What's holding me back? A 3-minute self-reflection

About 3 minutes · 13 statements · Your answers stay on this page

Feeling held back is one of the most common reasons people go looking for answers, and much of the advice out there points at a single culprit: your mindset. Sometimes that's part of it. Often, though, what slows a person down is a mix of things, and some of them are real. This reflection looks at three places the drag can come from. One is fear: worry about failing, or about being seen to try. Another is direction: not being sure what you want, or noticing that what you're reaching for is really someone else's hope. The third is the weight of your life right now: time, money, the people who rely on you, and how much energy is left at the end of a day. You'll rate thirteen everyday statements, which takes about three minutes, and it helps to keep one thing in mind that you'd like to move on. At the end you'll see which of the three seems to weigh most for you, what may be useful in it, what it can cost, one small practice to try this week, and a few questions to sit with. It isn't a test, and your answers never leave this page.

A reflection, not a diagnosis. Feeling held back is an ordinary part of wanting something, not a condition. If it has turned into a long stretch of feeling low or stuck, a counsellor or doctor can help in ways a reflection can't.

About the idea

There is no single scientific measure of 'what's holding you back', so this reflection draws on three lines of research that each look at one part of it. The psychologist Gabriele Oettingen has studied mental contrasting: picturing a wished-for future and then the obstacles in your present that stand in its way. In her review of that work, contrasting in this way helped people commit to wishes they had reason to expect they could reach, and let go of ones they did not, where daydreaming alone tended not to. Naming the obstacle precisely is the step this reflection is built to help with.

On direction, the psychologists Kennon Sheldon and Andrew Elliot described self-concordant goals: goals a person pursues because they fit their own interests and values, rather than out of pressure, guilt or other people's expectations. In their 1999 research, goals like these drew more sustained effort, and reaching them went with gains in well-being. On circumstances, the social psychologist Icek Ajzen's theory of planned behavior includes perceived behavioral control: how easy or hard a person expects acting to be, given the time, resources and opportunities they have. In the theory, real limits on what a person can do shape what they end up doing, not only what they believe.

The three areas, and the statements, are our own way of putting this together for IX Coach, not a published scale. The research describes groups of people and mostly relies on self-report, so it can't tell you what is true of you. What it can do is help you ask a more specific question than 'what's wrong with me?'

What this reflection looks at

• Fear of the attempt — Higher means worry about failing, or about being seen to try, tends to stop you before you start.
• An unclear or borrowed want — Higher means you're not sure what you want, or what you're reaching for belongs more to other people's hopes than to you.
• The weight of life right now — Higher means time, money, the people who rely on you or low energy are taking up what you'd need to move: a real limit, not a mindset.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Oettingen, G. (2012). Future thought and behaviour change. European Review of Social Psychology, 23(1), 1–63. doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2011.643698
   Supports: Mental contrasting: imagining a wished-for future alongside present obstacles leads to active goal pursuit when expectations of success are high and to letting go when they are low, whereas positive fantasy on its own can reduce effort (as stated in the review's abstract).
2. Sheldon, K. M. & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 482–497. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.482
   Supports: Goals that fit a person's own interests and values, rather than felt pressure, drew more sustained effort, and attaining them went with gains in well-being.
3. Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
   Supports: Perceived behavioral control (resources and opportunities to act) helps predict intentions and behaviour; real constraints matter, not only attitudes.

The statements in this reflection were written for IX Coach; they are not taken from any published questionnaire. Last reviewed 2026-10-08.