Overview: If we want more meaningful and reliable change, we must include the body.
Most of us are already carrying a quiet, constant strain just from being alive in the world right now. The pace of daily life asks us to run on low-grade adrenaline—managing responsibilities, caring for others, keeping up with work, relationships, and the invisible emotional labor that never quite ends. By the time we sit down to “work on ourselves,” we are already tired.
And yet, the cultural message is to keep doing; optimize, fix, upgrade, hustle. But when you’re worn down, with high cortisol running, doubling down on doing more of most anything only adds another layer of pressure. What most of us actually need is a shift toward being—a way of meeting ourselves that’s rooted in presence and capacity, not forced effort. This difference between being and doing is often the missing key to real change. I’m starting to feel like over-doing is so 1980’s, know what I mean?
If you’ve ever found yourself knee-deep in a new self-improvement plan, be it another habit tracker, online course, or morning routine you swear is going to change everything—only to feel almost exactly the same weeks later, you’re not alone. It’s not that you’re unmotivated or undisciplined. In fact, most people who love personal growth are incredibly earnest and hardworking. The real issue is that many self-improvement projects are designed to bypass the very things that would actually create change: presence, nervous system regulation, and compassionate self-contact. Without those, your best efforts spin in place.
Here are three reasons your projects might not be taking you where you want to go:
1. You’re Trying to Change From the Neck Up
Most self-improvement advice assumes that if you just understand the problem, you can fix it. Read the book. Make the plan. Think differently. But real change doesn’t happen in the mind alone. It happens in the body—slowly, relationally, through felt experience. This is what we mean when we say “bottom up approach.” Top is the head, and bottom is the body. Top down is limited.
If your nervous system is overwhelmed or exhausted, no amount of mindset work can override that. You can’t “think” your way into safety or clarity. When you skip over the body, you end up with beautifully organized goals that your system simply can’t sustain. The body will always win—and it’s not trying to sabotage you. It’s trying to protect you.
2. You’re Working on Yourself Instead of Being With Yourself
There’s a quiet difference between self-work and self-contact. One treats you like a problem to be solved; the other treats you like a person who deserves care.
Many people approach self-improvement with an inner tone that’s subtly harsh: Fix this. Improve that. Become better. Even if the tools are good, the underlying energy creates pressure—which your system reads as threat. When you’re constantly trying to upgrade yourself, you never get to feel who you actually are in this moment. And paradoxically, the ability to be with yourself—exactly as you are—is what softens stuck patterns and allows genuine growth.
Learning how to presence oneself is key, and a big part of what I teach clients and hold space for them to practice when we are together.
3. You’re Chasing Big Leaps Instead of Small, Regulating Shifts
Growth is often portrayed as dramatic breakthroughs: new careers, bold decisions, 30-day transformations. But most meaningful change is incremental and quiet. It looks like noticing tension before it spikes. Choosing rest without guilt. Pausing to breathe before you say yes. Letting yourself feel five percent more supported. None of these are easy, but they are learnable abilities.
These tiny shifts, repeated over time, rewire everything. They build nervous system capacity in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you.
A New Way Forward
If your self-improvement projects aren’t getting you anywhere, it’s not because you’re failing. It’s because you’re trying to grow in ways that ignore how humans actually change. When you bring your body back into the conversation, soften the pace, and meet yourself with more warmth than urgency, growth stops feeling like a project and starts feeling like relief. It becomes something you live, not something you perform.