TLDR: You don’t have a mindset problem. You’re juggling too much at once (cognitive load), only seeing the highlight reel of who succeeded (survivorship bias), missing the context of other people’s unfair advantages, and trying to force your life into a hustle-culture mould that was never built for you. Fix that first — with focused 90-day goals, honest constraints, and real scaffolding — and only then worry about your mindset.
You think you have a mindset problem because that’s what the big name coach is telling you. They’ve probably even hired a mindset coach to help you “work through your blocks.” Sounds supportive, right?
I’m not convinced.
Because here’s the thing: it also means they get to pass the blame when their programme doesn’t work for you. And frankly, I think it’s a total cop-out.
In my recent research, Beyond the Promise, I found that 58% of participants in group programmes said turning learning into action was challenging. Many of these people had done more than one programme.
So does that mean nearly 60% of us have mindset issues?
Absolute bollocks.
Here’s what I think is actually going on.
1. Cognitive load
If you’re a business owner, you’re the marketer, the finance team, ops, and R&D all at once. That constant context switching wears you out and makes it harder for your brain to process anything. Add in the endless ambiguity — what to work on, when, what to sell, how to price it, what your messaging even is — and it’s exhausting.
I don’t think you’re lazy. I don’t think you’re uncommitted. I don’t even think you’re lacking motivation. I think you’re tired from trying to do all the things, and you simply don’t have the processing power left to make the decisions you need to make before you can turn something new into action.
2. Survivorship bias
For every success story on the sales page, there are hundreds of clients who got nothing. Nobody talks about this, because it undermines the marketing machine. The people with the big wins are the survivors — we never hear from the ones who followed the framework to the letter and still didn’t get the results they were promised.
That’s not a mindset issue. That’s a lack of context issue.
3. Unfair advantages
We all have them — natural talent, skills, network, circumstances. Having them doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean anyone else is playing on cheap mode. But knowing your unfair advantage is an asset. It’s your competitive edge.
The “just do it” crowd rarely mentions the unfair advantages that formed the foundation of their success. Strip that context away and ask yourself: would they still have pushed through anyway? Or was it luck of timing, the gifts they were born with, and the environment they cultivated around them?
I’m not berating anyone for building the perfect environment for themselves. I’m berating the lack of context when they blame your mindset instead of acknowledging that their circumstances are simply different to yours.
4. Your life and your values
The big names preach hustle, drive, 5am clubs, ice baths, work-23-hours-a-day-or-you’re-failing. But when you’re dealing with kids, neurodivergence, or health issues, none of that fits neatly into the five o’clock club mentality. Their system was never designed for your reality.
And it’s not just about circumstances — it’s about values too. I will not lie in my marketing to make a sale. I know coaches selling “passive income” while working 50-hour weeks with a nanny raising their kid. That’s not passive income. That’s a lie, dressed up to close the sale. I will never run my business that way. That’s not a mindset issue — that’s an ethics one.
So what actually works?
Last year I ran two summits, this year I launched my YouTube channel, my ed consultancy got fully booked in six weeks. Here’s how:
I plan in 90-day blocks and get ruthlessly focused on one core outcome. I can’t chase ten directions at once, and neither can you. Split your attention and you end up with five half-finished projects and no results.
I build the plan around honest constraints — how much time I actually have, what can’t be dropped (marketing, client delivery), and what’s happening in life outside the business. That includes the deep work time it takes to turn a nebulous big idea into something real.
I put scaffolding in place — the list of people to reach out to, pre-made decisions about who fits the criteria, habits like contacting three people a day. Once the decisions are made and the systems are running, if you’re still stuck, that’s when it’s worth exploring a genuine mindset issue. But not before.
Ask yourself
- Are you chasing a hundred different goals at once?
- Is your plan built on honest constraints, or on a dream-fantasy version of your time?
- Are you trying to hustle-bro your way to success when actually you’re an exhausted, frazzled, neurodivergent parent who needs a completely different approach?
If any of that feels true, something needs to change — not your mindset, your scaffolding.
I’d love to help you find where your gap really is: your Spark, your Strategy, or your Setup. I run free 30-minute Momentum Audits where we look across all three and work out exactly where things are getting stuck.
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