The Mindset Keeping You Stuck In Life

As someone who’s been involved in self-improvement work for over a decade now, I’ve seen all sorts of trends come and go.

In the early 2010s, the dominant narrative was Silicon Valley-style productivity. “Optimize everything” was the mantra.

People idolized startup founders, bulletproof coffee, standing desks, and Getting Things Done systems–hoping that more efficiency would unlock existential meaning and success.

But by the mid-2010s, the conversation started to shift.

As the digital world tightened its grip, people realized they were becoming more distracted, more anxious and simultaneously less human.

This gave rise to digital detoxes, mindfulness apps, and a return to ancient philosophies to counterbalance the pull of Big Tech.

Heading into the late 2010s and early 2020s, burnout hit hard. The pandemic took a toll on all of us differently and individually, productivity wasn’t delivering on its promises, and hustle culture began to crack.

As a counterbalance, the culture has now sort of swung toward rest and softness: self-care, therapy, “doing less,” and protecting your peace became the new holy grail.

Now? Many people are aware self-improvement language — they’ve read the books, watched the reels, followed the coaches.

But even in the midst of all this information and advice, I see one glaring problem: people aren’t improving. Many people just aren’t getting better.

And in fact, people are probably getting worse because of all this information.

Why is that? Why is it in the midst of being the most culturally aware and information-rich society that has ever existed, people are still finding it difficult to make the change they want to see in their lives?

This is mainly because I believe that many people are consciously and unconsciously choosing being comfortable over doing the hard yet necessary work of what it takes to grow and evolve.

In this article, I’m going to explain why and how to get yourself out of this trap if you find yourself in it.

This article is also available as a podcast:

The Main Reason Why You Aren’t Developing As You Should (or Want)

To make my point, I’ll reduce this to strictly material terms to get the point across.

You can translate this to whatever area you’d like. Spirituality, fitness, relationships, etc.

At this current point, you’re probably at some kind of lifestyle plateau now.

You might be “stuck” at a high level such as:

• Making more money than the average household in your country, city, or geographical area
• Deciding where to spend your next vacation out of the many you’ll take this year
• In general, living your ideal lifestyle

Or you might be at a lower level such as:

• Finding it difficult to get even basic survival resources
• Alone and afraid, with no one to help lend a hand
• Hard scrabbling through the days just to make ends meet

Or you might be somewhere in between (or completely elsewhere).

If you’re reading this, chances are you are not “Guy #1” (if you are, don’t you have money to go count?💰).

This means, you are either way down on the so-called “ladder of success” or most likely, you’re somewhere in between these two ranges.

Regardless, wherever you are – you have said at some level consciously or unconsciously: I’m good man.

What do I mean?

You have decided to remain comfortable. And that’s fine. We all want/need comfort. We all need a baseline we can stay at.

But when it comes to self development, it can be (and often is) a giant trap.

If you’re guy #1, you might be comfortable chillin’ at 450k/year. That’s a good stopping point. You can do a lot with 450k USD/year. But there’s always another level.

If you’re guy #2, you might acknowledge that life is quite hard. At the same time, you might not really want to change. At least you’re alive, right? Sure. But there’s always another level.

In either scenario, the person has become so accustomed to where they are that despite their circumstances, they are adverse to change (growth).

As an example, this is also why you see people who are clearly extremely obese walk around like everything is A-OK. They have internalized the state of being obese that they don’t see any problem with it, despite there objectively being many problems with it.

Why Does This Happen?

Our brains can be our best friend or our worst enemy (especially when it comes to self-image psychology).

In this case, it’s both.

Your brain’s main priority is self-preservation and reproduction. It isn’t designed to help you thrive, it’s designed to keep you comfortable.

As you grow up, you learn rules, regulations, customs, habits, and generalized modes of being to survive in society. This process is known as “socialization”. This is where your conditioning takes place.

As you grow up, these start to become hardwired into your very being, your very identity.

Once your brain has learned enough about the world around you, it creates “mental schema“ to help you accommodate and accustom itself to the world.

Meaning, you will keep doing the same thing you have been doing indefinitely until you force yourself to change.

This is especially true if you are past the age of 25, which is the age where the brain starts to finish forming itself and starts pruning neural connections to make itself more efficient and effective.

After this point, this means you’ll have to put in the work to change and grow, which is more than the work of staying the same.

Many people are not willing to do this and this is why they will remain the same.

What Growth Actually Feels Like

“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change” – Tony Robbins

The work to change yourself and become the person you see in your mind’s eye isn’t easy, or else everyone would be doing it.

Here’s what it involves:

Discomfort

Real growth starts where your comfort zone ends.

This means doing the things you don’t want to do, such as:

• Studying even when you don’t “feel like it”.
• Going to the gym when you don’t feel motivated.
• Sitting in silence when you want to reach for your phone.
• Asking that girl out even if you are afraid of the outcome.

Growth happens in these moments.

That hesitation you feel? That tightness in your chest? That voice that says “maybe later”? That’s the doorway.

Every time you push through it, your identity shifts.

Necessary Conversations

Discomfort also shows up in your relationships.

There are many things that need to be said that are unsaid. Lots of us just “go along to get along” and not to “rock the boat”. This is called “artificial harmony” and it KILLS relationships.

• Telling someone the truth instead of what they want to hear.
• Setting a boundary even though it might upset them.
• Owning up to a mistake instead of deflecting.

These moments feel awkward, raw, and vulnerable, which is exactly why they’re so powerful.

We usually avoid these conversations because we want to preserve this so-called “harmony” (which is again, artificial).

But in doing so, we sacrifice depth and we just skate on the surface of pleasantries.

There is no true self-development without relational discomfort.

Internal Resistance

One of the hardest and most necessary forms of discomfort is sitting face-to-face with yourself.

This is why I am a big advocate of meditation because it brings you face to face with the enemy within.

Beyond meditation, things like pushing your limits physically, going without certain things for a specific period of time (aka “deprivation”), building new skills, confronting limitations, autosuggestion–are all ways of encountering this inner resistance.

• Owning the ways you’ve self-sabotaged.
• Confronting how your victim story is keeping you small.
• Letting go of old identities, even when they’ve given you comfort or attention.

This isn’t glamorous. This isn’t something you can put on Instagram.

It’s messy, lonely, and often painful. But this is where the shift happens. If you want it bad enough.

How to Break Free From the Trap

If you want to stop choosing comfort over growth and instead the the opposite, here’s some things to think about:

1. Identify your comfort addictions.

We all have habits that reinforce our limited identities. The key is to recognize this and face them head on.

What habits are you rationalizing under the guise of “self-care”?

Is it drugs? Is it food? Is it pornography? Excessive TV watching?

Identify the patterns and habits that keep you stuck and go to work on reducing, then eliminating them piecemeal.

2. Set growth-based goals that actually make you nervous.

“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” – Thomas Jefferson

Your current life is the aggregate of all of the actions you’ve taken up until this point.

The closer you are to 18, the less this applies to you but this becomes more and more true as the years pass.

And again, as an adult — you’ll have to force yourself to change because guess what? No one is coming to help you.

This is where objective goals come into play. It’s a scoreboard to help you measure yourself against.

And you can’t lie to the scoreboard.

3. Take daily action.

Action is the heartbeat of life. Without it, nothing moves. Therefore, you must take action in the right direction.

Even if it’s a small little piece of an action, it’s better than staying stuck where you are and having time ooze by.

So do something, anything–now.

Conclusion + Wrap Up

I want you to picture yourself a year from now.

Where will you be?

Will you be one step closer to capitalizing on your dreams, goals, and ideals? Or are you going to be stuck doing the same actions, the same habits, living the same life on repeat?

Only you can answer that.

Growth is hard. But staying stuck, that’s hard too.

One leads to potential, the other leads to regret.

Whatever choice you make, just make sure it leads to the former and not the latter.