The Real Reason You’re Stuck (HINT: It’s Not Motivation)

If you've ever set big goals but found yourself stuck in self-sabotage, procrastination, or just “meh” energy, this one hits deep. I pull back the curtain on the mental and emotional blocks that silently control your behavior, offering clarity and practical ways to shift your identity and rewire your patterns.

🔑 In this episode:

• Why "motivation" is NOT your problem—and what actually is.
• The crucial distinction between circumstances and thoughts (hint: only one of them you can control).
• The power of becoming the person who naturally follows through.
• A deeply personal story that shows how to walk your truth—even when it rains.

✨ Tune in and find the missing link between your goals and your consistent action.

🔍 Major Takeaways Teased:

• 🌧️ What rain taught me about mindset—and how it applies to everything you avoid.
• 🧠 The sneaky internal loop that's stopping your momentum.
• 🔁 What really changes when you shift from doing to being.
• 🧍‍♂️ How to stop relying on willpower—and start identifying as the person who just gets it done.

#MindsetMatters #TakeActionNow #SelfDiscipline #JamesDunnPodcast #IdentityShift #MindsetCoach #SuccessHabits #OvercomeProcrastination #MotivationIsntEnough #ActionTaker

Transcript

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James Dunn: Hello, Hello! And welcome back to the show today is a very, very important show. I believe it might be one of the most important shows that I've done so far, because what I want to dive into is why you are not taking action, or maybe why you're doing things that you don't want to be doing, but really learning how to control yourself.

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James Dunn: you have certain things in your life that you want to do. There are goals that you have set, and you know those goals require certain actions that you need to take on a very consistent basis. But for some reason you just cannot seem to find the the willpower, the motivation, the efforts. You can't seem to find that consistency that you know you need to have. So that's what we're going to talk about is exactly why that's happening. And let me 1st and foremost say it's not motivation. I mean.

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James Dunn: you have the willpower. You have the want. You have the desire. You have the motivation that the goal is there. But there's something much deeper going on that's blocking you from taking this action.

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James Dunn: And let me preface this with, there are certain circumstances in your life that you cannot control. Okay, these are the things that are outside of our life that are not something that we have direct control over.

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James Dunn: I'm going to give you an example.

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James Dunn: My example is, you guys know and you listen to podcast at all. You know that I'm a runner and my example for the circumstances are raining.

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James Dunn: If I have my Saturday and Sunday routine, I'm going to go outside and go for my run if I wake up in the morning, and it's raining shit that sucks. That's a circumstance that I have 0 control over. But there is something that I do have control over. And this is where that taking the action either happens or doesn't happen. So I can't control the weather. I can't control what's going on outside of my house. I can't control what's going on outside of my body at all. But what I can control is, I can control my thinking about that ring.

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James Dunn: Okay? So I can go one of 2 ways with this thought process when I wake up and it's pouring down, raining outside, and I plan to go outside for a run. I can go down this thought process of oh, man, this sucks! I plan to go outside, and it was going to be nice and sunny, and the birds are going to be chirping. I was probably gonna see a bunch of people out on the on the trail, and that was going to be cool, and I could take some great selfies while I'm out there. And this is awesome. You know, this is going to be something that's so magical and wonderful. And it's an amazing, incredible experience.

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James Dunn: That's what I had hoped for. But seeing the pouring down rain. My mind could be going down this path of

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James Dunn: oh, but now it's going to be cold. It's going to be wet. It's gonna be nasty. There's not gonna be anybody out there. I can't take any pictures. My phone might get trashed because it's gonna be getting soaking wet, and if I gotta try and change any of the songs on it. I'm not gonna be able to do anything, because I I can't take it out of my pocket. What am I? What am I gonna do there? And I can just really go down this negative spiral.

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James Dunn: Go down this deep, dark hole of thinking how terrible this is going to be, because then, when I get back from the run well, you can get in my car now. My car is going to get soaking wet. My front seat is going to get soaking wet. I'm going to have to come home and take off all these wet clothes, and then I'm probably have to toss them in the dryer, and then I have to jump straight in the shower, and maybe I wasn't going to do that first, st I can just go down this negative pathway of thinking. All these terrible thoughts, or

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James Dunn: what I can do is I can reframe that thought. I can think about this from a different perspective. I can say, you know what? Yeah, this is not the ideal set of circumstances. This is not what I had hoped for. This is not what I had wished for, but it is what it is. I have 0 control over that. Do I still want

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James Dunn: to have the result that I said I wanted yesterday, which was getting the run in

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James Dunn: getting that physical interaction or getting that physical activity in. So now I can feel really good about myself. I can feel good about my body. I can feel good about my commitment to myself. I can look myself in the mirror and say, yes, you did it, man.

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James Dunn: that is that what I truly want then? Yes, then I'm going to go out there, and I'm not going to necessarily try and paint this out as the most amazing experience ever. I don't have to love what I'm getting ready to do, but I just have to allow myself not to go down that negative spiral and making it worse than it is. It is what the fuck it is, man, it's rain, it's water.

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James Dunn: I can go out there. I've done this many times before, and you can be doing this in whatever situation you are running up against in life. I'm giving you my just running example right now, because it's an easy one for me to share with you a story. But so for me, if I'm going out. And I'm going to do the run like, okay, it's raining, all right. Well, what do I need? Do I want to put on a

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James Dunn: a windbreaker or some type of jacket that's going to get some of that, you know. Keep some of that rain off of me for my phone. I can put it in a Ziploc bag. Then I don't have to worry about it getting it getting wet. I'm not going to be able to do anything about the fact that my clothes are going to get wet. But maybe my car, when I go to get back in my car. When I'm done with the run I can put a beach towel down on my chair or my seat, and keep it from getting as wet as it might otherwise.

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James Dunn: So going to be anybody out there on the trail? Probably not. But hey, that's cool, I mean, that's actually gives me more space. I don't have to worry about the stupid ass. Bikers being out there, me having to, you know, deal with them coming by and being jerks like they typically tend to be, or I don't have to worry about people and some of their dogs that get a little bit too anxious and too overexcited when I go running by. I don't have to worry about any of that. So I'm actually going to have the trail, probably to myself. So this could be a good thing again. I don't have to love it. I don't have to go to that level of

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James Dunn: trying to say it's going to be amazing, but I can at least keep it to a neutral standpoint I can keep it to. It is what it is.

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James Dunn: And by focusing just that and changing my mindset around this whole thing, it's going to give me that ability to go out there and do the thing that I need to do, because here's how this all plays out your thoughts, control your feelings and then your feelings control your outcomes.

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James Dunn: No, your thoughts control your feelings, your feelings control your actions, your actions control your outcome. So I I jumped the shark. I jumped the shark. There. I went ahead of the the

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James Dunn: the reveal that I was going to be giving you. But what happens is

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James Dunn: your thoughts, control your feelings. So if I'm sitting here thinking, this is going to be the worst day ever. This means I got to go out and got to run the rain. It's going to be nasty before I'm going to hate it.

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James Dunn: How do you think my body's going to feel my body's going to feel like, Oh, not! Don't want to do this ain't going to do this, and I am not going to be able to go out there and go for that run now, could I force myself through that feeling? Could I push myself to get out there and do it anyway? Yeah, but that's not something I'm going to be able to do consistently. And this is where it rolls off into other areas of your life.

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James Dunn: because I may not have to deal with rain every single day. But if you're talking about your business, if you're talking about a relationship, anything like that, let's talk about your business. If you have to make sales calls, you have a goal set. Then you realize that you need to make 10 sales calls a day.

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James Dunn: If you have to push yourself to do that every single day, and you're like pushing yourself and pushing yourself and pushing yourself. You're going to get hit. You're going to hit a point of burnout. You're going to hit a point where you just don't want to do it anymore. And you're also going to carry this negative energy into these sales calls.

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James Dunn: and you're not going to be able to connect with people in a awesome, happy, caring, loving way that you need to to make that connection with them to make the sales that you're trying to make. If I'm calling you up. And I'm in a really pissed off mood because I don't really want to be making these sales calls. You're not going to connect with me. You're not going to jive with me. We're not going to be able to put something together because you're going to feel my negative energy, and you'll be like, I don't wanna. I don't know what it is about this Guy. I just do not feel a good connection with him, and I'm not going to do business with him.

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James Dunn: So this is why we need to change those thoughts, because again, those thoughts control your feelings.

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James Dunn: your feelings control your actions, and then your actions are going to control your results. Because if I do have to

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James Dunn: try to push myself to make those calls, and then I'm not doing it or doing it very poorly. Then that's going to show up in my results again. I'm not going to make the sales. I'm not going to get the amount of money that I want. I'm not going to show up consistently

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James Dunn: in my social media presence. I'm not going to show up consistently in my networking. I'm not going to show up consistently in anything that I need to be doing to build the business that I want to build have the relationship that I want to have, have the finances that I want to have same for you. This is not going to work out in your favor if you're having to force yourself to do these things all the time.

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James Dunn: So what we want to do is look at. What are the thoughts that are creating the resistance? Look at a situation that you know is coming up in your life that you are resisting right now.

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James Dunn: and ask yourself what is the feeling that I'm having

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James Dunn: right before? I either don't do the thing or try to avoid the thing, or whatever it happens to be, or if it's something that you are doing, that you don't want to be doing. So let's say it's a late night snack time.

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James Dunn: You know that you're trying to eat healthier. You know. You're trying to curb the the late night snacks and not eat junk food after a certain period of time, or even just all together. But you cannot seem to help but stop yourself from walking into the kitchen 10 o'clock at night grabbing a handful of cookies. Say, I'm only have one or 2, but then, before you know, you've eaten 5, 6, 7 of them, you're feeling like shit about it. And you wake up the next morning feeling like Crap, too, because you didn't sleep very well last night because you had those cookies.

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James Dunn: What was that feeling that you had right before that happened?

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James Dunn: Really dive into it? You don't have to go back to, you know. Well,

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James Dunn: I'm stuffing my face, because when I was a kid eating cookies, you know, my mom gave me cookies anytime. I didn't feel very good, or I felt anxious. She gave me cookies and then, so now I eat cookies when I'm feeling anxious. You don't have to go deep back that far into your childhood, or anything like that, but just become aware of what the feeling is that you're having, and then start asking yourself, what's the story that I'm telling myself? That's causing this. You know what is the reasoning I'm having before

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James Dunn: I take this action, or I don't take this action that I want to have.

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James Dunn: There's so many areas of your life that you can just stop and really ask yourself what are the thoughts? Because I can think of many things.

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James Dunn: Let's just use this, you know, the podcast I share with you guys pretty openly and honestly. Sometimes I struggle with episodes. And what I'm going to record. And what I'm going to talk about. And the more I've been able to dive into those moments, the stories that I'm giving myself is

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James Dunn: well, number one is, you know, am I gonna sound stupid if I get on there? And I say something that

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James Dunn: maybe isn't as intelligent as somebody else says. Maybe I'm not going to say it as eloquently as Alex Ramosi, or I'm not going to say it eloquently as Dr. Joe Dispenza. And what are people going to think? If if I'm not saying, you know, saying the things as smoothly and as clearly and as well as maybe some of these guys. So those that might be a story that I'm telling myself.

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James Dunn: And if I'm telling myself that story, what's going to happen then? I'm going to feel very insecure. I'm going to feel closed up. And I'm not going to be able to. I'm going to have resistance around trying to record an episode of a podcast or I'm not going to be able to come on here and give you my best version of myself, because I'm so afraid that I might say something stupid.

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James Dunn: But what I can do and what I have been able to do over the the course of you know, recording this, this, podcast is

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James Dunn: to recognize that I'm not going to be

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James Dunn: Joe Dispenza. I'm not going to be Alex Mosey. I'm not going to be any of these other people. I'm going to be James. Motherfucking done, man, that's who the fuck I am. And is it going to be perfect? No, but are those guys perfect? No, they've just got great editors that go in there, and they trim up shows, or they've practiced a lot more. They've had a lot more time speaking on stages or doing things in front of cameras, or whatever to make them

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James Dunn: be maybe a better presenter than me, or come across more slick than me or whatever. But I'm giving you my natural self. I'm giving you who I am. And so when I'm able to reframe my situation from that perspective, I can come on here, and I can be myself. I can share with you my open, authentic, true self, and give you the best version of me that I've got that is able to be here today.

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James Dunn: So that is a that's a perfect example for myself. You know where where I've been able to shift a story. And so I want you to do the same kind of thing. I want you to think about something that you're resisting, something that you're having challenges with. If it's showing up on social media, if it's an Instagram live, maybe it's a similar situation where

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James Dunn: you start feeling anxious, you start feeling worried. You start thinking about oh, my gosh! You know what if I get on here? And what if one of my best friends from high school or grade school pops on here? And and they're thinking who the fuck is this person? Why are they talking like this? And that's not the person that I know. You know we're starting going through this judgment.

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James Dunn: All this self criticism and worrying about what somebody else is thinking.

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James Dunn: If you can step back

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James Dunn: and give yourself the ability to understand, it doesn't matter what those people think, yeah, we want to have people like us. Yeah, that would be great. But you're stepping up in the world. You're doing something that is amazing. It's incredible. And you're putting yourself out there, and you're trying to improve this world.

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James Dunn: So somebody who wants to knock you for trying to do that.

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James Dunn: I don't know if I really care about their opinion. I don't really know if I am worried about that.

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James Dunn: But really, really stop, take that time to ask yourself what that story is. You're telling yourself and work through that, because until you work through that, you're never going to be able to show up consistently. You might, as I said, be able to get through and do it here and there. But you're not going to be able to show up consistently, and the one thing I do want to

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James Dunn: ask you to do is, give yourself grace. Give yourself compassion. Give yourself

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James Dunn: that respect and understanding that it's okay to have thought those feelings. It's okay to have felt the way that you felt, or even feel the way that you feel now, while you're still dealing with it while you're still trying to work through that we are human and as much as we would like to believe that our brain is designed to keep us happy. That's not his primary function. Its primary function on the core level is to keep you safe.

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James Dunn: And unfortunately, as a growth-minded person.

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James Dunn: as you put yourself out there more, and as you present yourself to the world and try to do things that are improving your life and improving the life of other people. You're going to have to stretch yourself. You're going to have to challenge yourself. You're going to have to do things that make you feel unsafe from time to time.

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James Dunn: So your brain is just doing what it's naturally meant to do, which is, keep you safe. So it's saying, No, don't do this. Don't do that to be scared of this. Be scared of that. Step back, put yourself back in your nice little safe box, and don't go out there. Don't let people see you don't let people, you know, see you trying to do something different or being not like them, or whatever it happens to be.

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James Dunn: That's okay. That's something that just as humans that we all deal with.

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James Dunn: And I don't want you to beat yourself up over it, because that's the one thing that we can run into is like, Oh, my God! Why was I thinking that this was stupid? Never should have thought that I can't believe I'm doing that, or I can't believe I'm doing this now, and we're beating yourself up even over, not taking the actions. None of that is helping you in any way, shape or form. So if those are the things that you're doing right now.

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James Dunn: I ask you again, give yourself, grace, give yourself compassion. You are an amazing, incredible human being.

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James Dunn: And it's only through self-love that you're going to be able to move on to that next level into that next phase of where you're trying to get to

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James Dunn: give yourself that grace.

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James Dunn: So, to put a little bow on this, remember your thoughts, control your feelings.

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James Dunn: your feelings, control your actions and your actions control your outcomes.

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James Dunn: So if you're having trouble doing anything or stopping doing something.

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James Dunn: really, stop and ask yourself what is the thought that I'm having. What are the feelings I'm having and just kind of work those backwards you can think about what the feeling is, what's the thoughts that are creating that feeling because the feeling is always created from the thought. And let me give you a real quick example. I said I was going to put a bow on this. But let me

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James Dunn: let me put a let me let me back this up just a little bit, because you might be sitting here saying, now that's bullshit, James. Man doesn't matter. I can think happy thoughts, and it doesn't matter.

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James Dunn: but it's it's your thoughts. It's not the things that are happening, because sometimes you might say, it's something that's happening. But here's here's the perfect example that I can give you

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James Dunn: is when somebody dies. You might think well, that automatically means I gotta feel like shit.

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James Dunn: No, let me ask you, did you feel like shit? The second person died, or

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James Dunn: did you feel like shit the second you found out the person died.

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James Dunn: If you didn't feel like shit until you found out the person died, then it had nothing to do with the person dying, it had to do with the thoughts that you thought. Once you found out the person died. This is not to say that someone passing is not a sad

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James Dunn: unfortunate thing, and that we we were not meant to be sad and

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James Dunn: depressed, maybe even about it, or upset, or whatever like that. That's that's part of the human condition and part of our human experience. That's okay. But it wasn't what happened that caused you to be sad. It was the thoughts you had around. What happened that caused you to be sad, because you might look at somebody who passed away and say, Oh, my gosh! This is the worst thing ever. I love them so much, and they meant so much to me, and I

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James Dunn: I don't know how I'm going to survive without them, but somebody else might not have had that same relationship might not have that same connection with them. They might be happy for being the jerk that they are, they might be happy. This person died, or it might be a situation where this person that you loved had cancer, or some terrible horrible disease that was very painful for them, and somebody else might be able to look at it from a perspective of man. I'm so happy for them that they've passed, because now they're not in pain anymore.

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James Dunn: Now they're in a much better place, whereas maybe you

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James Dunn: don't believe in an afterlife. Maybe you don't believe in God. Maybe you don't believe that they've gone to a better place, and you just feel the void of them not being here anymore. So there's it's it's not the circumstances that create anything. It's the way that we perceive them, the way that we choose to think about them that create those feelings.

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James Dunn: So that was a weird kind of tangent there. But it was really important for me to help you to understand that it's all about your thoughts. It's never about the circumstances, never about what happens in life. It's about how we choose to think about it, which creates how we feel about it, which then in turn dictates how we take action on the situation and creates the real results that we're looking for. So those are my my key points for you today, if you're struggling, taking action or stopping an action.

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James Dunn: go through that process, really dive into the stories, really understand what you're thinking and work on creating new stories work on creating new empowering stories. And again, it doesn't have to be the most happy. I'm in love with this situation, but at least take it to a neutral point where it's not a

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James Dunn: I hate this kind of thing. This sucks. This is terrible. It's just like you know what it is, what it is. I want to deal with it, and I want to move on. I'm gonna do the thing.

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James Dunn: So I hope that helps you out a lot. I hope you find that very helpful today, and it helps you move forward in your life. If so, be sure to let me know. And with that, my friend. Get out there. Have a nice fucking day, and we'll see you next time.