Ep #216: Are You Solving the Wrong Problem? Why the Same Struggles Keep Showing Up

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #216. Have you ever looked around and thought, why does this keep happening to me? Maybe it’s a different job, a different workout, a different diet, but somehow you keep ending up in the same place. Today, we’re going to explore why that happens and why the problem we’re trying to solve isn’t always the one that’s actually keeping us stuck.

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. 

Hey, how are you? What’s new? What’s good? So, what’s good here? Well, I was thinking about something this week after a coaching session and it turned into another scenario where I realized, oh yeah, this is not just about this one client. And it’s actually a pattern I’ve seen over and over again.

So this particular client was really unhappy at work. She felt like she wasn’t being fully utilized. She was bored. She felt that she had more to offer than what her role allowed and there were some real genuine frustrations with the people she worked with and how things were being handled.

And after thinking about it for a long time, she decided to leave and take a different position. And honestly, at first it sounded like exactly the right move for her. She was excited. Her new role seemed interesting and more in line with her skill set, and she was energized and motivated again. And it seemed like this particular work situation would be a better fit.

And then a few months later, after she had been at the job for a bit, one of her projects wrapped up and things changed. And almost overnight, our coaching sessions started to sound very familiar. She was frustrated again. She felt underutilized again. She wasn’t sure if this was the right job for her anymore. And she started to wonder if maybe she needed to look for something else. And I remember sitting there during the session thinking, wait a minute, this does not feel like a new story. This feels like the same story, just in a different building. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had seen this before. And not just with this one client.

I’ve seen it with clients trying to lose weight. I’ve seen it with clients trying to establish exercise routines. I’ve seen it with clients in difficult relationships. And honestly, I’ve seen it in myself too. The circumstances are different, but the experience often sounds surprisingly similar. And that is what got me really thinking because I don’t think this episode is actually about jobs at all. I think it’s about what happens when we keep changing our circumstances without ever stopping to ask what might be following us from one situation to the next. And that is what I’m going to dive into today. So now before we go any further, I want to be really careful here because I think this could get easily misunderstood. I’m not at all saying that you should stay in a situation you absolutely hate.

Some jobs are truly unhealthy. Some bosses are really difficult. Some relationships absolutely need to end. Some workout programs genuinely are not a good fit for your body or your life. And sometimes changing your circumstances is exactly the right thing to do. But that is not what I’m talking about today.

In fact, when this client was thinking about leaving her job, I encouraged her to explore other opportunities because she was so unhappy. But what caught my attention wasn’t that she ultimately left, it was what happened after she left her job. The circumstance changed. The job changed. The people changed. The projects changed. But after the initial excitement wore off, the experience didn’t. That was the part that kept standing out to me. And that reminded me of something one of my very first coaches shared years ago.

She said it really bluntly. Don’t leave your job, your spouse, or your home until you’ve done your own work first. Now I don’t think she meant that as an absolute rule. Sometimes leaving really is the healthiest decision. But I think what she was getting at is incredibly wise. Before you assume the circumstance is the whole problem, take some time to understand what you might be bringing into it.

Because if you don’t, there’s a really good chance you’ll bring the same ways of thinking, the same habits, the same expectations, and the same responses into the next job or the next relationship or the next workout plan or the next diet. And that’s really the key to what I want to talk about today. Because I think a lot of us spend a whole lot of time trying to change our circumstances when the thing that’s following us from one situation to the next is us. And why do we even do this? Why is it so easy to convince ourselves that the next job or the next workout or the next diet, that it’s going to be different?

Well, I think the answers to this are actually pretty simple. There are real legitimate reasons we’re so drawn to changing our circumstances. And the most obvious reason we do this is because fresh starts feel really, really good. So think about the last time you started something new, a new job, a new planner, a new house, a new workout program, a new nutrition plan, a new relationship. There is excitement. There’s possibility. There’s hope. You haven’t hit any roadblocks yet. You haven’t gotten bored. You haven’t doubted yourself, and everything still feels possible.

And because of that feeling of possibility, our brains naturally start telling us things like, once I find the right job, once I find the right coach, once I find the right workout, once I find the right diet, once my schedule settles down, then everything will finally click. And the interesting part here is that sometimes it does, at least for a little while anyway. The new job is exciting. The workouts are fun. You’re meal prepping and it feels good. You’re motivated, showing up consistently, and it genuinely feels like you found the answer. But then something completely predictable happens.

The new job stops feeling new. The workout becomes routine. Salads become boring. Life gets busy, and the excitement fades. And suddenly, you’re right back where you started wondering if maybe this just isn’t the right fit after all. And to be clear, sometimes it really isn’t the right fit. Sometimes a different job really is better or a different coach or a different workout really is a better match. But I’ve realized something after years of coaching around this.

I don’t think we’re drawn to changing our circumstances only because fresh starts feel exciting. I also think we’re drawn to them because they’re straightforward. It is so much easier to believe the problem is only the job than it is to ask how you’re experiencing the job. It’s easier to think I need a different workout than it is to ask what happened the last time I stopped exercising. And it’s easier to decide this diet just didn’t work for me than it is to look at what happened when the last diet unraveled after week three.

And for those of us who are wired to solve problems, changing something feels productive. We can update the resume, buy a set of dumbbells, download a new meal plan, sign up for a new gym, and all of those feel like progress. Because changing the job or the workout or the diet or really changing the circumstance, that feels decisive. It feels like progress. It gives you something concrete to do.

But looking inward or looking at yourself doesn’t. Sitting quietly and reflecting or asking yourself, why does this keep happening? That does not feel productive, but it might be the most productive thing you can do. Because looking inward means slowing down before rushing to the next thing. It also means admitting that maybe there’s more to the story than you first realized. It also means asking hard questions and getting really honest with yourself. And that is uncomfortable, like super uncomfortable. And again, I want to be really careful here. This is not about blame. It’s really about protection.

I think our brains naturally look outward first because it is so much safer. Because if it’s your boss, you don’t have to examine yourself. If it’s the workout, you don’t have to ask why you stopped. If it’s the diet, you don’t have to think about what happened when the novelty wore off. Your brain is just trying to protect you from discomfort.

Because if we discover that we might in some way be contributing to the experience, now we have work to do. And I think that’s exactly why so many of us skip one of the most important parts of this process, we don’t stop to debrief. Meaning, we finish one experience and immediately dive into the next one. One job, then another. One diet, then another.

One workout, then another. But if we never stop to understand what happened, how can we possibly know what to do differently next time? And that’s exactly what a debrief is. It’s not beating yourself up. It’s not proving you were the problem. It’s just slowing down long enough to learn from the experience before you leave it and move on to the next one. And that means asking questions like what actually happened? What worked? What didn’t? What did I contribute? What can I learn from this before I move on?

Because if we never take the time to understand why the last experience went the way it did, there’s a high likelihood we’ll carry pieces of that into the next one. It’s like history repeating itself. And it’s not because we failed to change, but because we never stopped long enough to learn. So that reflection, even if it’s uncomfortable, and it probably will be, that is where all of the growth is.

So if that’s the case and we’re trying to understand why our experience happened the way it did, what exactly are we looking for? Well, after thinking about this particular client, and honestly, after thinking about dozens of other clients over the years, I realized something. I had been asking the wrong questions. At first, I was focused on the job. Like, was it a better fit?

Was it more interesting? Did it provide enough of a challenge? And those all seemed like important questions. But after watching many of the same frustrations show up in a completely different job, I realized I was still looking at the job. And maybe the job wasn’t actually the thing I should have been paying the most attention to because the job changed. The boss changed, the projects changed, but something about her experience hadn’t.

And that’s when I realized I needed to stop asking what was changing around her and instead start asking what was staying the same. And I think that’s a super important distinction because now we’re talking about the difference between a circumstance and a pattern. So a circumstance is what’s happening around us. A pattern is the way we consistently think, feel, and respond to those circumstances. And those are two very different things. The circumstance can change completely. A job can change. The people can change. The environment can change.

But if our way of responding stays the same, then our experience often stays the same too. And when I stepped back and looked at this client’s situation, I noticed something. At first, all I saw was a list of frustrations. She wanted work to stay exciting. She felt overlooked. She wanted more responsibility. She kept feeling like she wasn’t being fully utilized. But then I realized I don’t actually think those were separate problems. I think they were all clues. And there was one clue that kept catching my attention.

Whenever we talked about what she could do next, the conversation often came back to waiting. So things like, I have to wait until my manager gets back. I have to wait until HR decides. I have to wait until another project opens up. And to be clear, sometimes that is the reality.

Sometimes you really do have to wait. But after hearing it enough, I found myself wondering how much of her future always depended on someone else’s next move. Now I don’t know that I could perfectly name what the deeper pattern was. And honestly, I don’t think that’s even the important part. The important part is that once I stopped focusing only on the circumstance, I started seeing that there was another layer underneath it.

And I think that’s true for all of us. The frustration you’re experiencing might be completely real, and the circumstance might absolutely need to change. But it’s worth examining whether there’s something underneath that experience that’s showing up again and again. And that is where coaching gets interesting because sometimes the thing we’re trying to fix isn’t actually the thing that’s keeping us stuck. Now, if all of this is true, what exactly do you do with it?

Well, one of the biggest changes I’ve made both in coaching my own clients and honestly in coaching myself is that I’ve started asking different questions. For a long time, my brain would immediately skip ahead to, Okay, should I do next? Should I leave? Should I find a different workout? Should I try a different eating plan? Should I make a different schedule? And sometimes those are helpful questions, but I found that there’s usually another question that needs to come first. So instead of asking, what should I do next? Consider asking what keeps repeating? Because repeating experiences, those are your clues.

Meaning, if I keep ending up frustrated at work or if I keep falling off my workouts or if I keep finding myself having the same argument, maybe it’s worth getting curious, not just about the circumstance, but about what keeps showing up every time. And I think that right there is the huge shift. We’re no longer asking, how do I get out of this? And instead of rushing to the next solution, we slow down long enough to understand the problem. So we stop asking, what should I do? Before we’ve answered, what’s actually going on?

Because if we understand that first, whatever decision we make next is usually a better one. And I will be honest, I didn’t come up with this question because I was so good at it. I came up with it because I finally realized there were some patterns in my own life that kept showing up too. And in order to move forward, I had to own them.

When I was practicing family medicine, I got completely burned out. And to be clear, there were a lot of reasons that contributed to that. Medicine has some very real problems. And leaving, as hard as it was, was absolutely the right decision for me. But here’s what surprised me. A few years later, after I had built my coaching practice, I found myself exhausted again. I was doing work that I genuinely loved, but I was scheduling clients back to back, scheduling through lunch, working late, rarely taking breaks, packing way too much into my days. And after going at that pace for a few months, I remember thinking, hang on a minute. I had been here before. Why does this feel so familiar?

I wasn’t even practicing medicine anymore. I loved the work I was doing in coaching. So why did I feel like I ended up in the exact same place I had worked so hard to leave? The circumstance had changed completely. The job was different. The schedule was different. The work was different. But something felt very familiar. And that’s when I had to take a really hard look and admit something pretty uncomfortable. Medicine was not the whole story for me.

I couldn’t blame all of my burnout on practicing medicine alone. I had brought my own patterns with me. My pattern of overworking, my tendency to keep saying yes even when I wanted to say no, my belief that if I went at anything less than a thousand percent, everything would fall out from under me. That did not stay in medicine. I brought all of those patterns with me into coaching too.

So different career, same pattern. And I wish I could tell you that is the only place I’ve seen it in myself, but it’s not. I also know that one of my patterns is avoiding conflict. I don’t like it. I can feel the heaviness of it in my body and then I shut down, just completely shut down. I’ve done it with my parents. I’ve done it in my marriage. It is a pattern. And if I’m being fully honest, I’m still learning how to navigate that one. Because recognizing a pattern does not automatically make it disappear, but it does give you somewhere to start.

And honestly, I’d rather spend my energy working on a pattern that I can actually influence than spending years wondering why I keep ending up in the same place. And this is exactly why I think this matters so much. Because if we only ever solve the circumstance, we may end up solving the wrong problem. So here’s what I mean. Let’s use exercise as an example.

Let’s say you buy a Peloton because you’re convinced that it’s finally going to make you consistent. So the bike gets delivered, you do a few rides, and you’re in a good groove for a while. You’re riding regularly. You’re excited. You’re motivated. But eventually, the novelty wears off. Life gets busy, and you stop riding. So then you decide, maybe I just need something different. So you join Orangetheory. Or maybe you hire a trainer.

And again, you’re excited. You’re consistent again. Until one day, you’re just not. Now maybe Orangetheory really is a better fit. Maybe a trainer is exactly what you need. But before jumping into the next thing, I think it’s worth asking, what actually happened here? Was the bike really the problem? Was the gym the problem? The schedule, was that a problem? Or was it something else?

Meaning, did you stop because the novelty wore off? Did life get busy and exercise was the first thing to disappear? Or were you expecting motivation to carry you instead of building the habit of showing up for yourself in some capacity even if it’s not perfect? Because those are all very different problems. And if we don’t understand the true problem, we’re probably not going to choose the right solution.

If the Peloton is genuinely uncomfortable, then sure, maybe buying a different piece of equipment makes sense. But if the real challenge is that you stop whenever life gets busy, changing the equipment doesn’t actually solve the problem. It just changes the setting where the problem shows up. And I think that’s why this matters so much. Because if we only ever solve the circumstance, we may never actually solve the thing that’s keeping us stuck.

We just keep changing the setting without ever understanding the pattern. And until we really understand the pattern, there’s a good chance we’ll keep repeating the same experience in different places. So now if you’ve been listening to this and thinking, great, so everything is my fault, that is absolutely not what I’m saying. Sometimes the circumstance really is the problem. Sometimes the job isn’t healthy.

The relationship needs to end. The workout really isn’t a good fit. Those are all circumstances, and sometimes they really do need to change. But sometimes it is the pattern, the way you respond when things get boring, the way you avoid conflict, the way you expect motivation to carry you, the way you overwork because you think you have to prove yourself. Those are patterns.

And honestly, sometimes it’s both. And I don’t think the goal is to figure out which one wins. I think the goal is just to understand the situation more completely so that you recognize what’s outside of your control and what is within it. Because once you can separate those two things, then you stop guessing. You stop jumping from one solution to the next, hoping this one finally fixes everything.

And instead, you’re making decisions with a deeper understanding of what’s actually going on. And that honestly is where the hope is. Because if every frustrating experience is only the result of your circumstances, think about it. Then you’re stuck waiting for your boss to change or your spouse to change or your schedule to change or for life to finally slow down. But if part of the experience is the pattern you bring into those circumstances, then that’s something you can work on.

Not overnight, not in one fell swoop, not perfectly, but over time. And that doesn’t make the work easy, but it does mean you’re finally working on the right problem. And I don’t know about you, but I like that outlook better because it means I don’t have to wait for the world around me to become perfect before I can start having a different experience in it.

So maybe this week, before you decide you need a different job or a different workout or a different nutrition plan, pause. And just for a minute, before you look for the next answer, maybe instead look for the next clue. And that means notice what keeps frustrating you. Notice what keeps pulling you off track. What keeps feeling surprisingly familiar? And don’t be in such a hurry to explain it all the way or fix it or replace it. Just spend a little time asking, why does this keep happening?

You don’t have to have the answer today. In fact, I think one of the most valuable things we can do is resist the urge to answer that question too quickly. I think the goal is to understand the problem a little better than you did yesterday. Because when we rush to find a solution before we really understand what’s happening, we have a habit of solving the wrong problem. And that is expensive.

It costs us time. It costs us energy. Sometimes it costs us years. But when we’re willing to slow down and really understand what keeps repeating, our next decision has a much better chance of being a better one. And not because we found the perfect answer, but because we’re finally solving the right problem.

And if you want help with this, let’s go. When you coach with me, we don’t just talk about food or workouts or habits. We slow down long enough to understand what’s actually happening underneath them. We look for the patterns that keep showing up, figure out what’s keeping you stuck, and make sure you’re solving the right problem. So if you’re tired of feeling like you’re having the same struggle in a different job, a different workout, or a different diet, check out my website, send me a message at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact, and let’s talk about how coaching can help you.

Alright? Thank you again for hanging out with me, and I’ll catch you again next week.

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You’ll also find strength training tips to help you train smarter and see real results. My goal is to help you get strong and this strength-training guide will help you do it. Go to CarrieHollandMD.com/build strength and check it out.

Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.