Why do people fall out of love?

The simple answer is: we fall out of love because that is the only way for us to start learning how to really love. Being in love - or romantic love - has its place, but it's very different from true love.

Why do I keep not doing the things I know I should do?

It is rarely laziness or a lack of information. A four-step loop runs underneath: discomfort, avoidance, relief, cost. Avoidance brings instant relief, so your nervous system repeats it, and every round erodes your trust in yourself a little further.

What is the stuck loop?

Discomfort arrives when you move towards something that matters. You avoid it, which brings relief. The relief trains the pattern, and the cost arrives later: the task grows, confidence dips, and the loop tightens. Seeing the loop is the first interruption.

How do I start getting unstuck?

Map one loop in five sentences: what I want, what discomfort shows up, how I avoid it, what relief I get, what it costs me. Then take one five-minute contact action today. The purpose is evidence, not transformation.

#97 Why You Don't Do the Things You Know You Should

Francois Esterhuizen
Aug 31
2 min read

Have you ever known exactly what you should do, and still watched yourself not do it?

The books are read. The lists are made. Monday was going to be different, and then the week repeated itself again.

After enough repetitions, you stop calling it a season and start calling it who you are. We say: I am stuck. And the moment a pattern becomes an identity, you stop studying it and start surrendering to it.

I made a full video on this. Watch it here, or keep reading for the short version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdZGSQr9kBE

Stuckness is rarely one big problem. It is a loop.

It starts with discomfort. Fear, shame, uncertainty, plain exhaustion, or the pain of wanting something you do not quite trust yourself to go after.

Then comes avoidance. You delay. You research. You find a condition to meet first: a calmer house, older kids, work settling down a bit.

And here is the strange part. Avoidance works. It gives relief. Not healing, not progress, relief. You skip the conversation and the peace holds for a day. Your nervous system learns fast: avoidance reduces discomfort. So it reaches for the same solution every time.

Then the cost arrives. The task grows while you wait. The dream starts to feel unrealistic. Your trust in yourself gets eroded. Now you are not only dealing with the original problem. You are dealing with the evidence that you keep abandoning yourself.

Discomfort. Avoidance. Relief. Cost. Less confidence, more avoidance. That is the loop.

The issue is not knowledge. It is agency.

This is why just take action rarely works: it assumes the problem is information. You are not short of information. Agency is the lived sense that what I do matters, that my next action can influence my life. A capable person can still be living from reaction.

A pattern does not mean there is something wrong with you. It was learned, which means it can be interrupted. But the interruption must be small enough to survive contact with real life.

Map one loop, then make five minutes of contact

Choose one area where you feel stuck and write five sentences. What do I want? What discomfort shows up when I move towards it? What do I do to avoid that discomfort? What relief do I get from avoiding? What does that relief cost me?

Then choose one five-minute contact action and take it today. Send the first message. Put on the walking shoes. Write the first ugly paragraph. Five minutes is not impressive, and that is exactly why it works.

The purpose of that first action is not transformation. It is evidence: that you can move while afraid, and that you are not as trapped as the loop has made you believe.

If you want to see where your own loop holds you, take the RUT Diagnostic. It is free, it takes three minutes, and it shows you which groove runs deepest: Routine, Uncertainty or Trance.