What Actually Gets in the Way of Follow-Through

Follow-through is usually framed as a planning problem. If you had a better system, more accountability, or clearer priorities, you’d do the thing.

Sometimes that’s true. Often, it’s not.

Many plans fail not because they’re poorly designed, but because something internal interferes. Anxiety spikes. Emotional resistance surfaces. Cognitive load increases. Fatigue sets in faster than expected. These interruptions are rarely accounted for, even though they play a major role in whether follow-through is possible.

When internal barriers go unnamed, people default to self-blame. They assume the problem is discipline, motivation, or commitment. Over time, this creates a pattern: good intentions followed by quiet disengagement and growing frustration.

What’s missing from most advice is curiosity. Instead of asking “Why didn’t I do it?” a more useful question is “What got in the way?” That shift changes everything. It turns failure into information rather than evidence of inadequacy.

Internal and external barriers interact constantly. A demanding day can lower emotional tolerance. Emotional friction can make simple tasks feel overwhelming. Without understanding these dynamics, people keep applying solutions that don’t fit the problem.

Session 2 of the Lunch and Learn series slows this process down. We look closely at the factors that interrupt follow-through and how to work with them rather than against them.

This is the focus of Session 2 in the Lunch and Learn series:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/why-you-know-what-to-do-and-still-dont-do-it-tickets-1980719043980