Motivation and Anxiety: Why Change Can Feel So Hard
- Kristin Kurian
- Jan 23
- 4 min read
Many people come to therapy saying some version of the same thing:
“I know what I need to do. I just can’t seem to do it.”
This can feel confusing, frustrating, and often shame-inducing. You might wonder whether you lack motivation, discipline, or willpower. But from a psychological and behavioural perspective, this experience usually has very little to do with laziness or avoidance.
It has much more to do with how the brain evaluates safety.
Motivation Isn’t a Trait. It’s a Response.
A common myth in pop psychology is that motivation is something you either have or don’t have. In reality, motivation is context-dependent. It emerges when the brain predicts that an action is likely to be safe, manageable, and worthwhile.
When change feels overwhelming, unfamiliar, or threatening, the brain does not interpret that moment as an opportunity for growth. It interprets it as risk.
Research suggests that anxiety evolved as a defensive response system, helping organisms anticipate and respond to potential danger by increasing vigilance and motivating protective behaviour (Nesse, 2015; Mobbs et al., 2015). In everyday life, this means anxiety is not a malfunction or a sign that something is broken. It reflects how the brain learns from past experience and uses that learning to predict and prevent potential harm.
Problems arise when these predictions become overly cautious or persist even when real danger is no longer present, which can make anxiety feel intrusive or limiting over time (Craske et al., 2017).
For parents, teens, and young adults, this helps explain why change can feel so hard even when it is deeply wanted. The brain is not resisting growth. It is acting on what it has learned so far about safety.
A Quick Clarification About “The Nervous System”
You may have heard phrases like:
“Your nervous system is dysregulated”
“You need to calm your nervous system”
“Your nervous system isn’t safe yet”
While these phrases are well-intentioned, this language is often overused and misleading.
The nervous system is not a separate entity that decides whether you act or not.
The brain is part of the nervous system, and it is the brain that:
predicts threat
assigns meaning
learns from past experiences
decides whether action feels safe enough to attempt
When change feels unsafe, it is not because your nervous system is “broken.” It is because your brain has learned, often through experience, that certain situations might carry risk.
Why the Brain Resists Change (Even When You Want It)
From a behavioural psychology standpoint, the brain prioritizes:
predictability over novelty
familiar discomfort over unfamiliar uncertainty
short-term relief over long-term growth
This explains why people can deeply want change and still feel stuck. Avoidance often works in the short term. It reduces anxiety quickly, and the brain learns that avoidance is effective.
The result is not a lack of motivation. It is a well-learned pattern.
Change Happens Through Learning, Not Forcing
One of the most consistent messages across evidence-based anxiety work is this:
The brain changes through experience, not reassurance.
Insight alone rarely creates lasting change. Neither does waiting to “feel ready.”
Change happens when the brain is given repeated, tolerable experiences that gently contradict its predictions about danger.
This might look like:
doing less than you think you should, but doing it consistently
allowing anxiety to be present without trying to eliminate it
taking action while imperfect, uncertain, or uncomfortable
learning that discomfort does not equal danger
Over time, the brain updates its predictions.
Motivation follows learning. It does not precede it.
A Gentle Reframe
If change feels unsafe right now, it does not mean you are failing. It does not mean you lack motivation. And it does not mean you are doing therapy wrong.
It means your brain is doing what it is designed to do: protecting you based on what it has learned so far. And learning takes time, repetition, and the right conditions.
For many people, that realization alone can soften the self-criticism that keeps change feeling out of reach.
How Motivation and Anxiety Shape the Pace of Change
If any of this resonates, you might find yourself wondering whether the challenge is not what you are working on in therapy, but how much space there is to work with it, especially when motivation and anxiety are pulling in opposite directions.
For many people, weekly therapy offers a steady and supportive rhythm. For others, particularly when working through long-standing anxiety patterns or major life transitions, progress can feel slow or fragmented. Sessions may end just as something important is unfolding, or insight may develop without quite translating into lived change.
In those situations, having more time and continuity can support how the brain learns. With adequate space, it becomes easier to:
stay with difficult material long enough for new learning to occur
reduce the sense of restarting between shorter sessions
move from understanding patterns to experiencing them differently
This is not about doing therapy better or faster. It is about matching the pace of therapy to the kind of change you are asking your brain to make.
When Change Feels Hard to Do Alone
If you are feeling stuck between knowing what you want to change and being able to act on it, support can help. Whether through ongoing therapy or a more focused, extended approach, you are always welcome to reach out when it feels like the right time.
Take good care
Kristin Kurian, RP is a Registered Psychotherapist and the founder of A New Perspective Psychotherapy. She works with teens, young adults, and parents navigating anxiety, transitions, and patterns that feel hard to shift. Her approach is trauma-informed, evidence-based, and grounded in helping clients understand why change feels difficult, not just how to push through it. Kristin offers both weekly therapy and extended therapy sessions in Toronto and across Ontario.
This approach reflects evidence-based psychological models of anxiety as a learned, brain-based protective response, rather than framing anxiety as a sign of nervous system damage or dysfunction.
