
Don’t forget to share this tip with a friend who is struggling to move forward 🫰
See you next week, until then…
Don’t Panic 😱