In this podcast episode, I unpack one of the most misunderstood patterns in personal growth, and why so many people unknowingly sabotage the very things they've worked hardest for.

Most people assume their hesitation is about failure. But for many, the deeper fear is what success actually brings with it—the visibility, the responsibility, the shift in identity. And because that fear is harder to name, it often goes unaddressed, quietly driving overthinking, procrastination, and self-sabotage instead.

Why Your Brain Resists Moving Forward

Your mind is constantly making predictions based on who it believes you are. When your sense of identity is tied to struggle, striving, or staying small, success can feel like a threat, even when it's something you genuinely want. Drawing on over 40 years of research into how the mind drives behavior, I explain that this resistance isn't a character flaw. It's your brain doing its job: protecting a version of you that it knows, even if that version no longer fits.

The patterns that show up—the hesitation, the loop of "almost ready," the sudden loss of momentum right before a breakthrough—are all rooted in the stories your mind has attached to what success means. More pressure. More eyes on you. More to lose.

5 Steps to Update Your Internal Story

Changing this pattern requires more than positive thinking. It requires going to the root—the thought driving the resistance—and intentionally updating the meaning your mind has assigned to success.

1. Name the fear beneath the fear. Don't stop at "I'm afraid of failing." Go deeper. What specifically about succeeding feels unsafe? Visibility? Expectation? Losing relationships that were built around a version of you that struggled?

2. Identify the thought driving your resistance. There's always a specific belief underneath the pattern. Slowing down to find it is what makes change possible.

3. Update the meaning your mind assigns to success. Your brain has attached a story to what achieving your goal will cost you. That story can be rewritten — but only once you know what it is.

4. Take small, identity-shifting actions. You don't change your sense of self through declarations. You change it through repeated decisions that reflect who you're becoming. Each micro-action builds new neural pathways that make the next step feel more natural.

5. Build momentum through consistency, not intensity. Big bursts of effort followed by retreat reinforce the old pattern. Steady, intentional progress — even small — is what unlocks lasting change.

You're More Ready Than You Think

The version of you that keeps almost getting there isn't broken. It's running on an outdated internal script. When you learn to identify and update that script, forward movement stops feeling like a threat, and starts feeling like the most natural thing in the world.