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Why Change Feels Hard: Your Mind Is Ready but Your Body Holds Back
- Amy Cotterill
- Nov 15
- 5 min read
There is a moment many accomplished professionals find themselves in.
You know the change you want.
You’ve thought it through.
You’ve weighed your options, explored possibilities, maybe even tried to start.
And yet your body reacts differently.
A tightening in the chest.
A shallower breath.
A pause that doesn’t match the direction you want to go.
People often ask:
Why am I not taking the step I know I want to take?
The answer isn’t in another podcast or book.
It isn’t willpower.
It isn’t because you haven’t thought it through deeply enough.
It comes from the part of your body designed to keep you safe, which doesn’t recognise personal or professional growth as something familiar yet. It only recognises familiar or unfamiliar, and unfamiliar often feels unsafe until the body learns a new way. Making change feel hard.
This is the part that quietly trips us up.
Your body is not holding you back. It’s trying to protect you.
Your nervous system constantly scans for signals of safety or uncertainty.
Polyvagal theory describes this as neuroception, the automatic way your body evaluates the world long before your mind forms a conscious thought.
When something feels new or uncertain, your vagus nerve, the major communication pathway between brain and body, sends signals that create caution. It encourages you to pause, slow down or delay.
Not because you are incapable.
Because your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
This shows up through the well known stress responses:
Fight
Pushing through. Taking on more. Feeling pressure to fix things immediately.
Often a sign that uncertainty is activating urgency.
Flight
Staying busy. Overworking. Constant planning without real progress.
It can look like momentum but avoids the deeper change you want to make.
Freeze
Going blank. Hesitating. Feeling unable to decide or move.
This is not a lack of ambition. It is your body temporarily shutting down to manage overwhelm.
Fawn
People pleasing. Avoiding conflict. Minimising your needs to keep the peace.
Common when visibility or self advocacy feels uncomfortable.
None of these responses mean something is wrong.
They are protection patterns shaped by past roles, expectations and environments, and they can be updated.
Why mindset alone can make change feel hard
You can think your way through a plan.
You can analyse, strategise and prepare.
But when your nervous system senses uncertainty, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning, perspective and decision making, temporarily loses full access.
Not because you’re failing.
Because physiology leads and the mind follows.
This is why you can have a well thought out change in mind and still hesitate.
Still stall.
Still postpone the conversation.
Still stay where you are, even when you know you’re ready for something new.
What changes when you work with the mind and body together
Growth becomes sustainable, not a struggle.
When we work with both the psychological and physiological sides of change, important shifts happen.
1. Protection softens
As your body learns internal safety through awareness, breath and simple practices that help you feel safe enough to consider change, the internal pullback reduces.
The vagus nerve signals more readiness, so you can explore opportunities without shutting down.
2. Capacity increases
Your ability to hold uncertainty, visibility, responsibility and transition expands.
This is neuroplasticity in action, your brain and body forming more supportive patterns.
3. You have more access to choice
Instead of forcing yourself forward, you begin to take steps that once felt overwhelming.
Not from pressure, but from genuine internal permission.
This is the core of my work: preparing your body to hold the change you want to make.
A real example of what this looks like
When we began working together, a client came to me feeling driven but tired of operating from a place that didn’t fully align with who she was becoming. She was navigating uncertainty around her career and her creative business, and her body was operating in protection mode.
Together we focused on helping her recognise where her body was tightening, speeding up or shutting down around change. We built the internal safety needed for her to explore options with more calm. We also did work around visualising and anchoring the kind of role and environment she wanted next, so her body had a felt sense of where she was heading.
A few months later she emailed me.
“It has been a whirlwind few months, and our sessions completely set me up to handle it.”
and
“I approached everything with a mindset I’m not sure I would have managed a few months earlier.”
She had found a role she had wanted that matched everything we had anchored in our sessions.
It was exactly what we had envisioned.
She also had the confidence to have frank conversations she had been avoiding, and described it as taking back ownership of her path.
This is what happens when your mind and body are finally working together.
Not dramatic reinvention.
Just grounded, meaningful forward movement.
My integrative approach
My approach blends coaching psychology, nervous system intelligence and behavioural change in a way that makes change feel possible, not overwhelming.
Coaching psychology
We look at patterns, beliefs and internal rules that shape how you operate. This gives context to why change feels the way it does.
Nervous system literacy
You learn to notice the subtle signals of protection. This helps you understand what’s happening internally, so you can respond with more choice.
Somatic awareness
Simple, accessible practices that help you understand how your body reacts under pressure or possibility. Not to create a dramatic body experience, but to recognise what is signalling threat so you can shift it.
Behavioural integration
We translate insight into steps that make the change or growth you want to make possible. The goal is not to push into the next chapter, but to create the internal conditions that make it doable.
When your body trusts you, your behaviour aligns with the person you are becoming.
How This Work Supports Real Change
Here’s what this work tends to shift for people:
Making decisions based on who they’re becoming, not who they’ve been.
Choosing work or opportunities that feel meaningful, not just sensible.
Speaking up with more ease because their body isn’t holding back underneath.
Following through instead of circling the same idea for months.
Having conversations they’ve been avoiding because they felt too uncomfortable.
Seeing possibilities that didn’t feel available before.
Moving toward the work that feels alive without their body holding back.
Not because they’ve changed who they are, but because they now have the capacity to hold and take action toward what they want to step into.
This work changes how people handle uncertainty, make braver choices and follow through on the opportunities they’ve been putting off.
How people work with me
I support people through three pathways, depending on the depth and pace of change they’re ready for:
1 to 1 coaching for people navigating meaningful change, career evolution or stepping into bigger leadership.
Work that gives you the grounded support, clarity and capacity to move in the direction you’ve been holding back from.
Company partnerships for organisations who want to help their teams handle pressure, navigate change and lead with more confidence and internal safety.
Ignite Your Confidence - a 21 day self-paced mind and body series that helps you build the internal safety and confidence to step into the opportunities you’ve been holding back from. It’s available for £21.
You’re not stuck. Your body is protecting you until it feels safe enough to move into what’s next.
With the right support, your mind and body can work together so the direction you want to go doesn’t feel overwhelming - it feels possible.
If this speaks to where you are, you’re welcome to book a 1 to 1 call to explore whether this work is a fit for you.
