On Second Thought
The Surprising Allure of Staying Stuck
Most leaders stay stuck not because they lack discipline, but because staying stuck works.
Key Takeaways
Most of us start the year with bold visions. We’re going to become more strategic, delegate more effectively, and finally prioritize well-being.
And then, somewhere around now, those visions start quietly fading into the background of the daily grind. Why? We blame a lack of discipline, time, or willpower—but it isn't that.
On some level, staying stuck works for us.
The Anatomy of Stuck
Getting unstuck requires looking past the "lack of willpower" narrative and addressing the three reasons we resist change—one biological, one psychological, and one structural. Together, they form a system so efficient it can feel invisible.
Your brain operates on a strict energy budget. It prefers well-worn neural pathways because they’re metabolically cheap to run—even when those pathways aren't serving the leader you want to be. Change requires what I call the Double Energy Tax: first, energy to interrupt the old automatic response; second, energy to build the new pathway.
When you feel exhausted by attempted change, you’re not failing. You’re paying the metabolic cost of rewiring. And your brain is screaming at you to stop spending energy it doesn’t want to spend—so it quietly nudges you back to what’s familiar.
As long as your goal remains a "someday" fantasy, it stays perfect. The reality of becoming that leader? Messy. Uncomfortable. Full of potential frustration and failure. It requires saying no to people who will be disappointed, sitting in silence when you want to fill it, and delegating poorly ten times before you get it right.
The gap between who you are and who you want to be can feel paralyzing. So we protect the idea of our potential rather than risk the reality of not reaching it. It’s easier to say, "I could do it if I just had the time," than to test that belief in real conditions. That excuse protects your ego, but it also limits your growth.
Finally, we stay stuck because we confuse outcomes with systems. We fall in love with the destination—the impact, the identity, the kind of leader we want to be—without redesigning the daily structures and habits that would actually produce it.
So we keep the same calendars, meeting patterns, and decision rules—and we expect different results. Systems feel safe. They're familiar, predictable, and identity-preserving. We tell ourselves stories like "When things slow down" or "After this quarter," but the system never changes.
The Core Contradiction
Aspirations create goals. Systems create results. You can’t outgrow a system you keep running. You can’t evolve inside a structure designed to preserve the old version of you. Until the system changes, the stuckness isn’t a personal failure. It’s structural.
What Actually Works
Getting unstuck is a process. Here are three shifts to get started:
SHIFTS FOR MOMENTUM
Pay the Tax Differently Stop relying on willpower alone
When an old habit fires—the urge to interrupt, check email mid-task, or say yes when you mean no—pause. Take two conscious breaths. Name the urge. Then choose your response. You're not fixing everything. You're stepping off the habit wheel long enough to restore judgment and create space for choice. Every time you do this, you're paying the Double Energy Tax in smaller, more manageable installments.
Make It Smaller Start absurdly small
Don't overhaul your leadership this quarter. Instead of "I'm going to empower my team completely," try "I'm going to stay silent for the first five minutes of one meeting". Start small, sustain it, and build.
Reframe Failure as Data Run Leadership A/B tests
When you try something new and it doesn't go as hoped, that isn't failure—it's data about what needs adjustment next time. Treat your experiments as A/B tests, not pass/fail exams.
This week, choose one small, clumsy, imperfect step—and notice what it teaches you about your current system.
The fantasy of perfection keeps you stuck. The reality of messy progress moves you forward.
The stuckness this issue describes is personal — a leader's biology, psychology, and systems working together to preserve the familiar. But there's a version of the same pattern that operates at civilizational scale. When the pace of change outstrips the frameworks we've built to manage it, entire organizations — and societies — can find themselves running systems designed for a world that no longer exists. Issue #9 takes up that harder question, through the lens of AI and the governance gap it's already creating.