When Things Break Down, We Think We Need to Try Harder

You know that moment when things break down – it’s frustrating, you panic and you start to re-think all the decisions you made leading up to this moment.

Let’s put a pin on this exact inflection point – this is where you give up, you end things too early, you beat yourself up or you compare yourself to someone else’s journey.

Our inner voice starts to turn on us:

• "This was never a good idea".

• "I need to try harder".

• “I can’t do this".

For most of my life, I believed intensity was the answer to everything. If something wasn’t working, the solution was to push harder: more effort, more discipline, more work.

But over time I realized something uncomfortable — my need to control the outcome was the very thing holding me back. The real breakthrough came from a sobering reality I didn’t want to admit: there are moments when you must let things break down before you can break through.

Let’s talk about the breakdown – it’s messy, it challenges your ego and it takes no prisoners. The founder of analytical psychology Carl Jung described this moment as the “dark night of the soul” — a painful but necessary period where the identities we rely on begin to break down so something more authentic can emerge.

As crazy as it sounds, this is an opportunity to step back and recalibrate – it’s the space where your mind and body slow things down. As things start to slow down, you gain awareness and that awareness turns into clarity. My ah-ha moment was in 2023, when the doctor sent me my yearly physical results – high cholesterol, pre-diabetic, visceral fat gain. My body had sent me the receipt, and it was an expensive tab.

So how does all of this connect back to food?

The answer surprised me - I’ll explain in the next post.

Coach GC