We Are More Than the Sum of Our Parts
Change isn't a puzzle to solve with your mind. It's an ecosystem to create with your whole self. Here's part 1 (of 3).
If you’re missing your goals, chances are the change you’re after just isn’t sticking.
But why? Why the hell is it so hard? Why do we keep buying into the beautiful, hopeful vision only to slide back into our old patterns?
Over the years we've bought into different takes: it used to be about productivity. Then it was about motivation. Then habits. Trauma. Manifesting. Neuroscience. Supplements. Dopamine detoxes. Now, many have simply given up—or gone back to Jung.
And yet.
I'm not trying to be cynical. There's a lot of solid advice out there. But unless approached well, most of it is like a lot of supplements we either don't need, or can't absorb, thus creating nothing more than some expensive pee.
So here’s my three-part series that explores why sustainable change feels so impossible right now, and what actually works when you're dealing with ancient wiring in an AI-accelerated world.
In a nutshell: how to human better in today’s world.
Part 1: How - For Those With a Hammer - Everything Looks Like a Nail
How the self-help industry's fragmented approach is making change harder, not easier
Part 2: Your Ancient Brain in an AI World
The evolutionary mismatch that explains why change feels impossible right now
Part 3: Building Change That Actually Sticks
The integration solution that addresses the whole system, not just the symptoms
How the Self-Help Industry Isn’t Helping Much
Here's a disturbing fact: We have more self-help books, courses, apps, and coaches than any generation in human history. We also have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout than any generation in human history.
What the hell is going on?
You'd think with all this knowledge about how to improve our lives, we'd actually be... improving our lives. And - sure, some do. But at the same time most of us have developed what I call "progressive desensitization to good advice."
We're tired of advice—not because our problems have disappeared, but because we've learned that consuming information doesn't equal transformation.
If you're smart and self-aware, this is particularly maddening. You can articulate your problems with PhD-level precision. You understand your attachment style, your triggers, your limiting beliefs. You know exactly what you should be doing differently.
You're also still stuck in the same patterns you were trying to change five years ago.
Getting Seeds-While-Dreaming-of-a-Garden Problem
Here's how I see it: You're buying seeds while dreaming of a garden.
The self-help industry sells you the vision of having a beautiful garden in your life—better relationships, higher productivity, inner peace, optimal health. You get excited, you swipe the credit card, and what arrives right after is a packet of dry, brown, miserable seeds that require everything: the right soil, proper planting, consistent watering, protection from pests, favorable weather conditions, and months of patient tending.
That's not what you were hoping for when you made the purchase.
Most personal development is obsessed with seeds—the insights, the frameworks, the "aha moments." But you can have the most perfect seeds in the world. If the soil isn't ready, if the conditions aren't right, nothing grows.
Meanwhile, you keep collecting more seeds, thinking the problem is that you haven't found the right variety yet.
To Those With a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail
The industry has responded to our complex, modern challenges by getting more and more specialized. It's like the old story of the blind men and the elephant—each person touches one part and insists they know what the whole animal looks like.
The trauma therapist sees everything through the lens of past wounds and family patterns. Your procrastination? That's your inner child afraid of being judged. Your decision paralysis? Definitely attachment trauma.
The productivity guru thinks it's all about better systems and discipline. Can't focus? You need a new app. Feeling overwhelmed? Try this time-blocking method. Creatine might help.
The mindfulness teacher believes meditation will solve everything. Stressed about work? Meditate. Relationship problems? More awareness. Financial anxiety? Present-moment acceptance. Moment to moment to moment.
The habit formation expert reduces everything to behavioral loops. Want to change? Just identify the cue, routine, and reward. Make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
The business coach frames everything as mindset and goal-setting. Not achieving what you want? You need clearer vision and better strategies. Don’t forget to mark your milestones.
The somatic practitioner locates all problems in the body. Feeling stuck? It's trapped trauma in your tissues. Relationship issues? You need to release stored emotional energy.
They're all touching real parts of the elephant—but insisting that their piece is the whole picture.
Each approach has value, but they're often completely disjointed. Each one frames itself as THE solution to complex, interconnected problems.
It's like going to different doctors who each only know how to treat one organ. The cardiologist only sees heart problems. The neurologist only sees brain issues. The gastroenterologist only focuses on digestion. But your body is an integrated system where everything affects everything else.
Why Compartmentalization Fails
Here's the fundamental problem with the specialized approach: most of the challenges you're facing are systemic, not isolated.
Your procrastination isn't just a productivity issue. It might involve anxiety about perfectionism, nervous system dysregulation from too much screen time, decision fatigue from information overload, and an environment designed to distract you.
Your relationship struggles aren't just about communication skills. They might involve attachment patterns from childhood, nervous system responses to conflict, digital habits that interfere with presence, and cultural pressures that create unrealistic expectations or having too many options (real or imagined).
Your inability to stick to healthy habits isn't just about willpower but might involve blood sugar regulation, sleep disruption from blue light exposure, social environments that don't support your goals, and a dopamine system hijacked by digital stimulation.
When you try to solve systemic problems with isolated solutions, you get temporary improvements that don't last. It's like trying to fix a leaky roof by repainting the living room—you might feel better about how things look, but the fundamental problem remains.
Let Me Think About It
And a subset of our species is particularly vulnerable to another problem: getting stuck in the analysis phase.
You can explain your attachment style with PhD-level precision. You know your Enneagram type, your Myers-Briggs personality, your love language, your conflict style, and your core limiting beliefs. You can articulate exactly why you procrastinate and what triggers your anxiety.
You've done years of therapy, read dozens of books, taken multiple courses. You have incredible insight into your patterns and behaviors.
You're also still stuck in the same problems you were trying to solve five years ago.
This isn't because the insights are wrong. They're often accurate and valuable. The problem is that insights alone don't create change. Understanding your patterns is useful, but it's not the same as transforming them.
Most approaches stop at the insight level because that's where the "aha moments" happen. That's where you feel like you're making progress. But real change happens in the implementation, in the daily practice, in the slow work of rewiring your nervous system and redesigning your environment. And that requires attention, intention, and some well orchestrated effort. Oh, and since it’s not easy - also some support.
The Cut Flowers Effect
Most attempts at change are like buying cut flowers: they look great for a while and then wither. They have no roots, they can't last.
You go to a weekend workshop and feel transformed. You read a book that changes your perspective. You have a breakthrough in therapy. For a few days or weeks, you feel different.
But cut flowers, no matter how beautiful, are already dying the moment you bring them home. They were severed from the root system that kept them alive.
Real change can't be grafted onto your existing life—it needs to be grown from the ground up, with roots that can sustain it over time.
Here's what most approaches miss: lasting, sustainable change literally needs to grow into you—through your nervous system. It needs to transfer from your conscious mind into deeper parts of yourself that operate automatically. But we keep trying to force change through willpower and conscious effort alone, which is like trying to grow a tree from the top down.
We'll explore exactly how this transfer happens in the final part of this series.
And Then - There’s Overwhelm
All of this specialization and analysis has created a perfect storm.
Choice paralysis. With hundreds of different approaches available, how do you choose? You end up trying a little of everything and mastering nothing.
Solution fatigue. You've tried so many different methods that you start to feel cynical about the possibility of real change.
Fragmented understanding. You have pieces of insight from different frameworks, but no coherent way to integrate them into a workable system.
Comparison anxiety. Everyone else seems to have found their method that works, while you're still searching.
Implementation deficit. You spend more time learning about change than actually implementing it.
Rehashed Advice
Not enough problems? Here’s one more: much of the advice you're getting isn't based on lived experience. It's rehashed content from someone else who rehashed it from someone else.
With AI making it easier than ever to produce content, the internet is flooded with variations of the same surface-level advice. "Just think positive!" "Set better boundaries!" "Practice gratitude!" "Try meditation!"
The real experience, embodiment, and practice—the actual work of transformation—gets lost in the noise of content creation.
Meanwhile, you're drowning in information while starving for genuine guidance.
The Bandwidth Problem
Even when you find good advice, there's still a fundamental issue: you don't have the bandwidth to implement it.
Implementation takes exponentially more time and energy than consumption. You can read about a new habit in five minutes, but building that habit into your life takes weeks or months of consistent practice.
Yet the advice keeps coming at you faster than you can possibly implement it. You end up knowing more and more about change while experiencing less and less of it in your actual life.
We Are a Complex System
The problem isn't that these specialized approaches don't work—many of them do, when applied consistently in the right context. The problem is that we're trying to solve 21st-century challenges with an industrial-age mindset that breaks everything into separate parts.
You can't change your thoughts without addressing what's happening in your body.
It’s hard to change your behavior without changing your environment and having the right support
It’s tricky to upgrade your mindset while your nervous system is stuck in constant threat mode.
Everything is connected, but we keep treating the symptoms in isolation while ignoring the whole system.
This is why so many of us, who've done years of personal work, still find themselves stuck in the same patterns. We have incredible insights but haven't addressed the deeper layers where sustainable change actually happens.
Next, we'll explore the deeper forces behind why change feels so impossible right now—and why your struggle isn't a personal failing but a predictable response to an unprecedented situation.
Very accurate diagnosis of the challenge we all face to some extent. Looking forward to parts 2 and 3.