Why You Feel Stuck (and the Simple Shift That Gets You Moving Today)

The hidden reason you’re avoiding action—and how to move anyway

If you’ve ever tried to push yourself out of feeling stuck—only to end up overthinking, procrastinating, or avoiding the very thing you know you need to do—this episode is for you.

In today’s conversation, Erin McQuade-Wright unpacks what’s actually happening beneath the surface when you feel stuck. Instead of treating it like a problem to fix, she reveals how “stuck” is often a protective strategy your nervous system is using to avoid pain—especially the pain of judgment, failure, or getting it wrong.

You’ll learn why waiting for clarity keeps you frozen, how avoidance disguises itself as productivity, and the simple shift that moves you back into action—without white-knuckling your way through it.

This episode also includes a brief somatic reset you can use in real time, plus one powerful question to help you move forward today:

“What do you need to let go of to experience being in action?”

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  Why feeling stuck is often a nervous system response—not laziness 
•  How avoidance shows up as overthinking, procrastination, and “busywork” 
•  Why clarity and confidence only come after action—not before 
•  The hidden cost of staying stuck (and how it impacts your work and relationships) 
•  A simple, body-based practice to help you take your next step 

A quote to carry with you:

“God meets me in action.” — Cathy Heller

Ready to go deeper?

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Transcript

Erin McQuade-Wright 1:33

Welcome to the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the podcast I wish I'd had during my 15 years as a professional fundraiser. I'm your host, Erin McQuade- Wright. This is your space to breathe, realign, and reconnect with the part of you that chose this work for a reason. Together, we'll explore tools and practices that help you show up less stressed and spread thin, and more grounded, brave, and on purpose. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. If you have ever got on yourself for being stuck and tried to white knuckle yourself into action, this episode is for you. We're gonna look under the hood of what happens when we're stuck and some of the psychology behind that, why being stuck actually works for us at some moments in our life. And then how to actually work with that stuckness to move past it and to wake up beyond that pattern that we've been using stuckness to keep, uh, playing out over and over again. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. Let's dive in. Hello friends. Thank you for joining me today. One of the themes that I've been hearing from my clients lately is about this energy of feeling stuck. It's so common and it's not a forward motion. I'm doing this and here's how I feel about it. It's a feeling of shrinking. And you can think of your body and what it does when you feel the energy of being stuck. I picture it almost like drawing inward and down. When I was a teenager, I get really good at the motion of crossing my arms and sitting back in my seat. And maybe you're picturing that right now. Maybe it's very familiar to your own body as well. This idea of you can't make me. It's really powerful. It's kind of intoxicating when it's happening because you can almost fool yourself into thinking that you are being strong in that moment when you're crossing your arms and sinking back into your seat. It can almost feel like they're not gonna tell me what to do. They're not gonna tell me I have to jump and then just ask how high. It's this false feeling of standing up for yourself that is actually just resistance. And resistance is so common and so normal in our everyday lives as humans. And we often don't realize that we're carting around that teenage version of ourselves inside. They never left. And we just, um, sometimes hear from them in moments where we don't wanna take action and we also don't like the consequences of not taking action. But what I'd like to talk about today is I'd like to give you some different ideas about this. Just shine a light on this energy of"stuck," because I don't think it's a character flaw to be stuck. And I don't think you necessarily need more strategy like thinking about what you wanna do. You need movement. And that's certainly what I need when I'm in that stuck place. And for those of us who have very smart brains, that can look like overthinking, procrastinating, thought looping, and avoiding the call, the email, the ask. And often what's underneath it is a belief that if we take action, we're going to feel pain. So I want you to think of a time in your life or a thing in your life that you're feeling stuck about if it's right now. And if it's not now, think about a time in the past when that was true. I'm not taking action. I know I'm not taking action. It hurts that I'm not taking action. I'm judging myself about not taking action. And there's a thought here that I'm gonna feel even worse if I take action and do it wrong. There's gonna be something painful in the taking of the action that's gonna cause me pain. And I'm actually avoiding that pain by freezing up and being stuck. So I just said a lot, but I want you to really get this. We can have the unconscious belief when we're stuck, that if we take action, we're going to experience pain. So the energy of"stuck," the choice of"stuck," even when we feel like we're not choosing it with our mind, the choice of stuck is actually a strategy to avoid pain, the pain that comes from taking action. And that usually means we're trying to avoid the, the feeling of being judged by somebody else. We're trying to avoid the feeling of taking a big swing in front of other people and missing, messing it up. We're trying to avoid losing the people that we work with or the people who are closest to us because we feel like if we take that big action, we take that big swing and we whiff it, we don't get the result that we want, that we're gonna lose something. So here we are innocently saying,"I'm just gonna stick here and get stuck," instead of experiencing that pain. It's kind of brilliant, right? Now, there comes another question. Given all this, we just sort of opened the book, looked under the hood, I'm mixing metaphors, but now that you see that there's a strategy under your stuckness, the question is,"is it working for you?" Is staying stuck working for you? I remember working with a client who had an impossibly full plate. There were so many things on his plate he couldn't possibly get them all done. And rather than sort of buy into that story with him, I asked him what he got from having a full plate. And he said that,"Well, that's really interesting." He said,"I, you know, when everyone around me can see that I have a full plate, they don't come knocking with requests." They say,"Oh, well, look at how much he's got on his plate right now. Let's leave him alone. He's got more than his fair share." So by keeping a full plate, he was really putting up a big shield around himself. People couldn't ask too much of him because he had already engineered his own full plate. And it turned out, as we talked about it, he had done that at this job and the one before that, and the one before that. And I said,"You know, you realize you are creating your reality, right? You are resetting this template everywhere you work, so what's the deal?" And he hadn't, he hadn't really connected those dots before, but he said,"Yeah, this is true. I'm only choosing jobs where I'm the only one on staff, or I'm the only one doing all the work, and everybody else is a volunteer. I'm the only paid one." Interesting. So why are you choosing those jobs? And it was so that he would be immune from people asking too much of him or criticizing him. They couldn't say,"Oh, you sure messed that up." Because they would say,"Well, look at his, look at how much he's carrying. I don't wanna insult him. I wanna support him." So it was a great way for him to get relationships, to get people on his side, to get seen in this light of,"Wow, this is a really integrous person who's doing hard work, who's doing a good job." But it was butting up against the fact that it was no longer working for him to be at s- paid so little, doing so much, overextended and exhausted. That was the pattern that he felt comfortable in. He kept recreating that pattern. He kept sort of shaking his fist at management for not seeing him as the leader he was, for not advancing him, for not paying him more. But when it came down to it, he had created this whole dynamic in order to stay safe from the judgment of others. So I'm saying this in many different ways for you to be able to see the pattern and to kind of clock where this might be happening in your life. So can you see how in this example of this client, he didn't need to do more action, he didn't need a better organizational strategy for his calendar. He needed to look at the pattern of why he thought he wasn't worthy of a leadership position where he could work with others and others could help carry the load. He was forcing himself into hiding through that pattern, and he needed that for a time. But what was also happening is he was growing out of that pattern, and he was saying,"You know what? I wanna be a leader. I wanna have a higher profile than the guy who's just in the corner doing all the work." It's kinda thankless job. So as he increased his own internal sense of safety and his own internal sense of worthiness through our work together, he was able to see himself as more than the guy who's over in the corner doing all the work, feeling resentful about it, because make no mistake, those two go together. Doing all the work is one side of the coin, and the other side of the coin is feeling resentful about it. And when we're in that pattern of doing all the work and feeling resentful about it, it can be a really intoxicating belief that we're punishing others for not seeing us in our full glory, you know, as human beings, as souls that are having a physical experience in a body. We can say,"You know what? They don't even know what they have," when we're resenting other people for all the work that we're doing. But I promise you, th- that is toxic to you, and it pushes other people away."Ask me how I know. And it's a story. It's not a fact. So when we are stuck, we are often putting off action. We're saying," I don't wanna do that because it could turn into this. I don't wanna do that because they might say that."I don't wanna do that because then it, we could see all the ways that it can go wrong and you know what? We're right. It could go wrong in a lot of different ways, but when we are focused on what could go wrong, we're missing the billboard sized headline that actually it's going wrong now. It's already going wrong. When we're in a freeze state, when we're stuck in inaction, something is already going very wrong, and we are broadcasting that to the people around us. So we're over here thinking about all the ways it could go wrong, but we're missing that it already is going wrong. We already are checked out of what's happening here and now because we're thinking about, we're lost in fantasy about all the thi- the ways it could go wrong if we took action. So action is not actually the result of clarity. I have, I have clarity and then I take action. That's a, a common misconception. Actually, what happens is we take action and then feel clarity. The clarity comes second. And so if you're waiting to get clear on what the action is to take, you're likely overthinking it, you're in your head, super normal, not judging you. We are siblings in this, and also an action needs to be taken because being stuck is not good for you. It's not good for those around you, right? Your colleagues, your family members, because it requires a level of navel gazing that disconnects you from your community. It disconnects you from your humanity when you're stuck looking at yourself and what you should do and what comes next, right? So it's not laziness. You know, as an Enneagram nine, I, before I knew that, I was like, Oh man, I, I think I'm really lazy. I see people all around me going like energizer their bunnies and I just don't have that."Well, that's an Enneagram nine. It is a person that's more focused on the status of relationships around them than staying bulldozing forward and taking action, right? So it's not laziness, it's actually the nervous system protecting us from ruining relationships. We avoid things when we perceive that it's not safe to take action. And my thought that I'm planting for you today is that same dynamic of, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna hold back, creates scarcity in donor meetings, it creates tightness and pressure in your body, you can say,"I need this to work. I, this, I need this donor. I need this donation. I gotta get this grant." If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you may or may not have heard me tell the story of my first chest pains in my life, getting ready to submit a federal grant, getting ready to hit that submit button. I don't know if you've ever sent a MailChimp mailing out, but there's a little video prompt that they used to do when you were, your last step was to hit send, and it was like this sweaty monkey hand, like chimp hand, because it's MailChimp, uh, like just sweating, getting ready to push that button. That's what it felt like when I was getting ready to submit this federal grant. I felt the weight of this big ask, and I always thought of submitting grants like cooking, following a recipe. I had to be so detailed and making sure each step was done properly before I could advance to the next step. And I was using this website and the website was not reliable, uh, it was going down and the deadline was approaching and I actually had physical chest pains in my body. It's never happened outside of work, like deadline stuff. It happened again a few years later, also in a work context, and I was like,"This is not good." So the thought of I need this to go right, this has to, this has to go through, can be just coming from such a sincere place, and it's like we have that, our, our little child, you know, the, the 10-year-old version of us that is so sincere in wanting it to go well, that part of us is still in, inside of us too. And I, now that I know about how to work with my inner child, I know that I can scoop that little one up in my mind's eye and say,"Oh, baby, it's gonna be okay. Thank you for being here. Thank you for trying to protect me by wanting to get everything right." And I can work with that little child who was also a part of me rather than asking that little child to drive the bus of my federal grant process and freaking out along the way, right? She doesn't have to do that one. She can sit, she can be in the bus and she can sit in a comfy seat, but I'm not asking her to drive. But if I don't know any better about what's going on inside me, I'm not aware that the little kid who is scared and anxious that that version of me is actually who's showing up for work. So that somatic tracking that we talk about here, that noticing what the body is doing, noticing when there's a constriction in the chest, there's tightness in the belly, when our breathing quickens and our pulse picks up, that's just an indication that our body needs to feel some safety and our body is asking us to take a moment to come back into balance and then take action from there. Because as I've explained in earlier episodes of this podcast, the brain in fight or flight is not smarter. It's actually dumber. We get a more narrow focus, our peripheral vision kind of goes away, we get fewer words available to us, right? Our word recall is not what it normally is. That's letting us know we're in an emergency state and it's fine to go there from time to time, but the real Jedi move is being able to notice that we're there and come back out. Okay. Well, I need a minute. Let me visit the toilet temple and breathe for 30 seconds or let me sit in my car and just feel that the seat is holding me, come back to myself, and then take action from there. And when you feel stuck, your system is actually making a choice. It's choosing relief over movement, like safety of just sitting there and not making a choice, not moving forward versus moving forward and getting it wrong. No judgment. It's good to know, but we don't have to act from that place when we know better, we can do better. So if you're feeling like,"I'll act when I'm ready," or,"I need clarity first," or,"I just need to think this through a little more," that's a pretty good indicator that you are in your brain and that you might be in a stuck place. So I want you to remember in those moments that clarity is a byproduct of action. So taking an action will bring clarity. And I say this to my listeners who also tell me,"I just want more confidence. I'm waiting to act until I feel more confident in taking action." So maybe it's major gift conversations. I'm waiting to feel more confident around donors before I ask them for a major gift. And what I'm suggesting is actually the opposite, that by taking informed action, you will build your sense of confidence because that's the order in which they come. Action breeds confidence. It also breeds clarity. So the question I wanna ask of you is, what do you need to let go of to experience being in action today? What do you need to let go of to experience being in action today? Maybe what you need to let go of is the idea that you can do it perfectly and that you need to do it perfectly. Or maybe you're letting go of needing a guaranteed outcome. Maybe you're just planting a seed by taking the action. Maybe you need to let go of needing approval or validation. That's a tough one. Or maybe you need to let go of the idea or the belief that how this goes is saying something about me. The yes or the no that this turns into is a referendum on me as a person, as a professional. Let that go. That thought does not serve you. So that might show up like if I send this email and they don't respond, what am I making that mean about myself? Oh, I'm making it mean that I'm not a good communicator if they don't respond. Or I'm making it mean that they are judging me if they don't respond. If I write to a donor and say,"Hey, let's get together and have coffee," and they don't respond, my brain can go down a rabbit hole of they are punishing me for waiting too long to reach out. They are judging me for the way I reached out. They don't like us anymore and they don't, they can't figure out how to tell me, so they're ghosting me, right? There's a whole, those are all just stories. So if you're feeling stuck, I wanna offer you an idea that it's not, it's not because you don't know what to do, you know what to do. You're just not feeling ready to do it, and that comes down to safety. So I want you to just notice what's happening in your body right now, and you don't need to close your eyes. If you're driving, keep your eyes open. If you're in a safe place to close your eyes, I want you to close your eyes and put your hand on your heart, and just notice your belly. Is it clenching? Is there a constriction there? And if so, I want you to just let it melt like butter in a pan, even 10% more. Feel your belly soften and acknowledge inwardly, silently,"In this moment, I am safe." In this moment, all my needs are actually met in this moment. Notice what's happening in your heart space. If there's any tension there, I want you to just see if you can breathe into that space, allowing it to be here just for this moment. Attention is not your enemy and see if you can let it go even 10%. Allowing your out breath to be long, long, long. And I want you to think of the action that you're avoiding, one action you're avoiding right now. Maybe it's an email, maybe it's a call, maybe it's setting up a meeting, and ask yourself the question,"What do I need to let go of? And see what pops into your mind. Maybe there's an answer that bubbles up, maybe there's not. Either way, it's okay. And I want you to think of what is the smallest, bite-sized action that you're willing to take toward that thing you've been avoiding doing. Not perfect, not complete, just movement in that direction. What's the action you wanna take? And I want you to write that down and schedule it. Just get it done. Make it the first thing you do. Either when you finish listening to this podcast or the fir- the next day, tomorrow, at work, do that thing and start to build that muscle of,"I do what I say I'm going to do, because I promise you, the more movement you can have toward your goals, the less you will be fighting yourself internally." And that inner fight takes up bandwidth. It takes up your attention. It takes up your energy in your body. It makes you tired to be refereeing a fight internally all the time. But when you start to build that practice of,"I do what I say I'm going to do, you calm that inner fight, and you can actually use your energy for the things that you want to create in the world, not refereeing this stupid back and forth about,"I want to, but I feel, I feel like I shouldn't," right? Taking action gets you out of that loop. And guess what? Taking consistent action allows you to raise more money, or if you're not a fundraiser, it allows you to do whatever it is that you're trying to do in this world. Have that impact that you're trying to have, whether you're paid to have it or not. There's a quote that I really like from,"I learned it from Kathy Heller, podcaster and author of Abundant Ever After." I'm reading her book right now. It's really good. I highly recommend it. And the quote is,"God meets me in action." God meets me in action, not in perfection, not in planning and getting it perfect, not in waiting until... god meets me in action. If you're waiting to feel ready, you're gonna stay stuck, but if you're willing to let go, even a little, you'll move forward, and that feels so good, I want that feeling for you. Okay, friends, here are your takeaways from this episode. Number one, feeling stuck isn't a flaw. It's a strategy your nervous system is using to avoid pain. Number two, you're not waiting for clarity, you're avoiding action. Number three, the longer you stay stuck, the more it quietly costs you, your energy, your confidence, and your connection with others. Number four, letting go, not pushing harder, is what unlocks movement. And number five, action creates clarity, confidence, and momentum, not the other way around. I wanna challenge you to take that action today. Take one step forward to advance your goal and feel the clarity that will come and the confidence that will come as a result. See you next time.