Why Do You Keep Going in Circles When Trying to Make Real Change?

The anger, the doubt, the frustration you carry are real. They come from a story you have lived inside for years, and here is how to find and change that story.

Photo by AndrewLozovyi on DepositPhotos.com

The Person Who Holds Back Their Love

A man comes home from work and goes to the kitchen to get something to quench his thirst. His wife comes up to him, pulls him in for a hug and a peck on the lips.

And he feels a flash of irritation.

He does not understand it. He loves his wife. There is no reason on earth to feel annoyed when she shows him affection. But the feeling is there, every time, and it makes him feel like something is wrong with him.

Here is the thing. Nothing was wrong with him. That flash of irritation was not about his wife at all. It was a messenger, and it was carrying a message from a long time ago.

This is the part almost everyone misses about their own feelings.

We think the feeling is about the moment we are in. The traffic. The long day at work. The demanding boss. The person in front of us.

But very often the feeling has almost nothing to do with the present moment. It is tied to a belief we carry about ourselves, formed long ago, and the present moment just pressed the button and activated the feeling.

Let me show you what I mean with three patterns you might recognize.

There is a kind of person who finds it surprisingly hard to show affection day to day.

In the beginning of a relationship it comes easily. In big emotional moments it flows. But in ordinary daily life, the warmth gets withheld. The sincere praise goes unsaid. The admiration stays inside. They are not cold people. They feel the love. They just cannot seem to give it freely.

On the surface this looks like personality. They are just not very expressive. Maybe they are copying their parent.

But underneath, there is often a quiet story running. Something like, if I let myself fully love this person, and they leave, it will destroy me. So a part of me holds back to stay safe.

And underneath that is usually something even older. The belief that it will prove the thing about themselves that they subconsciously fear deep down. And that is the belief that they are not really worth staying for, and that the love will be taken away eventually. So they protect themselves from a loss they are scared is coming.

The Person Who Needs to Be Recognized

The withheld affection was never about the partner or the events of the day. It was about a belief they carry about themselves.

There is another kind of person who lights up when their work is praised and feels disappointed when it is not.

Early on, when the job is new, the recognition comes more frequently and feels wonderful. But over time, as the praise becomes less frequent, something curls inward.

They feel unseen. Unappreciated. And often they quietly disengage, do the work mechanically, and eventually walk away from things they once cared about.

On the surface this looks like ego or needing too much validation. But underneath there is usually a story that says, I need other people to tell me I am good, because on my own I am not sure that I am.

The praise was never really about the work. It was about borrowing a sense of worth from the outside, because the inside did not have enough of its own.

The Person Who Fears Being Responsible

And there is the person who pushes back hard against criticism, and who quietly dreads being handed something difficult where they might fail.

Give them a task with real stakes, where other people are watching and the outcome rests on them, and the weight becomes almost unbearable. They may resist it, deflect it, or find reasons it is not their fault. From the outside it can look like defensiveness or avoidance.

But underneath is usually a story that says, if I fail at this, in front of everyone, it will prove what I am most afraid is true about me. That I am not good enough. So failure is not just failure. It is a verdict.

The fear was never really about the task. It was about protecting a belief from being confirmed.

Notice What These Three Have in Common

Three completely different patterns. Withholding love. Craving praise. Fearing responsibility.

They look nothing alike on the surface. One is about relationships, one is about recognition, one is about work. But look at what is underneath each of them.

Not worth staying for. Not good enough on my own. Not good enough, and afraid of being found out.

They are all the same story, wearing different costumes.

This is the thing I want you to really take in. The surface feeling is almost never the real issue. The irritation, the resentment, the anxiety, the withdrawal, these are messengers. And the message is almost always a belief about yourself that you formed so long ago you stopped noticing it was even there. It does not feel like a belief anymore. It feels like a fact. It feels like just the way things are.

I know these three patterns intimately, because I have lived all of them. The withholding, the hunger for recognition, the fear of failing in front of others. For most of my life I thought they were just my personality. They were not. They were a story I had carried since childhood, quietly running my behavior while I blamed the present moment for how I felt.

How to Start Finding Your Own

So here is how you begin to catch it in yourself.

The next time you feel a reaction that seems a little too strong for the situation, or a feeling you cannot quite explain, pause. Do not push it away and do not act on it. Just look at it.

Then start asking yourself why you feel that way. Really inspect it and think about it. Try to think about it from a neutral perspective. Do not judge yourself while doing this.

But here is where most people stop too soon.

Say the behavior is that you hold back love. You ask why, and you dig and find a logical answer. It comes from being adopted, so I am afraid people will eventually leave, which means I do not need to invest too much. That feels like an answer. It is reasonable. It even sounds insightful. And it does carry a lot of truth.

But that is not the story. That is the explanation sitting on top of the story.

Keep going. Underneath that logical reason is a belief about yourself. Something quieter and harder to admit. In this case, something like, I am not worthy of being stayed with. That is the story. The fear of being left is just how it shows up.

This is the step almost everyone misses. The logical reason feels satisfying enough that we stop digging. But the logical reason is about the situation. The real story is about you. Keep asking until you reach the belief about yourself, because that is the chain that actually holds you.

If you feel irritated when someone loves you, do not stop at my parents did not show much affection, or that’s just who I am. Go under it.

What does it say you believe you deserve? If you feel crushed when your work goes unrecognized, go under the need for praise. What are you missing on the inside that you keep reaching for on the outside? If you dread failing in front of others, go under the fear of failure. What would that failure prove, and who decided that about you long ago?

Keep going underneath the first answer. The real story is always quieter and older than the explanation you find first.

These stories come from events in our past. When we were shamed, hurt, or scared.

And here is the part that changes everything. Once you find the story, you get to ask the most important question of all. Is it actually true?

Because that belief, whatever it is, was not a fact. It was a conclusion. Usually drawn by a much younger version of you who had no other way to make sense of what was happening at the time. It made sense then. It protected you then. But you are not that age anymore, and the conclusion was never the truth about who you are.

When you see that clearly, really see it, the story starts to lose its grip. The feelings soften. The patterns loosen. And slowly you stop ending up in the same place, because the thing that kept putting you there has finally been seen for what it is.

Find the story. Break the chain. Feel the weight removed and move forward.

That is where real change begins. Not by fighting the behavior. By finding the story underneath it.

This is what I write about every week. The hidden stories that quietly run our lives, and how to find and change them. Please subscribe to get these stories sent directly to you. You can ask me questions on my Substack.

And if you want help finding your own, I offer a free 30-minute call. No pitch, just an honest conversation.

Most people are afraid to talk because they are afraid of seeing the story that has been running their life. But without facing it, change will always be an uphill battle. Contact me today if you really are tired of fighting yourself.

Originally published at https://createastrongmindset.substack.com.