3 Reasons You're Stuck in a Low Agency Mindset

“Smart but stuck”

That’s how I’d describe most of the clients I work with.

And while the details are always different, they usually fall into one of a few core patterns:

Stuck in their career or job—usually a combination of unfulfilled and overwhelmed.
Stuck in their relationship or marriage—sometimes the relationship is unhealthy, but often it’s just stagnant.
Stuck in their creative work—either they can’t get started or can’t follow through.

In all these cases, it’s rarely a lack of talent, intelligence, or effort that’s holding them back—these are generally pretty successful, high-achieving folks.

What’s holding them back is usually a low agency mindset.

Agency is the belief in your ability to positively affect yourself and the world around you. And while we all have the capacity for agency, for many of us it’s being blocked in some part of our lives, which is what leads to the feeling of stuckness.

So why does our agency get blocked? And why do we slip into a low agency mindset in some parts of our lives but not others?

Most high-achievers struggle with agency because of limiting beliefs.

In the rest of this essay, I’m going to share the three most common limiting beliefs that lead to a low agency mindset and give you some specific tools for working through them—allowing your natural agency to shine through and motivating you to take meaningful action in your life.

1. Chasing Insights

I don’t think I’ve ever met a high-achiever who wasn’t also at least a bit of an overthinker…

Sometimes this takes the form of ruminating on mistakes or failures in the past.
Other times it’s worrying or catastrophizing about the future.
It frequently manifests as self-doubt and indecisiveness.
And it can also show up as self-criticism and judgmentalness.

And while my clients are quick to identify the symptoms of their overthinking, they have a harder time understanding the root cause of their overthinking.

They frequently say things like:

I know worrying only makes me more anxious, but I find myself doing it anyway.
I know ruminating on my mistakes doesn’t help, but it just feels compulsive.
I get that second-guessing my instincts is counterproductive, but I can’t seem to help it.

In my experience, overthinking almost always comes from one root cause: A core belief that I call chasing insights….

Chasing insights is the belief that when confronted with a problem—especially one that involves a lot of uncertainty or ambiguity—you need to think more before you can take meaningful action.

Many of us (especially the high-achiever, good student types) acquire this belief early in life as a result of an educational system that incentivizes a learn first, do second mindset. The problem is that most of life works the other way around: We only learn by doing!

Lots of studying and thinking ahead of time then taking a test will get you pretty far in school. But applying that strategy to real life will often leave you emotionally overwhelmed and stuck.

But it’s a seductive belief because in the moment chasing insights provides a lot of relief from anxiety…

If you think you have a great idea to share with your team at work, but are feeling nervous about what people will think of you, thinking more about it allows you to temporarily avoid that anxiety that comes from making a decision.
If you believe you need to get out of an unhealthy relationship, but you’re afraid of being lonely when you do, thinking more about it allows you to avoid all that fear and anxiety of making a decision—temporarily.
If you want to take up a creative hobby, but are worried about how bad you’ll be at it, thinking more about it is an easy way to avoid all that worry and anxiety that comes from committing—for a while.

In short:

It’s always easy to justify overthinking—chasing insights—because we’ve been rewarded for doing it since we were in kindergarten.
And it’s hard to stop overthinking because it provides so much relief from fear and uncertainty—it’s a defense mechanism against anxiety.

But this core belief that, when confronted with an uncertain or difficult decision I need to think about this before I can do something is precisely the thing keeping you stuck long-term because you’re constantly procrastinating on taking action.

So how do you let go of overthinking and the core belief that drives it? Certainly not by more thinking!

To escape the cycle of chasing insights you need to invert the learn first, do second mindset into do first and learn along the way.

In other words, you need to generate a new core belief:

Learning and confidence are the result of doing, not a prerequisite for it.

To get started, design a series of small experiments that will give your mind real evidence this is true.

For example:

Imagine you want to start a podcast but you’re afraid of what people will think of you and your ideas. Ask yourself: What’s the 10% version of starting a podcast? Maybe you commit to recording a single episode alone and not releasing it publicly as a way to get used to the process. Or maybe you start by going on other podcasts once or twice as a guest first. It could even be as small as outlining topics for your first season without any pressure to actually record and release them. All of these experiments are ways to generate new learning and confidence through action.
Or let’s say you have an ambitious and creative but very risky proposal you want to pitch to the CEO of your company. But you can’t seem to do it because self-doubt and imposter syndrome are holding you back. Ask yourself: What’s the 10% version of sharing my big proposal? Maybe you come up with a small proposal for changing your work schedule and run it by your manager. Or maybe you come up with a radically different idea for summer vacation with your family and “pitch” it to your spouse? Experiments like this prime you for taking action and help you build confidence for the ultimate goal.

If you want to make progress, you need to get moving.

It’s only by taking real action—however small—that you’ll start actually learning and developing confidence.

So, if you struggle with overthinking and the chasing insights belief is holding you back, ask yourself:

What small experiments could I run that would at least get me moving in the right direction? What’s a 10% version of my goal?

2. The Gatekeeper Fallacy

Another core belief that keeps high-achievers stuck is something I call the gatekeeper fallacy:

The gatekeeper fallacy is the belief that you need permission or approval from others before you can take meaningful action.

Now, at first glance you might think this seems silly…

I’m an adult! I know I don’t need other people’s permission.

But do you really believe that?

Here are two quick examples of clients I’ve worked with who were both held back by the gatekeeper fallacy:

Jeremy the entrepreneur. Over the past five years, Jeremy had built a small technology consulting company into a serious business doing tens of millions of dollars of revenue each year. But as the company grew, he became more insecure and indecisive about guiding it, and increasingly, found himself looking to a handful of board members (much older, more senior entrepreneurs) for advice and guidance before big decisions. Consequently, he had grown to be much less confident and more anxious about guiding his company. Essentially, he had slowly but surely trained himself to see his board as gatekeepers and to feel anxious about making decisions without their endorsement. This was holding Jeremy and his business back in major ways.
Abby the writer. The first time I met Abby, she told me: “It’s strange… I was so confident writing my first book, but I can’t seem to make consistent progress on my second book because I just have so much anxiety. Shouldn’t it be the other way around—anxious the first time but more confident on the second?” As we started working together, I realized that the source of Abby’s anxiety and stuckness was the gatekeeper fallacy: After the success of her first book, she became much more plugged into the author scene and had made many friends and connections who were more experienced writers and authors. Specifically, she had joined a mastermind group of women writers where they shared advice with each other on monthly calls. Without noticing it, Abby had slowly started to see herself as “the inexperienced rookie” and felt like she needed to run all her ideas by her group of “experienced veterans” in the mastermind group. Consequently, when she was on her own writing and faced with uncertainties about how to move forward, she became nervous and anxious making decisions alone.

Both Jeremy and Abby had developed a limiting belief in the need for gatekeepers because, unwittingly, they had developed a habit of reassurance seeking.

Reassurance-seeking is a defense mechanism where we use other people to alleviate our own anxiety.

Essentially, you’re outsourcing decision making to someone else under the guise of asking for advice, mentorships, etc.

The trouble is the more you outsource working through anxiety to others the less confident you become in your ability to handle anxiety and uncertainty alone the next time, which leads to increasingly overwhelming levels of anxiety, self-doubt, and chronic stuckness.

I use these two examples of Jeremy and Abby because neither of them ever struggled with anxiety or lack of confidence in the past. In fact, both of them described themselves as “pretty confident people” prior to their current struggles. But both of them fell into stuckness and anxiety through chronic reassurance-seeking and the limiting belief—the gatekeeper fallacy—it generated.

So were they able to let go of the gatekeeper fallacy and get unstuck?

In both cases, the solution was simple: Stand in front of the bathroom mirror each morning and repeat the following positive mantra: “I don’t need anyone’s permission besides my own. I don’t need anyone’s permission besides my own. I don’t need anyone’s permission besides my own…”

Really? That helped?

No, of course not!

In reality, both Jeremy and Abby were able to get unstuck, but “letting go” of a major limiting belief like the gatekeeper fallacy took some time and more than a little hard work. Specifically, they both had to work on building more assertiveness.

Assertiveness? What does that have to do with the gatekeeper fallacy and agency?

Remember that the core habit that maintains the gatekeeper fallacy and keeps people stuck is reassurance-seeking—using other people to alleviate your own anxiety and make decisions for you in the face of uncertainty.

Assertiveness is the antidote to reassurance-seeking because it means making decisions based on your own values and preferences—not outsourcing those decisions to other people.

And the more you practice being assertive—asking for what you really want, saying no to what you don’t want, and expressing your beliefs and feelings honestly—the more confident you become in your ability to make decisions in the face of uncertainty and manage your own anxiety.

Like any skill in life, the trick to building assertiveness is to start very small and slowly build your way up (remember the 10% rule from the previous section?)

For example, let’s say you feel stuck and anxious at work because you feel like you deserve a promotion and raise but haven’t had one in a while. If simply walking into your boss’s office and asking for a raise seems to intimidating, look for smaller ways to practice communicating assertively at work to build your confidence first:

Giving your direct report a piece of negative feedback directly without beating around the bush or sugar-coating it
Asking your manager for an extension on a deadline
Even something as simple as taking a compliment from a colleague well without being dismissive or self-deprecating

Or if you have trouble making big decisions for your family and feel stuck, look for small ways to make assertive decisions in your family and practice there first:

Requesting that your partner make dinner tonight so you can go to the gym
Saying no to your kid’s request to have a friend over because you’re exhausted and need some time to rest this weekend
Expressing to your sisters how you really felt about the movie you just saw together

To sum up:

We often feel stuck because of a core belief that we need other people’s permission to do big, meaningful things—the gatekeeper fallacy.
This belief is maintained by a habit of reassurance-seeking—outsourcing your anxiety around decision-making to other people.
One of the best ways to break the habit of reassurance-seeking and win back your confidence is to practice communicating more assertively.

If you want some more guidance on communicating more assertively, I put together a short PDF guide called The Assertive Communication Cheat Sheet →

3. The Coping Mindset

Most of the clients I work with consider themselves to have pretty high emotional intelligence. And that’s usually true for the most part.

But there’s one aspect of emotional intelligence where they frequently struggle: emotional reasoning

Emotional reasoning is the habit of making decisions based on your emotions and at the expense of your values.

For example:

You get home from a long stressful day and work and really feel like a glass of wine…
So you pour yourself a glass even though you’ve committed to no alcohol as a part of your healthy eating plan.
Psychologically, what’s going on here is that you’re making decisions based on your feelings (drinking in order to feel less stressed) rather than your values (not drinking and sticking with your eating plan).

Here’s another quick example:

You’ve just finished writing an email outlining your vision for reshaping the way your division at work handles talent development.
But just before sending it to the head of your division, you feel anxious and start worrying that they’ll think it’s dumb.
So, you decide not to send the email.
In this case, you’re letting your emotions (anxiety) dictate your decisions, and as a result, sacrificing your goals and values.

Emotions are one source of evidence for how we should act; emotional reasoning means treating them as the only source of evidence.

Often we fall into the habit of emotional reasoning because, whether we realize it or not, we’ve built up a core belief that I call the coping mindset

The coping mindset is the belief that the best way to handle difficult emotions is to cope with them.

Sadly, for the last couple decades there’s been a well-intentioned but horribly destructive trend in mental health culture promoting the idea of coping—and coping skills in particular—as the best way to deal with emotional difficulties…

Feeling anxious? Reach into your anxiety toolbox and pull out a good coping skill to reduce your anxiety… maybe a breathwork exercise or some mindfulness.
Feeling angry? Open up the anger toolbox and pull out a good coping skill to lower your anger… counting backward from 20 or doing some deep breathing.
Feeling sad? Open up your sadness toolbox and pick up a nice coping skill for sadness… Looking for the silver lining in a situation or manifesting positivity.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with breathwork or mindfulness or positive visualization. In fact, when done with the right motivation, these can be helpful exercises.

The problem is that when you use these techniques as coping skills—with the motivation to reduce or avoid a difficult emotion—they become counter-productive because of a subtle but powerful psychological process called emotional fear learning…

Here’s how it works:

You feel bad—anxious, sad, angry, or something similar.
Understandably, you want to avoid feeling that way, so you select an activity that you hope will alleviate the difficult feeling.
But because your brain sees you trying to avoid or eliminate the difficult feeling, it learns to view that feeling as dangerous and a threat.
This means the next time you feel that way—anxious, sad, angry, etc—you’re going to feel afraid of feeling anxious/sad/angry, which will be even more emotionally overwhelming.

Coping skills are emotional avoidance. And like all forms of emotional avoidance, they sacrifice long-term confidence and resilience for short-term relief.

So, if coping with difficult emotions is bad for me long-term, what should I do when I feel bad?

The antidote to the coping mindset is the tolerance mindset…

The tolerance mindset is based on the belief that just because emotions feel bad doesn’t mean they are bad.

When you’re willing to have an emotion—especially a painful one—and continue to act in alignment with your values anyway, that teaches your brain that the emotion is safe rather than a threat. And over time, this leads to less emotional reactivity and more emotional resilience in the future.

This is critical for people feeling stuck because in order to act with agency, you can’t be trapped by emotional reasoning—you need to be able to act on your values regardless of how you’re feeling. And that requires emotional resilience, which is built on the belief that emotions should be tolerated rather than avoided or eliminated with coping skills.

So how do you get better at emotional tolerance and resilience?

That’s a big topic with all sorts of possibilities. But one small yet powerful way to start is to break your habit of intellectualizing.

Intellectualizing is a subtle defense mechanism where we get in the habit of describing how we feel emotionally using overly-conceptual or metaphorical language as a way to avoid the raw feeling of the emotion…

I’m just overwhelmed instead of I’m afraid
I’m feeling kind of down today instead of I’m really sad
I’m just stressed instead of I’m angry

When we use overly-intellectual or metaphorical language to avoid feeling our emotions, it reinforces the belief that emotions are dangerous and need to be coped with.

On the other hand, if you can get in the habit of describing how you feel using plain emotional language, you’re reinforcing the opposite belief—the tolerance mindset: it’s okay to feel bad and I don’t need to do anything about it

So, start paying more attention to how the words you use to describe how you feel—either to yourself in your self-tax or out loud in conversation. And if possible, catch yourself when you intellectualize and force yourself to use a plain emotional word instead.

All You Need to Know

A brief summary of what we’ve covered…

When you’re stuck in a low-agency mindset, it’s not because you lack agency intrinsically.
It’s because something’s blocking your natural levels of agency. Low agency is an interference problem, not a deficit problem.
Very often what’s getting in the way is a limiting belief. And three of the most common agency-blocking limiting beliefs are…
Chasing Insights—the belief that when faced with a problem more thinking is what you need
The Gatekeeper Fallacy—the belief that you need permission or approval from others before you can take meaningful action
The Coping Mindset—the belief that difficult emotions are dangerous and need to be avoided or eliminated with coping skills.
To eliminate these limiting beliefs, you need to build more helpful beliefs. But remember, beliefs are built on action, not thinking.