You Made a Resolution. Now You’re Avoiding It. Here’s Why.
Part 1 of The Somatic Saboteur series
You’ve set the intention and bought the planner. And it felt like this is the year where things shift.
But now you’re avoiding the very thing you promised to do.
Whatever the goal, your body is pulling back. Procrastination, overthinking, numbing out, getting busy.
This isn’t laziness or a discipline problem. It is your nervous system doing its job.
Your Body Optimizes for Safety, Not Resolutions
Your body does not follow intentions. It follows imprints, the patterns it’s learned.
If a goal asks for visibility, energy, or risk that your system reads as threat, it hits the brakes.
Before you call it another failure, ask two concrete questions:
What does this goal ask of me emotionally.
Which survival response might be active right now (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn)
When Change Feels Risky
Say your resolution is to market your business online.
On paper it is simple. Just post. right?
But your body may remember being judged in school, brushed off, or criticized when you spoke up.
So posting on Instagram stops feeling like a task and starts feeling like exposure.
The “Saboteur” is Not an Enemy
Avoiding the gym, delaying the draft, saying yes when you mean no, these are attempts to keep internal peace.
Protective parts try to regulate discomfort with the tools they know. They worry change could bring:
Abandonment
Failure
Humiliation
Exhaustion
Being “too much” or “not enough”
Instead of “How do I power through,” try “What would make this feel safe enough to attempt today.”
A Practical Image: The Tightrope and the Anchor
Picture a rope between where you are and where you want to be. You know how to cross. Your feet still shake. The issue is trust in the rope.
In that moment, you do not need more hype. You need something to anchor to.
Use breath as a cue. Use a clear start and stop time. Use one simple step you can complete without a spike of anxiety.
A New Way to Begin Again
Instead of making this the year you force your way into change, what if you let this be the year you listen deeper?
Try these:
Drop the “should”: Start with what feels safe enough. Make your goal smaller until you get a yes from your body. Instead of “go to the gym 5x a week”, try “walk around the block after dinner”. Let your system experience success.
Track the resistance: Not to override it, but to learn from it. Where do you feel the pushback in your body? The tension in your chest? The pull in your gut? There’s wisdom in your body. What is it protecting you from?
Let you goals come from love, not shame: If your resolution is rooted in self-punishment (eg. “fix my body”, “stop being so lazy”, “Prove I’m good enough”), you are setting yourself up to fragment. What would it sound like to set a goal from care instead of criticism?
There’s Nothing Wrong for Struggling to Stay Consistent
Your system is wise. I’ts speaking.
And the more you learn to speak its language, the more your goals stop being a battle and start becoming a part of you.
Let this be the year you listen before you push, and the year you move at the pace of your nervous system.
Remember that change actually happens from inside-out, not top down.
If you want structured support, The Reclaim is where we start small and build capacity with your body in mind.
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