Why can’t I just do this?
That’s the question I used to ask myself whenever something got hard.
Growing up, my mom was an angel. She loved me deeply. So whenever I was struggling with something, she’d gently take it from my hands and say, “I’ll do it, mamala.”
She meant it as kindness. And it felt like kindness.
But here’s what I concluded from all those moments: I’m not capable.
I didn’t know I believed that. It wasn’t written on a sign somewhere. But it ran me for years. When something didn’t come easily, I’d find someone else to do it. I’d ask a friend. I’d staff it out. I’d quietly back away.
And here’s the part that really gets me: I had tried so many things. I knew better. I’d done the work. But the pattern kept showing up, no matter what I tried.
Does this sound familiar?
Why everything you’ve tried is still just coping
Most people who come to me have already tried a lot.
Therapy. Affirmations. Motivational workshops. Journaling. Mindset work. Books — so many books. And I want to be clear: those things aren’t bad. They come from a genuine desire to change. And they can teach you a lot.
But they’re all, in one way or another, helping you cope.
They’re helping you manage the fear when it shows up. Push through the self-doubt when it arrives. Handle the emotional spiral when it starts. Work around the pattern instead of through it.
And that’s exhausting.
Because the feelings keep coming back. You do the breathing exercise, and then two days later the anxiety is there again. You repeat the affirmation, and then the old voice returns. You push through — and then the next time, you have to push through again.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re working incredibly hard at change and still ending up in the same place, it’s not because you’re doing it wrong.
It’s because you’re working downstream.
The root cause most people never reach
Here’s what I mean.
Every unwanted pattern — the procrastination, the fear of putting yourself out there, the self-doubt that shows up at the worst moments — has a root cause. And that root cause is almost always a belief.
A belief is a statement about reality that we hold as the truth.
Things like: I’m not good enough. Mistakes are bad. What makes me good enough is having other people think well of me.
These beliefs aren’t opinions we chose. They’re conclusions we drew — usually as children — from the events we experienced. We asked ourselves why things were happening, and we made something up. And then we grew up thinking we saw it in the world. So of course it feels true.
The problem isn’t that you believe these things. The problem is that as long as the belief is there, the negative feelings it creates keep coming back. Over and over. And you have to keep managing them.
It’s like bailing out a boat without plugging the hole. The water keeps coming in. You’re not doing it wrong — you’re just not working at the source.
What it looks like when the belief is gone
I had a client who couldn’t make videos for her business. Every time she did, if a single hair was out of place, she’d do it over. She was consumed by what people would think.
We didn’t work on her video habits. We didn’t practice exposure techniques or teach her to tolerate the discomfort.
We got rid of the belief underneath it all.
A few weeks later, she was on Zoom with me — calling in from Norway, with her cutest accent — and she told me she had made a video that day with a hair right in front of her face.
And she didn’t do it over.
She didn’t push through anything. She didn’t cope. The belief was gone, and so was everything the belief had been creating.
That’s what belief elimination looks like.
There’s another way
If you’ve tried everything and still feel stuck, I want you to hear this: it’s not because you haven’t tried hard enough.
It’s because most approaches to change — as well-meaning as they are — don’t work at the level where the problem actually lives.
When you eliminate the belief, there’s nothing left to cope with.
The negative emotion doesn’t come up, because its source is gone. The pattern stops — not because you’re managing it better, but because the root has been pulled.
That’s what I want for you.
If you’d like to explore what this could look like for you specifically, I’d love to talk. You can sign up for a free strategy session at https://www.mortylefkoe.com/free-strategy-2/
Or if you want to start by eliminating a belief on your own, you can try our free belief elimination program at RecreateYourLife.com.
You don’t have to keep working so hard to stay afloat.
