How Social Media Triggers Your FOMO:

You can be having a normal day, then one scroll makes your life feel more insignificant than it did five seconds ago.

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, doesn’t always show up as a thought. It can shift in your body, your mood, or the way you suddenly look at your own life after seeing someone else’s. You might see a group of people out together, someone travelling, somebody celebrating an achievement, or someone your age reaching a stage of life you thought you would be closer to by now. Before you’ve even worked out why those feelings have happened, something in you feels hollow again.

FOMO can feel different in the age of social media because it’s no longer just hearing about something afterwards. It’s seeing it happening in real time, there and then. Seeing who was there, seeing who commented, seeing who liked it, and seeing the same moment repeated across different people’s stories until it feels bigger than it probably was.

Social media is like a second world that somehow works interchangeably with the real one.

The difficult part is that FOMO doesn’t always stay attached to the thing that’s causing you to feel like you’re missing out. You might start with, “I missed that”, but it can quickly turn into, “Why does everyone else seem to have more going on than me?”

That’s where social media can start amplifying anxiety, because the original moment becomes less important than the meaning your mind starts giving to it.

For some people, that feeling can sit closer to anxiety. For others, it can start pulling them into a depressed state after scrolling. Either way, the screen hasn’t just shown you something. It’s changed the way you feel about where you are in life and the lifestyle you have.

What Is FOMO? (Fear Of Missing Out):

FOMO stands for fear of missing out. In simple terms, it’s the anxious feeling that something meaningful, enjoyable, or important is happening somewhere else without you, and you can’t do anything about it. It could be short-term or long-term things.

It could be a night out, a holiday, a group moment, or something that looks like a milestone in life. It can also be broader than that. Sometimes FOMO is a feeling that other people are living through experiences, opportunities, relationships, or stages of life that you are not part of.

FOMO can make someone feel like they’re not just missing out on something, but also missing a version of life they should be living. Just like everyone else is.

Social media makes that feeling easier to trigger because it gives you so many things to compare yourself against. You see visible moments from other people’s lives, then your mind starts filling in the rest.

They look happy, they look like they’ve got it together, they look ahead in life, or they look like they know what they’re doing. You might know that one social media post doesn’t tell the full story, but when you’re already feeling uncertain, logic won’t always stop the anxious feeling from happening.

FOMO can become a form of comparison that affects how you see yourself.

How Social Media Turns FOMO Into Anxiety:

Social media can turn fear of missing out into anxiety because it keeps showing you a world where it looks like things are happening somewhere else, where you aren’t, or when you can’t be there to enjoy it too. You want to be there, you want what they have, you want to achieve those things too, and you feel like you should be somewhere else than you are now.

The problem is, what you see online isn’t the full landscape of things. You already know this anyway. You see the fun night out, but not the awkwardness around it. You see the major life achievement, not the self-doubt behind it. You see the loving relationship post, not the private tension that still exists. Your mind is trying to understand your whole life while looking at tiny pieces of somebody else’s.

The loop can look something like this:

• You see something online.

• You compare it to your own life.

• The comparison starts to feel real.

• You start questioning where you are in life.

• Anxiety, depression, self-doubt, the list goes on.

If someone looks happy, your mind can assume they are happy all the time. If someone looks successful, your mind can assume they feel secure. If someone is out with people, your mind can assume they never feel lonely. If someone looks confident, your mind can assume they do not doubt themselves.

The thing is, if you’re already an anxious person or have been questioning your own direction in life, one social media post can start to feel like more than just a post. It can feel like proof that everyone else is moving in some way, and you’re not. A social media post from someone else can make your own life feel stagnant, even if you’re dealing with things privately that other people can’t see.

This is where the anxiety grows. Your mind starts asking questions that aren’t really about the post anymore. Why am I not there? Why does my life not look like that? Why do they seem ahead? Why does everyone else seem more connected than me?

When it comes to FOMO and social media, your mind can turn that one moment you see into a whole story about where you are in life. The fear of missing out can be mentally draining, and your mental calories can burn out quickly.

Why FOMO Makes You Feel Behind In Life:

Sometimes you might not even want that exact life… you just see people doing things, going places, being invited, or having experiences, and it makes you question your own pace and lifestyle.

FOMO can become bigger than just social plans or life achievements.

It starts touching your identity, confidence, age, and the version of yourself you thought you’d be by now.

You might be at home trying to relax, but your notifications are showing you people who look like they’re making the most of life. You might be rebuilding or healing, but social media is showing you people who look like they’re already where they need to be in life. And you’re not.

This is also why the fear of missing out can feel worse when you’re already in a low place. If your life feels grey, slow, uncertain, or repetitive, social media can make that contrast feel a lot sharper.

Social media can make everyone else’s life look more vibrant, louder and more complete than yours. Your own life feels like it’s happening in the background, not moving at all, while you’re getting older.

And to be honest, sometimes the feeling is closer to pressure.

The fear of missing out can overlap with depression too. FOMO can leave you feeling emotionless, behind, disconnected, or like your life is moving slower than everyone else’s. Social media keeps showing you the parts of other people’s lives that look faster and more complete.

It can make you feel like you’re not only missing something externally, but that something is wrong with where you are right now in life.

How FOMO Connects To Surface Identity:

Fear of missing out (FOMO) connects with Surface Identity.

Surface Identity is the version of You that gets caught up in how your life looks from the outside. It’s the image and version of yourself you feel you should be showing to other people.

Social media can make things feel like they need to be noticed in order for them to count on your scoreboard of life.

If you’re not posting online, it can feel like you’re the one behind while everyone else does. If you’re not being seen, noticed, or validated by people online, it can feel like you’re not appreciated. If your life is private and quieter, it can feel less real compared to people who are sharing the cleaner parts of theirs where everyone can see.

Your attention starts moving away from what you actually need, and towards how your life compares from the outside.

Instead of thinking what would support your journey or lifestyle right now, you start wondering how your life looks next to someone else’s on social media or within a friendship circle.

Instead of checking in with yourself daily, you check the screen. Instead of living from where you are right now, you start measuring your life against what somebody else has already achieved or is choosing to show online.

It’s a reason why social media can affect a person’s mental health so subtly. It doesn’t just show you other people’s lives, it can also change the way you look at your own. Often with the wrong perspective.

Why FOMO Can Make Your Anxiety Worse:

A fear of missing out can make a persons anxiety worse because it gives their mind more to make sense of and things to compare.

When you’re anxious or struggling with anxiety, your attention and focus can narrow. You can start focusing on the one thing that’s adding anxiety. Social media can feed that because it keeps giving your mind more material to work with and get bogged down by.

A post, a comment, or a group photo can quickly become something you start reading into… you start feeling like you’re missing out.

You might see people together and start wondering whether you’re being forgotten. You might see someone reach a milestone in life and start feeling like you’re falling behind everyone. You might see someone enjoying their life and start questioning why yours feels so different at the moment.

The difficult part is that anxiety can make a possibility feel like the end of the world.

Anxiety can take one small piece of information you see online and stretch it into a bigger idea before you’ve had time to step back from it and process things in your own way.

Sometimes you might genuinely feel left out. Sometimes you might genuinely want more from life. Sometimes having a fear of missing out on things in life is pointing at something. Like a need for connection, movement, confidence, or change.

I think the problem starts when FOMO becomes the lens you see your whole life through. A feeling can show you something, but that doesn’t mean it’s telling you the full truth.

Feelings and emotions don’t always have your best interests at heart, and that’s the truth.

I don’t think having a fear of missing out is unnecessary. The issue is when FOMO turns into self-attack. It stops being a signal and starts becoming proof that you are behind, boring, unwanted, or not doing enough in life.

How To Deal With FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out):

The answer isn’t to disconnect from the world, delete every app and disappear, because that’s avoidance. And unrealistic.

Although, taking a break from social media or any environment where you could begin to compare your own life to everyone else’s is important.

I think the first step is always awareness.

Noticing yourself, and noticing what happens internally and externally when you scroll or view the world. Noticing which posts trigger you. Noticing whether the feeling is about the thing itself, or the meaning you’re giving to it. And does it even matter?

Having a fear of missing out can take a visual on a screen and attach a bigger meaning to it, so be careful. That bigger visual is usually where the anxiety levels grow.

This is where you have to bring yourself back to real life… just for a moment.

Summary:

I think FOMO gets misunderstood sometimes because people treat it like it’s only about being left out.

Sometimes it is about that, but a lot of the time it’s about interpretation. It’s what happens when your mind sees someone else’s life and turns it into a belief about your own.

Social media can amplify fear of missing out because it gives you a constant stream of visuals to measure against your own life. It can make your ordinary life feel too quiet, and your own timeline feel wrong.

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Final Thoughts:

What does FOMO mean?

FOMO means fear of missing out. It’s the anxious feeling that something meaningful, fun, important, or socially valuable is happening somewhere else without you. You might feel like you’re missing out on everything.

Why does social media make FOMO worse?

Social media can make FOMO worse because it shows you constant visible moments from other people’s lives. Those moments can make you compare your life to someone else’s handpicked version.

Can FOMO cause anxiety?

FOMO, the fear of missing out, can amplify levels of anxiety because it gives your mind more to make sense of and interpret. One social media post can turn into thoughts about being behind in life, forgotten, excluded, or not doing enough.

Is FOMO always bad?

No. Sometimes the fear of missing out can show you that you want more connection, enjoyment, or new experiences in life. The problem is when FOMO turns into self-attack or a vision that your life is not good enough.

How does FOMO connect to feeling behind?

FOMO can make you feel like you’re failing in life because social media shows you other people having fun and hitting milestones. This can make your own pace feel unbalanced or slow, even if you are still moving in your own kind of way.

Have you noticed this in yourself, where one social media post can change how you see your own life?

Josh DG.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what part resonated the most 🙌.

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This article about FOMO (fear of missing out) and how social media plays a role was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG is a writer (and creative) whose content focuses on psychology, mental health, and self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is from real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Connect with Josh DG:

Website: JoshDG.com
Threads: @_joshDG
X: @_JoshDG

Why Mindset Gets Misunderstood:

Mindset is one of those words that gets used so often it almost starts sounding empty. You hear it everywhere in self-improvement.

People talk about changing your mindset, fixing your mindset, building a strong mindset, or getting into the right mindset, but a lot of the time the word gets thrown around without thought.

I think that’s why mindset can start feeling like one of those phrases everyone repeats because it sounds right. Most of us have probably done it too. I’ve used the word before without always breaking it down properly, because it feels obvious until you actually stop and ask yourself what you mean by it.

The funny thing is, I don’t think mindset needs to be made complicated. When you strip the word back, it’s more literal than you might realise.

Mindset = your predominant way of thinking.

It’s the direction your thinking keeps returning to when you look at yourself, your life, your future, your problems, and what you believe is possible from where you are right now.

That doesn’t mean every thought you have is the same, and it doesn’t mean your mindset never changes throughout the day. It just means there is usually a main direction your thinking leans towards, especially when life gets difficult.

I’m looking at mindset through the everyday mental health space here. Not as some perfect success formula, and not as a replacement for proper psychology, but as a way to understand how your way of thinking can lean forward, become stuck, or sit somewhere in between… especially when life is affecting you.

What Exactly Is Mindset?

The way I see it, ‘mindset’ isn’t just a motivational word, and isn’t just positive thinking either. Mindset is the predominant direction your thinking is set in at a certain moment.

That direction can affect how you understand what’s happening to you. It can affect what feels possible. It can affect whether you try, avoid, pause, delay, push forward, or give up before you’ve properly started.

Sometimes your thinking leans towards growth, effort, and possibility. Other times it leans towards defeat, frustration, and the feeling that nothing will really change.

Both ways of thinking are mindsets, they just take you in different directions.

I think this is where people get ‘positive thinking’ confused with mindset. You can speak positively all day and still feel completely different internally. You can say “things will get better”, but if something inside doesn’t feel that change is possible, there is a clash between what you’re saying and what you actually believe.

That might be why affirmations don’t work for everyone. Sometimes the words are positive, but the internal feeling hasn’t caught up with them. The words are pointing one way, while your deeper belief is leaning somewhere else.

We’ll go further into this, but the more positive mindset isn’t just saying life can improve. It’s feeling, even slightly, that improvement is possible.

That feeling can turn into belief over time. Once it becomes a belief, it can start affecting behaviour. You try again, you take the next step. You see setbacks differently. You might still struggle, but you’re not fully closed off to the idea that something can move.

Mindset isn’t just what you say to yourself. It’s also what you feel is possible, what you believe is possible, and how that starts showing up in your behaviour, and therefore life.

The Different Types Of Mindset:

There’s a psychologist called Dr Carol Dweck who is known for her work on growth mindset and fixed mindset. Her work has shaped a lot of how people understand this topic, especially around whether people believe abilities can develop or whether they see them as fixed.

I think that idea is useful, but I also think mindset shows up in everyday mental health and self-improvement in ways people don’t always explain clearly.

So for this article, I’m not trying to rename this model, I’m using the wider idea of mindset and bringing it into the way I naturally think about mental health, anxiety, depression, behaviour, and everyday life.

My idea is this: There is a forward mindset, a stuck mindset, and a middle space between the two.

I also think most people have a predominant mindset overall. That doesn’t mean they think the same way in every area of life. Someone might have a forward mindset with work, but a stuck mindset with relationships. Someone might feel confident with fitness, but feel stuck with mental health.

The predominant mindset is more like the direction a persons way of thinking returns to most often.

Mindset isn’t always one clean thing. It can change by experience, by season, by environment, and by what life has been doing to you lately.

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What’s A Forward (Growth) Mindset?

A forward mindset doesn’t mean you feel confident 24/7, or wake up motivated, happy, clear-headed, and ready to attack the day.

A forward mindset means your thinking still leans towards the idea that change is possible, even if things are difficult or unclear right now. You might not know exactly how things are going to improve, but somewhere inside you still feel that things can move.

It might just be getting through the day, still trying, still planning, still showing up, or still believing that this version of life doesn’t have to be the final one.

I think a forward mindset becomes powerful when it turns into positive behaviour. If you believe effort can make some kind of difference, you’re more likely to take the next step. You might not feel amazing while doing it, but you’re still moving in the direction of change.

What’s A Stuck (Fixed) Mindset?

A stuck mindset is when your thinking starts leaning towards the idea that nothing can really change.

The cards you’ve been dealt can start feeling like the be all and end all. Your past can start feeling like evidence of what your future will be like, your current situation can start feeling permanent, and effort can feel pointless before you’ve even properly tried.

If you feel like nothing will change, it makes sense that you might avoid things, delay things, give up quicker, or struggle to start. The mindset you’re in makes action feel pointless.

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Between A Forward Mindset And A Stuck Mindset:

I think a lot of people sit somewhere between the two. Essentially, stuck between a positive and negative style of mindset.

They’re not fully stuck, but they’re not fully forward either.

They might still believe things can change, but only if something gives them a strong enough reason. They might move if the right opportunity appears, if somebody motivates them, or if life puts enough pressure in front of them.

That middle space is probably more common than people realise. They might still have the mindset to move forward, but they may not have enough belief, structure, energy, support, or emotional fuel to keep doing it consistently.

So it’s sort of like.. “I could do it, but I’m not bothered if I don’t”.

This is also where your predominant mindset matters. Someone might sit in the middle most of the time, but lean forward when something sparks them. Another person might usually be forward-thinking, but drop into stuck thinking when anxiety or depression spark.

Mindset isn’t one fixed thing. It sways with life. You just have a stronger leaning one.

To summarise: if your mindset is leaning forward, you might still see problems, but you can also see options. If your mindset is stuck, the problem can start becoming the whole picture.

Can You Have A Forward Mindset While Depressed?

I think you can have a forward mindset while depressed, but it isn’t an easy thing to carry.

This is where people often get confused. Depression doesn’t always mean somebody has fully given up. Someone can feel empty, disconnected, or numb while still knowing somewhere inside that they’re going to keep going. They can still have ambition, goals, and the drive to take action even when everything feels heavier than it should.

But that’s why people in those positions find it so frustrating, it’s like living with two variations of yourself.

I think this is where depression can sometimes fuel a person in a strange way. Not always, and not for everyone, but sometimes the frustration, anger, sadness, or heaviness of depression can become part of what pushes someone forward. It can make them want to rebuild and get out of the place they’re in because they’re tired of feeling trapped there.

That doesn’t mean depression is good. I don’t think that at all. I just think there are times where somebody’s mindset can still lean forward even while their mental health is low.

You can be depressed and still have a forward mindset. You can be ambitious and still feel mentally run down. You can be struggling and still be moving.

Can Anxiety Affect Your Mindset?

Anxiety can affect mindset differently to depression.

When anxiety is intense, your focus can become locked onto the thing you’re anxious about. It can be harder to think positively or in a forward motion because your attention is being pulled towards worry, dread, anticipation, or the social event.

Anxiety can make your mindset drop into a stuck place temporarily.

You might still have a forward mindset overall, but in that anxious moment, everything starts narrowing around what could go wrong.

Someone can have a forward mindset overall, but anxiety can still interrupt it. Someone can believe change is possible, but still feel trapped in one anxious moment.

Depression can sometimes sit heavy in the background while a forward mindset still pushes through - but anxiety can pull your attention so sharply into one thing that the forward (growth) mindset becomes harder to access in that moment.

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Is Mindset The Same Thing As Mental Health?

I think this part needs to be clear because mindset and mental health can sound similar from the outside.

Mindset is your predominant way of thinking. It’s the direction your thinking keeps leaning towards when you look at yourself, your life, your future, and what you believe is possible.

Mental health is the broader state of your inner world. It’s more about how balanced, overwhelmed, low, anxious, clear, heavy, or unsettled you feel overall.

They influence each other, but they’re not the same thing.

You can have a forward mindset and still have a bad mental health day. You might believe your life can improve, while still feeling depressed, anxious, or mentally drained. That doesn’t mean your forward mindset is there, it just means your mental health is making that mindset harder to keep a hold of.

You can also have decent mental health for a while and still slip into a stuck mindset after something knocks you off balance. One bad conversation, one failure, or one disappointment can make things feel pointless for a while, even if your overall mental health hasn’t completely dropped.

The way I look at it…

Mindset is the thinking direction. Mental health is the overall inner state.

Brain, mind, mental health, and mindset all connect, but they’re not the same thing.

The brain is the physical system processing information. The mind is where thoughts, emotions, perception, and meaning happen. Mental health is the overall condition of your inner wellbeing. Mindset is the predominant way your thinking is set at that time.

That distinction matters because when everything gets mixed together, it becomes easier to try and solve the wrong problem.

Mindset And Mental Health Do Affect Each Other:

Mindset and mental health affect each other in both mindset directions.

If your mindset stays stuck for a long time, it can start weighing on your mental health. When you keep thinking nothing can change, effort is pointless, or the future is already decided, it becomes harder to feel balanced inside. That way of thinking can add more weight to what you’re already carrying mentally.

The other side matters too…

Low mental health can push your mindset into a stuck place. When you’re tired, anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, or emotionally worn down, it becomes harder to think in a forward motion.

It’s literally why “just change your mindset” can sound so empty to someone who is struggling. It skips over the fact that mental health can affect how possible change feels.

A healthier mindset can support your mental health because it gives you a better direction to work from. Better mental health can support your mindset because it gives you more energy, clarity, and emotional room to believe things can move.

They’re separate, but they feed into each other.

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Can You Change Your Mindset?

I don’t think you change your mindset by shouting positive statements at yourself in the mirror, pretending everything is fine.

That might help some people for a moment, but for a lot of people, especially when anxiety or depression is involved, it can feel fake.

You might say all the right words and still feel no real belief behind them.

The thing is… if you keep thinking nothing changes, doing something small that creates even a tiny change gives you evidence. If you keep thinking you can’t do anything right, completing one thing properly gives you something else to work with.

That is how I think mindset starts to move, I feel anyway.

This is also where experience matters. You can read about mindset all day, understand the theory, and know the difference between the fixed mindset and the growth mindset, and that is all useful. I also think some things only start to feel real when you experience them yourself.

You don’t just think your way into a new mindset. A lot of the time, you live your way into one too. Positive or negative.

What Mindset Really Comes Down To:

Mindset gets misunderstood because people make it sound more mysterious than it is.

I think mindset is simply the predominant direction your thinking is set in. It affects how you interpret your life, your problems, your future, your effort, your setbacks, and your ability to change.

• A forward mindset doesn’t mean your life is 100% perfect. It means your way of thinking is still leaning towards the possibility that things can move in the right direction, for the better.

• A stuck mindset doesn’t mean you’re behind anyone else, or a failure. It just means your thinking is currently leaning towards the idea that nothing can change or get better.

Then there is the middle space too. The part where you might still improve or profess in life, but you need a reason, a reminder, a bit of belief, a bit of structure, or a bit of proof.

Josh DG.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what part resonated the most 🙌.

Leave a comment

Final Thoughts:

What is mindset, simply put?

Mindset is your predominant way of thinking. It’s the direction your thinking is currently set in, and it affects how you interpret situations, setbacks, opportunities, and your own ability to change.

What is a forward mindset?

A forward mindset is when your thinking is set on the idea that change, growth, and improvement are possible. It doesn’t mean you feel confident or positive all the time. It means part of you still feels that things can move.

What is a stuck mindset?

A stuck mindset is when your thinking is set on the idea that nothing can really change. Effort starts to feel pointless, the future feels fixed, and your current situation starts feeling permanent.

Can you be between a forward mindset and a stuck mindset?

Yes. I think a lot of people sit somewhere between the two. They might not feel fully stuck, but they’re not fully forward either. They might move if the right motivator, opportunity, pressure, or reason appears. That middle space matters because it means the door isn’t fully shut.

What’s the difference between the mind and mindset?

The mind is where thoughts, emotions, perception, and meaning happen. Mindset is the predominant direction your thinking is set in at the time. They connect, but they’re not the same thing.

What’s the difference between mindset and mental health?

Mindset is your way of thinking. Mental health is the broader state of your inner world. Mindset is more like the direction your thinking is leaning in. Mental health is more like the overall condition of how your whole system feels and functions.

Can you have a forward mindset while depressed?

Yes, I think you can. Someone can feel depressed, low, empty, or mentally drained while still believing things can change and still taking action. It isn’t easy, but it does happen. That is why mental health and mindset need to be understood separately.

Can anxiety affect your mindset?

Yes. Anxiety can pull your focus towards worry, threat, or what could go wrong. When that happens, your mindset can temporarily drop into a stuck (fixed) place because it becomes harder to think beyond the thing you’re anxious about.

How do you change your mindset?

Everybody is different. But one thing you can do, is start by noticing where your thinking is leaning, then create small bits of evidence that challenge the stuck setting. That might mean finishing one task, making one better decision, handling one hard moment, or doing something that reminds you change is still possible.

This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG is a writer (and creative) whose content focuses on psychology, mental health, and self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Connect with Josh DG:

JoshDG.com
Josh DG on Threads
Josh DG on X (formally Twitter)

How many times have you spent hours, or even days, dreading something you nearly didn’t go to..

Then ended up having a genuinely good time once you were actually there?

Maybe it was a family gathering you were quietly hoping would get cancelled. A night out, a meeting, or a plan with people where the anxiety beforehand felt heavier than the thing itself ever turned out to be. You spend the whole build-up thinking: I don’t even wanna go. I’m not gonna enjoy this. I’m just not in the mood for it. I’m not that kind of person.

Then a few hours later.. you’re talking, laughing, actually enjoying yourself, and feeling more relaxed than you did sitting at home overthinking it.

So which one was actually YOU?

The version dreading it beforehand, or the version that turned up and had a good time?

This is where anticipation anxiety comes in. It can stop you from knowing what your REAL personality is like, and it can stop you enjoying yourself fully.

But sometimes, even when you’re anxious about something, the thing you’re anxious about turns out to be the best time of your life. And spontaneous moments you didn’t think would happen, are where you can naturally find who you are, and what gives you positive energy.

What Anticipation Anxiety Actually Is:

A lot of people feel anxiety before things without realising how much it shapes the way they see themselves afterwards.

The anxiety you feel before going out, social plans, events, or gatherings is usually something called anticipation anxiety, sometimes also called anticipatory anxiety.

It’s the anxiety you feel before anything has even happened yet.

The overthinking beforehand, imagining how things might go wrong, mentally rehearsing conversations before they exist, and feeling drained before you’ve even left the house.

The strange part is that anticipation anxiety feels completely real while you’re in it. Your body feels it. Your mood changes because of it. Your thoughts get pulled into it. After enough times feeling that way before things, it becomes easy to start thinking:
Maybe this is just who I am.

But the version of you before something starts isn’t always the version that shows up once you’re actually in it. High levels of anxiety have a habit of convincing you of things that aren’t quite true.

The Fake Version You Have In Your Mind Before You Go:

Before something begins, your mind fills in the blanks itself.

It imagines awkward silences before they happen. It pictures you not fitting in before you’ve even arrived. It places you into a version of the situation where everything feels uncomfortable before the real moment has had any chance to actually happen.

That’s why the dread feels so convincing. Your mind has already lived through a worst-case version of the event before your body has even got there.

This is really the mind doing what it always does, filling in gaps and assigning meaning before anything has actually happened, which is something I broke down properly in What’s The Difference Between The Brain, The Mind, And Mental Health.

The problem is that this version of you usually isn’t real. That YOU, is built from worry, not from what actually tends to happen.

More often than not, the thing you’re anxious for, turns out nothing like the version your mind said it would leading up to it.

Why You Feel Different Once You’re Actually There:

You go anyway..

After a while, another side of you starts appearing naturally. You don’t even notice the change. You kind of, settle into it without thinking. Conversations become fluent, you start enjoying yourself, and you stop thinking about yourself every few seconds.

Your personality starts coming out naturally instead of sitting trapped underneath the overthinking.

That’s who you are. That’s what you enjoy. That’s the environment that suits you. That’s the people you enjoy being around.

And that’s the part I find interesting, because that version of you was there the whole time. It just couldn’t come out while your mind was stuck in defence mode building up to it.

I don’t think the socially anxious version of somebody before something is always the truest version of them. Most of the time, that version is a guarded, mentally overprepared version expecting something to go wrong before it even has.

This is probably one of the reasons people always say travelling helps you “find yourself” too. It’s not because travelling somehow makes anxiety or depression vanish, but because different places, people, and experiences can bring out sides of you that your normal environment never really gave space for.

That’s also why I think experience matters so much in life. Science, psychology, education, and frameworks around the mind and mental health are important and we need them. But experience matters too.

Some things only fully make sense once you experience them properly yourself. The real version of you usually appears.

Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust Anticipation Anxiety:

This is why I don’t think you should let how you feel beforehand make all your decisions for you.

If you only ever listen to the anticipation anxiety beforehand.. you’ll keep cancelling, avoiding, and talking yourself out of things. Every time you do that, you slowly reinforce the idea that you’re somebody who doesn’t enjoy those things, when really you just never gave the other version of yourself the chance to turn up.

The anxiety you get leading up to an event is trying to protect you from situations that can turn out completely fine, and sometimes from moments you’d probably end up enjoying the most.

You can’t always trust how you feel about something before you’ve properly experienced it.

Years of dreading social situations, overthinking beforehand, and preparing for the worst can slowly condition you that the anxious version is just who you are. But your actual experiences usually tell a different story. Because you end up enjoying them after all that fuss leading up.

You enjoy it more than you expected, you relax more than you expected, you feel more like yourself than you expected.

Those moments are what give you a breath of fresh air, with or without struggling with anxiety. Somewhere in that moment that you enjoyed, was the real You.

The version of you that exists in the dread beforehand isn’t always the functional one.

Sometimes the REAL version of you shows up unexpectedly and shocks you. It lets you know you’re still alive.

Josh DG.

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Final Thoughts:

Why do I dread things then end up enjoying them?

Because the anxiety you feel beforehand, often called anticipation anxiety, builds a worst-case version of the situation in your mind before it’s actually happened. Once you’re there and settle in, the real version of you comes out, and it’s usually nothing like the one the dread convinced you of.

What is anticipation anxiety?

It’s the anxiety you feel before something has even happened. The overthinking, imagining how things might go wrong, and feeling mentally drained before you’ve even left the house. It feels real, but it’s usually based more on worry than on what actually tends to happen.

Why does anxiety feel worse before an event than during it?

Because beforehand, your mind is free to imagine every possible way things could go wrong. Once you’re actually in the situation, your mind has real information to work with instead of imagined fears, so things usually start settling naturally.

Should I trust how I feel about something before I’ve done it?

Not always. The version of you before something starts is often a guarded, overprepared version reacting to worry. How you feel once you’re actually in the experience is usually a far more honest reflection of whether something is right for you.

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This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG is a UK writer and creative whose content focuses on psychology, mental health, and self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Website: JoshDG.com

Substack: Josh DG

Threads: @_joshDG

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That’s the wrong conclusion.

Why Motivation Usually Disappears During Difficult Periods:

A lot of people talk about motivation as if it’s the thing that changes your life. You constantly hear phrases like stay motivated, find your motivation, or wake up motivated, but motivation is unreliable when somebody is mentally struggling.

When anxiety, stress, overthinking, low mood, depression, mental exhaustion, burnout, or life pressure starts building up, motivation is usually one of the first things to disappear. That’s why so many people become frustrated with themselves. They think something is wrong with them because they no longer feel productive, inspired, focused, or mentally switched on all the time.

The problem is that people often build their entire self-improvement journey around motivation, which means the moment motivation disappears, they feel like progress disappears too.

That’s where willpower becomes different...

What Willpower Actually Is:

Willpower, in the context of mental health, is the ability to keep moving in some form even when your mind is pulling you toward shutdown. It’s not discipline or toughness. It’s refusing to completely give up on yourself during the periods where motivation has already gone.

The way I see willpower has very little to do with becoming some perfect, ultra-disciplined version of yourself. Real willpower is what shows up when life feels mentally heavy and you still refuse to completely give up on yourself anyway.

When your mental health drops, your confidence drops, or your mind becomes filled with overthinking, that’s usually when the questions start appearing…

Can I still do this? Am I still capable of handling this? Do I even have the energy for this today?

Most people speak about willpower from the perspective of somebody already confident, mentally clear, and ready to attack life.

But, willpower shows up during the periods where none of those things feel easy anymore.

The way I see willpower is: the ability to keep moving in some form, even when your mind is trying to pull you in the opposite direction.

What 1% Effort Looks Like During Low Mental Health Periods:

One thing people rarely speak about properly is what effort actually looks like during difficult mental health periods.

A lot of people imagine progress as somebody waking up early, feeling motivated, smashing goals, staying disciplined, and changing their whole life overnight. Real life usually looks far less dramatic than that.

Sometimes 1% effort looks like finally replying to a message you’ve been avoiding for days. Sometimes it looks like getting out of bed and going outside for ten minutes even though your head feels heavy. Sometimes it’s opening your laptop, cleaning your room a little bit, making one phone call, or starting something you mentally kept putting off.

Those things might sound small to somebody in a good mental state, but during low periods, depression, burnout, or mental fatigue, they can take serious mental effort.

During difficult moments, even small steps forward can stop somebody from mentally falling deeper into avoidance, hopelessness, isolation, or complete shutdown.

Why Willpower Starts Running Out:

One thing people rarely connect properly is that willpower can become mentally drained too.

The more mentally overloaded somebody becomes, the harder it usually gets to keep making decisions, keep fighting thoughts, keep masking emotions, keep overthinking situations, and keep pushing through pressure at the same level all day long.

That’s why some people feel completely mentally overloaded by the end of the day without fully understanding why.

Their mind has been running constantly.

Overthinking drains mental energy. Anxiety drains mental energy. Burnout drains mental energy. Constant stress, social masking, emotional pressure, decision-making, and mentally carrying too much at once can slowly wear somebody down internally over time.

When that mental exhaustion builds up repeatedly, willpower usually becomes weaker too. Not because the person is lazy or weak, but because the mind eventually becomes overloaded.

That’s also why burnout can feel so dangerous psychologically. People don’t just lose motivation during burnout. They often lose belief that they even have the mental energy to keep trying anymore.

Why Overthinking Can Fight Against Your Willpower:

This is also where overthinking can start working against you.

The mind starts trying to predict every possible outcome before anything has even happened yet.

What if this goes wrong? What if I embarrass myself? What if I fail? What if I can’t handle it properly?

Over some time, those thoughts can create hesitation around almost everything. You want to move forward, but mentally you feel trapped between fear, uncertainty, pressure, and the need to control situations before they’ve even happened.

That’s why overthinking can slowly drain somebody’s willpower over time. The mind becomes so focused on possible problems, outcomes, risks, and scenarios that taking action starts feeling mentally exhausting before anything has even begun.

Why Having Your Own Back Matters So Much:

Something else that becomes really important during difficult periods is learning how to stay on your own side mentally.

A lot of people become their own worst enemy when life gets hard. They judge themselves for struggling, judge themselves for slowing down, and convince themselves they’re weak because they can’t function perfectly all the time.

That negative mindset usually makes mental health worse, not better.

Willpower also means learning how to speak to yourself differently during difficult periods. That doesn’t mean pretending everything feels positive or acting like life isn’t hard. It means recognising that struggling mentally doesn’t automatically mean you’ve failed, become weak, or lost all progress.

Sometimes having your own back simply means saying:

“I know today feels like a lot. I know my mind feels all over the place. But I’m still going to try in some form, even 1%. I absolutely refuse to be beaten”.

That more positive mindset alone can stop somebody from mentally disconnecting from themselves completely.

But that way of thinking needs to be exercised. Because you need to truly believe in yourself.

Why Real Willpower Has Nothing To Do With Being Perfect:

Life is never realistic enough for somebody to stay mentally strong every single day.

There are going to be periods where anxiety becomes overwhelming, where your mental health drops, where stress, burnout, grief, exhaustion, depression, or life circumstances genuinely stop you in your tracks.

That’s just part of being… yep, human.

Sometimes surviving the day is all somebody can manage. Sometimes your energy genuinely disappears for a while. Sometimes life hits harder than expected and you can’t operate at your normal level.

But there’s still a difference between struggling and completely abandoning yourself mentally.

WillPOWER is often the thing that stops somebody from fully disconnecting from themselves during those periods.

Why Mindset Still Matters During Difficult Periods:

I also think willpower becomes heavily connected to mindset over time.

Some people naturally seem to have stronger willpower than others. Some people lose it after difficult experiences, poor mental health, burnout, stress, trauma, or years of feeling mentally defeated by life.

Sometimes life genuinely hits somebody so hard that even basic things start feeling difficult. And that’s real…

But at the same time, I still think there’s something important about trying to hold onto the belief that life can improve in some form, even during periods where things feel mentally draining.

Tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us, but realistically, most situations in life still have possible ways forward somewhere.

Some obstacles are bigger than others, and some situations genuinely leave long-term effects on people, but not every difficult period automatically means life is over or that somebody’s future is permanently destroyed.

Once somebody fully convinces themselves ‘there’s no point trying anymore’, their mental health level usually starts collapsing deeper into hopelessness, avoidance, defeat, and shutdown.

Willpower is often the thing that stops somebody from fully reaching that point.

It’s not because they feel fearless or mentally strong all the time, it’s more because a part of them still believes there could be something better on the other side of what they’re currently experiencing.

What Willpower Might Really Be About:

When you step back and properly look at it, willpower has very little to do with becoming emotionless, perfectly disciplined, or mentally invincible.

A lot of this also connects back to understanding the difference between the mind, the brain, and mental health properly, because most people unknowingly treat all three as the same thing.

Willpower is about staying connected to the part of yourself (the internal You) that still wants better for your life, even during the periods where your thoughts, emotions, mental health, or circumstances are trying to pull you somewhere else.

A lot of self-improvement content only focuses on people during their best moments.

Real life also includes the low periods, the mentally heavy days, the setbacks, the exhaustion, the overthinking, and the moments where somebody feels like shutting down completely.

Remember: what you see online is the masterpiece, not the work and stress that goes into completing it.

Real willpower is what helps somebody keep moving through those periods in some form, even if the steps forward each day look small from the outside.

And sometimes, that alone is enough to stop somebody from completely losing themselves.

Just a side note: it’s good to have something that fuels you. A hobby, a business idea, something for yourself.

It levels up your willpower as a whole.

Josh DG.

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Final Thoughts:

Is willpower the same as motivation?

No. Motivation is a feeling. It usually appears when things feel possible and disappears when they don’t.

Willpower is different because it continues operating even when the feeling isn’t there.

Why does motivation disappear when you’re mentally struggling?

Motivation depends a lot on mental energy, emotional clarity, and the belief that effort feels worthwhile. When anxiety, exhaustion, stress, overthinking, burnout, depression, or low mood build up, those things usually become weaker too.

How do you keep going when you have no motivation?

By lowering what “keeping going” actually means during difficult periods. Sometimes self-improvement or progress is replying to one message, going outside briefly, doing one small task, or simply refusing to completely isolate yourself mentally. But everybody copes and manages things differently when it comes to life and mental health.

What does willpower look like during anxiety or depression?

During difficult mental health moments, willpower can look like getting out of bed, making food, turning up somewhere you wanted to avoid, or still trying in some form even when your mind feels heavy.

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This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG is a UK writer and creative. His content is about psychology, mental health, and self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His content is shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory.

He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Website: JoshDG.com

Substack: Josh DG

Threads: @_joshDG

X: @_JoshDG

Why Do Some People Feel Behind in Life Even When They’re Trying Their Best?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you stop for a second and look around at everyone else’s life? You might be working hard, trying to improve, trying to heal, or trying to build something for yourself, yet somehow it still feels like everyone else has figured something out that you haven’t.

One thing I’ve noticed is that people don’t necessarily feel ‘behind in life’ because they’re doing absolutely nothing with their life. In fact, many of the people who feel it the most are often the ones who are actually trying and doing things.

They’re working, learning, building, healing, improving, surviving, and trying to make sense of where their life is heading.

..somewhere along the way, they still end up feeling like they’re behind, whether that’s academically, financially, in relationships, in confidence, within their career, or simply in life itself.

Feeling behind and actually being behind in life though, are not always the same thing. Sometimes, you’ve just become too aware of where everyone else appears to be.

Why Social Media Can Make You Feel Like Everyone Else Is Ahead

It doesn’t take much these days to start doubting yourself. You open your phone for five minutes and before you even realise it, you’ve seen someone getting engaged, someone buying their first home, someone travelling, someone building a business, someone looking confident, or someone apparently living the life you feel like you should already have.

If you’re not careful, your mind can start using other people’s lives as the measuring tool for your own.

A lot of people are comparing their real life to someone else’s edited life. Their behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel. Their uncertainty to someone else’s carefully chosen moments. Over time, that can distort the way someone sees their own improvements or progress, even when they’re actually moving forward.

Sometimes a person might not realise how much comparing themselves to other people can slowly disrupt the way they see themselves.

I spoke more about that in my article on Surface Identity.

Why Do I Feel Like I’m Doing Everything Right But Getting Nowhere?

One of the hardest things about progression and growth is that when you’re actually living in the moment of it, it rarely feels impressive. You can’t see anything other than the struggle.

Doing all the right things doesn’t always create instant results. Sometimes you can be consistent, disciplined, trying to improve your mental health, setting boundaries, rebuilding confidence, learning from mistakes, or starting again.. and still feel like nothing is changing.

From the outside, people might not see much happening. But from the inside, some of the deepest changes often happen before anything on the outside starts catching up.

People might miss that because some of the most important growth in life usually feels slower than expected.

Why Some People’s Progress Looks Slower Than Everyone Else’s

Sometimes a persons journey looks slower because they’re carrying things other people can’t see. That might be family responsibilities, financial struggles, mental health battles, burnout, self-doubt, past mistakes, or simply trying to heal from things nobody else even knows about.

I almost think of it like..

trying to walk forward while carrying the weight of a house on your shoulders.

You’re still moving. You’re still putting one foot in front of the other. Still getting up. Still working. You’re still trying. But the weight you’re carrying makes the journey feel heavier than it looks externally.

When someone is carrying that kind of weight while still trying to move forward, of course their journey might look different.

That doesn’t always mean they’re behind in life, it can just mean they’re carrying more and moving slower.. but still progressing.

Why Do I Feel Behind in Life Compared to Everyone Else?

Some people believe life is supposed to happen in a certain order, at a certain age. And we’re all guilty of it.

By this age I should have this. By now I should feel more confident. I should have more money. I should be further ahead. I should know who I am by now.

According to who?

Social media? Friends? Family? Society? People who are also trying to work life out themselves?

Comparison becomes dangerous when people stop taking note of their own internal compass and start living by timelines they never even chose.

Feeling behind in life and actually being behind are not always the same thing.

What If You’re Not Behind in Life at All?

Sometimes people spend so much time looking at where everybody else seems to be, that they stop noticing how far they’ve actually come.

If you’ve been asking yourself how to stop feeling behind in life, it doesn’t start with just doing more.

Sometimes it starts with seeing your own journey more clearly and independently.

Maybe your life just doesn’t look loud right now. Maybe your progress isn’t public. Maybe your steps aren’t obvious yet. Maybe you’re healing, rebuilding, or learning things now that will save you years later.

And maybe that’s not being behind at all.

Josh DG.

Let me know your thoughts.

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This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG is a UK-based writer. He writes about psychology, mental health, and self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His content is shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory.

He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Connect with Josh DG here:

Website: JoshDG.com

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Most people hear words like anxiety or depression, and instantly assume them to be negative. Or that they mean weakness and vulnerability, or something that needs serious mental health support.

When anxiety, depression, or overthinking start seriously affecting someone, whether it’s their confidence, relationships, work, or everyday life, that should absolutely be taken seriously.

But one thing I’ve always believed is that we all experience anxiety, we all experience depression, and we all experience different emotional states throughout life.

What usually differs from person to person, is the severity level, how often it happens, why, and how much anxiety and depression start to affect someone’s ability to function.

But I also think there’s another side to these things that doesn’t get spoken about enough..

Sometimes the traits or symptoms that come with anxiety or depression can also be the same traits that make someone more observant, more prepared, more switched on, or more aware of what’s happening around them than the average person.

That’s what this post is really about.

Anxiety Can Make You More Aware of What’s Happening:

When anxiety levels are strong, one thing I’ve noticed is that the way someone takes in what’s happening around them can change.

And things can become overstimulating.

They might start picking up on sounds other people ignore, notice changes, body language, tension in a room, or even small shifts in the environment that most people would completely miss.

To some people, especially when it becomes intense, that can feel overwhelming.

But I also think there’s another side to that.

Because being able to notice things or changes quickly, pick up on patterns, sense when something feels off, or spot details other people miss can also become useful in the right environment.

Whether that’s business, relationships, creativity, leadership, or situations where staying alert matters, I think some people end up developing a level of awareness of their surroundings that other people simply haven’t had to develop.

Anxiety can sometimes make someone more alert, more observant, and more aware of sudden changes happening around them. In the right environment, it can help someone notice things other people haven’t picked up on yet.

I almost think of it like a tiger watching its prey from afar. Focused, patient, but still alert to everything happening around it without even moving. Any small change, it clocks it, while staying locked in.

Anxiety helps us to stay on-guard, alert, and be able to survive.

Overthinking Can Help You Think Ahead:

A lot of people hate the fact that they overthink, because they assume it automatically makes them weak, awkward, indecisive, or mentally drained.

If overthinking starts controlling your life, stopping you from making decisions, or filling your head with worst-case scenarios all day, it can absolutely work against you.

But I also think there’s another side to it, because sometimes overthinking means your mind naturally looks at different outcomes before other people do. You might think ahead more, notice risks quicker, prepare better, or spot potential problems before they even happen.

Overthinking can keep you 2 steps ahead.

Depression Can Help You Find Yourself:

I also think depression, or even going through lower emotional periods in life, can sometimes shape people in ways they don’t always notice.

With depression, some people become more confident with their own company, more independent, less reliant on other people, and more aware of what matters to them. They become more used to sitting with their own thoughts without always needing noise, distractions, or people around them.

That doesn’t mean those periods of being depressed and alone are easy or 100% healthy. And again, it depends on the severity level.

But I do think it can be healthy sometimes.

Especially when it comes to giving yourself moments away from the world, to come back to yourself every so often.

There are some positive things that can develop during periods of depression, like self-reflection and resilience.

Most of the time, depression lets you know something is making you feel uncomfortable, and the situation needs help, managing, changing.

You can find yourself in those moments of depression, and it can help you take your next best possible step forward.

Maybe Some Struggles Are Trying to Show Us Something:

I think anxiety, whether that’s anticipation or social anxiety, and depression, all exist for a reason.

Sometimes they’re there to alert us, sometimes to slow us down, and sometimes they’re there to make us pay attention to something we’ve been ignoring, even from childhood through to adulthood.

The problem usually starts when the intensity becomes too high, the patterns become unhealthy, or those feelings begin affecting someone’s ability to live, function, or feel like themselves.

But..

Sometimes what feels like a weakness in one environment can become a strength in another.

I think sometimes we spend so much time trying to get rid of certain parts of ourselves, that we forget to ask what those parts might actually be trying to show us.

And I think that’s a conversation that needs to be had.

Josh DG.

Let me know your thoughts!

Every Like, share, or comment helps this message find the right person who may need it.

This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG writes about psychology, mental health, and real self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is honest and grounded, shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Connect:

Website: JoshDG.com

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When Checking In With Yourself Becomes a Full-Time Job:

I think self-awareness is one of the most important things a person can develop. It helps you understand how you think, how you respond, what affects you, what drains you, and where you need to grow. In a lot of ways, awareness comes before change. If you’re not aware of what’s going on inside you, it’s hard to know what needs working on in the first place.

I also think becoming more self-aware can be one of the closest things to becoming your own 24/7 therapist.

At the end of the day, you live with yourself 24/7. Nobody thinks your thoughts all day. Nobody feels your emotions for you. Nobody hears the conversations you have in your own head when life gets difficult.

That’s why awareness as a whole is powerful.

When you get to know and understand your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviours, your outlook, your thresholds, your triggers, you start understanding yourself on a deeper level.

But I also think there’s a side of self-awareness that can become a trap..

If you’re not careful, self-awareness can slowly turn into overanalysing yourself without you even realising it.

It becomes a default.

When Overanalysing Yourself Starts Feeling Automatic:

You wake up in the morning, and before your day has even properly started, you’re already checking in with yourself.

How do I feel today? Do I feel good? Do I feel off? Does today feel like it’s going to be one of those days?

Sometimes you don’t even realise you’re doing it until you catch yourself doing it.

Other days, you might wake up feeling fine. You’re in a good mood. You’re getting on with things. Then somewhere throughout the day, something changes. Your mood drops. Something feels different. And because you’ve become so aware of yourself lately, you notice that change almost instantly.

Now you start analysing it..

Why has my mood changed? What triggered that? Was it something someone said? Was it something I thought about? Why do I suddenly feel different?

That’s where awareness can quietly start turning into overanalysis.

When Self-Awareness Starts Turning Into Self-Monitoring:

If you’ve spent years trying to understand yourself, control your mind, manage your emotions, get through difficult periods in life, or work out why some days feel different to others.. after a while, checking in with yourself can start becoming second nature.

Sometimes it just becomes part of how you move through life. Always switched onto self-aware mode.

Before you even realise it, you’re noticing little changes in yourself all the time. You notice when your mood shifts. You notice when your energy feels different. You notice when something affects you more than usual. You notice your reactions faster than you used to.

And again, that’s a great thing, but too much can become draining instead of radiating.

When You Start Analysing Yourself More Than Living:

I think if you become too aware of everything going on internally (and externally), life can sometimes stop feeling natural.

Instead of being in the moment, you start analysing yourself in the moment. Instead of just feeling something, you start trying to understand it while it’s happening. Instead of just having a conversation, you’re noticing your tone, your reactions, your thoughts, and how you’re coming across.

That’s where life can start feeling heavier than it needs to, because you’re spending so much time trying to understand yourself, that sometimes you forget to just live life.

What Self-Awareness Really Comes Down To:

I still believe awareness matters. I think it helps shape your perspective, your mindset (what your mind is set on), your standards, who you are as an human, and the way you move through life. Being self-aware can also open a lot of doors for you and put you in front of many opportunities.

But I also think there’s a difference between understanding yourself, and constantly monitoring yourself.

There needs to be a balance between structure, and enjoyment.

Sometimes it isn’t always about analysing another thought.. sometimes it’s about putting the phone down, going outside, having a laugh, having a conversation, or simply letting yourself be human without turning everything into something that needs breaking down.

At the end of the day, I think self-awareness should help you live life more clearly.. Not make you feel like you’re living it under a microscope.

In an already robotic world as it is.

Josh DG.

If this post connected with you, it may also help to understand how I separate the brain, the mind, and mental health. You can read that here.

This article was written by Josh DG.

Josh DG writes about psychology, mental health, and real self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is honest and grounded, shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

Connect:

Website: JoshDG.com

Substack: Josh DG

Threads: @_joshDG

X: @_JoshDG

Instagram: @_JoshDG

I think one of the biggest psychological traps a lot of people fall into today is something I call Surface Identity.

Surface Identity is what happens when too much of who you are starts getting tied to how you look, how people see you, how productive you seem, how much validation you get, or how well you come across on the outside, while the deeper part of who you actually are starts getting ignored.

I almost see it like this…

Surface Identity is the version of you that other people get to see. The way you come across. The things you post. The way you dress. The version of you people think they know.

But underneath all of that is everything people usually don’t see. The way you think. The things you overthink. The insecurities you keep to yourself. The stress you might be carrying. The things going on in your life. The conversations you have in your own head when nobody else is around.

I think problems start happening when the outside version of you starts getting more attention than the inside one.

The thing is, a lot of people don’t even notice when it starts happening. Because from the outside, Surface Identity doesn’t always look unhealthy. In fact, sometimes it looks like confidence, discipline, success, ambition, social proof, or someone who seems like they’ve got their life together.

…But looking like life’s going well, and actually feeling settled within yourself, are two completely different things. I think that’s where a lot of people slowly lose touch with themselves.

Why We Prioritise Looking Good Over Actually Being Okay:

I think this usually starts happening the moment people begin putting too much of themselves into how they look, how they come across, how productive they seem, how disciplined they appear, or how other people respond to them. That could be social media. That could be relationships. That could be fitness. That could be business. That could even be mental health and self-improvement.

You might start posting more. Sharing what you’re doing. People start noticing. People start showing support. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We all like to feel seen. The problem starts when that reaction from other people slowly starts mattering more than the reason you started in the first place.

Because now you’re not always asking yourself, Is this actually helping me grow?

Sometimes you’re asking yourself, How does this look? Do people notice? Do people rate this? Does this make me look like I’m doing well?

Your attention starts moving away from everything internal, and starts moving towards image or how you’re perceived. I think that’s where Surface Identity starts taking over.

The Danger of Letting Other People Hold the Remote to Your Mood:

The dangerous thing about Surface Identity is that from the outside, people might genuinely think you’re doing well.

You’re busy, you’re active. You’re posting, you’re showing up. You’re keeping yourself occupied. From the outside, it can look like things are going well.

But internally, you might still feel anxious, flat, restless, or easily affected by other people’s opinions, replies, reactions, or lack of attention.

I think that happens because when too much of your confidence or identity starts depending on getting noticed (online or offline), being liked, getting support, or feeling recognised, your internal-Self can slowly start depending on things you don’t fully control.

That’s when unread messages start affecting your mood more than they should. That’s when a lack of support, replies, likes, or recognition starts affecting your confidence. That’s when you can look fine on the outside, while feeling unsure on the inside.

You can also read a post I wrote about why your self-confidence can drop.

Sometimes you’ve just spent so long trying to protect an image, that you haven’t spent enough time getting to know your real-Self.

Why Looking Busy Can Become the Biggest Trap on Social Media:

I think this is where Surface Identity can become even harder to spot. Because sometimes the people who look like they’re doing well on the outside are the ones struggling the most to feel settled within themselves.

You might see someone always out doing something. Always looking busy. Always making it look like life is moving. Maybe they’re at events. Maybe they’re around the right people. Maybe they’re posting things that make it look like they’re progressing, growing, or living a lifestyle other people admire.

Maybe some of that is genuine. But I also think some people get so caught up in looking like things are happening, staying relevant, or making sure people still see them, that they quietly stop checking in with where they actually are in life.

So from the outside, it can look like momentum. But behind closed doors, they might still feel behind. Still feel unsettled. Still feel like something is missing.

I think a lot of people live in what I call the grey phase, in the middle of black and white, stuck in a rut.

What Surface Identity Really Comes Down To:

At the end of the day, I think Surface Identity comes down to one thing...

Somewhere along the way, all of us at one point started putting too much of ourselves into how things look on the outside, and not enough into how things actually feel on the inside.

That doesn’t always mean someone is fake. It doesn’t always mean they’re attention-seeking.

Sometimes it just means they’ve spent so long trying to keep moving, keep posting, keep showing up, or keep people around them happy, that they’ve lost touch with themselves along the way.

Josh DG.

Check your my post on the psychology behind how I separate the brain, the mind, and mental health.

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Josh DG writes about psychology, mental health, and real self-improvement. He explores the mind, human behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and why personal growth looks different for everyone.

His work is honest and grounded, shaped by real experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health, self-awareness, and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another.

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A lot of people think being busy automatically means they’re doing well in life. And to be fair, sometimes it does. Being busy can mean you’re working hard, looking after your family, or simply doing what you need to do to keep moving forward.

Being busy can also quietly become one of the easiest ways to lose touch with yourself.

Just because your calendar is full and your phone is buzzing doesn’t mean you actually feel clear inside your head.

Why “doing a lot” isn’t the same as moving forward:

It’s easy to get caught up in how productive we look to other people. We measure our worth by our to-do list, but we rarely stop and ask where all that effort is actually taking us. If you’re moving fast but you’re on a treadmill, you’re not actually getting anywhere.

1. Being Busy Can Look Like Progress

Work, family, gym, social media, errands, messages, emails. The day starts, and before you know it, you’ve been moving from one thing to the next without really stopping.

From the outside, that actually looks like progress. People see you showing up and they assume you’ve got it all figured out. But you can do a lot physically while still feeling mentally stuck in the exact same place you were six months ago. And that’s when the fogginess hits.

Using busyness to ignore how you actually feel:

For many of us, staying busy can quietly become a way of avoiding the silence. We stay busy because the moment we stop, the uncomfortable thoughts start coming back.

It’s easier to stay on the grind than it is to sit down and ask yourself why you feel so drained.

2. Some People Stay Busy Without Realising Why

I think for a lot of people, staying busy just feels safer. The moment life slows down, your thoughts usually get louder. The stress you’ve been pushing aside starts coming back. The conversations you’ve been avoiding start popping back into your mind.

Instead of slowing down, people just add more to their plate so they don’t have to deal what’s building up underneath. ‘Cause let’s face it, if you have a lot going on in the back of your mind, it’s a scary thing to sit and analyse everything. So instead, distractions are easier.

3. Everyone Else’s Lives Are Crowding Out Your Own

Your phone is always there. Notifications. Group chats. Social media. Seeing everyone else’s wins, everyone else’s lifestyles, everyone else’s opinions.

Your mind is constantly taking in information about other people, but you haven’t stopped long enough to process your own life.

That’s where a lot of people start feeling mentally full (brain and mind calories are a thing), but completely disconnected from what they actually need.

Why you need to stop to actually see what’s going on:

You can’t figure out what’s wrong with your car while you’re driving it at seventy miles an hour.

It’s the same with your life.

If you never take the time to slow down, turn off the notifications, or step away from the noise, you’ll struggle to notice the patterns that might actually be making you unhappy.

4. This Is Where Awareness Comes In

If you never slow down, how do you notice your triggers, your habits, your boundaries, or the people who are quietly draining your energy?

You can’t change what you haven’t noticed yet.

Many people are just disconnected, because they’ve spent so long focusing on everything outside of themselves that they’ve forgotten to look inward.

Note: If your head feels crowded, it helps to understand how your brain actually handles all of this. I break down the difference between the brain vs. the mind in another article.

Taking a break doesn’t mean you’re falling behind:

There’s a huge fear that if we stop, we lose. We think everyone else is going to overtake us.

But taking a day to reset, breathe, think, or just be present isn’t losing momentum. Sometimes it’s making sure you’re still heading in a direction that actually makes sense for you.

5. Slowing Down Doesn’t Mean You’re Falling Behind

Taking a day to breathe, think, or just be present doesn’t mean you’re becoming lazy or falling behind.

Sometimes the reason people feel lost isn’t because they’re doing nothing. It’s because they’ve been doing everything… except checking in with themselves.

Being busy started feeling more important than being aware.

And if you never slow down long enough to notice what’s really going on, it becomes very easy to build a life that looks full on the outside… while feeling disconnected on the inside.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

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If you walked down the street and asked 100 people what they want out of life, a lot of them would probably say one of two things. Money… or happiness.

But when I look at things, the more I think most people (including myself at one point) haven’t actually stopped to ask themselves what happiness even is.

We hear it everywhere. Be happy. Chase happiness. Do what makes you happy. Follow your happiness. Social media sells it. Brands sell it. Influencers sell it. People sell lifestyles, dream lives, expensive holidays, nice cars, relationships, status, freedom, and they package all of it up as happiness.

And I think that’s where a lot of people start getting lost… somewhere along the way, happiness stopped being something people feel and started becoming something people chase.

Why happiness isn’t a finish line:

Most of us treat happiness like a destination. Like it’s a place we’ll finally arrive at once we’ve ticked enough boxes. We convince ourselves that life is just a series of hurdles, and once the hurdles are gone, the real happiness begins.

But when you view it this way, you’re always living for the next thing instead of the thing you’re actually doing right now.

1. Happiness Has Become Something People Chase.

Many people think happiness is waiting for them somewhere in the future.

Once I make more money. Once I get in shape. Once I find the right partner. Once I leave this job. Once I move house. Once I build my business. Once I get more followers. Once people finally see my worth.

While goals, ambition, money, relationships, and building a better life absolutely matter, I think a lot of people are attaching too much of their happiness to things outside of themselves.

2. Happiness Isn’t a Finish Line.

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is treating happiness as though it’s a finish line. Like one day you’re going to wake up, click your fingers, and suddenly everything in your life just feels perfect. No stress. No bad days. No uncertainty. No frustration. No pressure.

That’s not life. You’re not going to reach some magical point where you stay happy forever. Some days you’ll feel good. Some days you won’t. That doesn’t mean you’re doing life wrong. That means you’re human.

How high expectations quietly create frustration:

The gap between how we think life should go and how life is actually going is where a lot of our frustration lives.

We’ve been conditioned to expect constant progress, but real life rarely moves in a straight line.

3. High Expectations Quietly Create Frustration.

I also think a lot of people become unhappy because their expectations are too high, or because their expectations don’t match reality. That could be relationships, money, career, identity, or even how quickly they think life should be moving.

When the picture in your head becomes bigger than what’s happening in real life, frustration usually follows. Because now you’re not living life for what it is. You’re living life through what you think it should be.

And there’s a difference.

Stop putting your mood in other people’s hands:

It’s easy to feel like our emotions are just a reaction to how the world treats us. A cold text message, cancelled plans, or someone acting differently can quietly affect more of our day than we realise.

And without noticing it, we end up handing other people the remote control to our internal state.

4. Don’t Put Your Mood in Other People’s Hands.

Many people don’t realise how much of their mood gets handed over to other people. Someone doesn’t reply. Someone cancels plans. Someone says something you didn’t like. And suddenly your whole mood shifts.

If your mood constantly depends on other people’s behaviour, their replies, or their attention, you’ll always feel emotionally pulled around by things you can’t fully control.

5. Start Measuring Happiness Differently.

I think happiness becomes a lot easier to understand when you stop measuring it as a life goal, and start measuring it day by day.

Not “Am I happy with my whole life?” but “Did I have a good day today?”

Did I laugh today?

Did I learn something today?

Did I get something done today?

Did I show up for myself today?

Maybe happiness isn’t this huge life destination people keep chasing. Maybe it’s found in smaller moments people keep overlooking because they’re too focused on where they think they should be.

Why awareness comes before growth:

You can’t change what you don’t notice. Most people are moving so fast, chasing a future version of happiness, that they never stop to look at the patterns in their own thinking, their habits, or the things that keep knocking them off course.

6. Without Awareness, It’s Hard to Know What’s Really Going On.

It’s difficult to feel happier if you haven’t first learned how to become self-aware.

Aware of your thoughts. Aware of your triggers. Aware of your boundaries. Aware of your standards. And aware of what’s happening around you too.

Until you become aware, your vision can stay clouded.

I genuinely believe awareness comes before self-improvement. And in a lot of cases, awareness comes before finding a healthier relationship with happiness too.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

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A lot of people think supporting someone with their mental health means knowing exactly what to say, having the right advice, or being able to solve whatever they’re going through.

And to be fair, a lot of people genuinely don’t know how to help. You hear it all the time. “I just didn’t know what to say.” “I didn’t know how to help them.” And that’s valid.

But helping someone doesn’t always mean doing something. It doesn’t always mean solving the problem, giving life advice, or trying to push someone in the right direction.

Sometimes helping someone can be as simple as sitting there, saying very little, and genuinely listening. Sometimes helping someone is taking ten minutes out of your day to understand what someone is carrying instead of trying to move straight into solutions.

And that’s what makes a lot of this easier than people think…

A lot of the time, people don’t need your solutions. They don’t need your life experience. They don’t need your “if I were you…” stories. What they usually need first is your presence.

And the interesting part is, all of this can happen in a two-minute conversation.

How to Support Someone With Their Mental Health Without Making It About You:

A lot of people think supporting someone means having the right words, the right advice, or knowing exactly what to do.

Most of the time… it doesn’t.

Support comes down to being present, listening properly, and understanding what someone is actually trying to say before you ever try to help.

When you break it all down, it usually looks something like this:

1. Zone In.

If someone opens up to you, be there properly. Put your phone down. Stop half-listening while scrolling. Stop trying to listen while replying to messages, watching something, or doing three other things at once.

If someone is opening up about their mental health, their stress, or something they’re struggling with internally, they need to feel like you’re actually there.

2. Let Them Vent.

This is where most people get it wrong.

They hear one part of the story and jump straight in with advice, solutions, or “you know what you should do.”

But at this stage, that’s not your job.

Let them talk. Let them vent. Let them get things out without interrupting, without suggesting things, and without making the conversation go in your direction.

3. Don’t Underestimate Them.

A lot of people assume the person opening up hasn’t thought things through, hasn’t tried anything, or hasn’t been strong enough.

That’s a mistake.

You don’t know what they’ve already tried. You don’t know how long they’ve been carrying it. You don’t know how mentally strong they’ve had to be just to get through the week, the month, or even the conversation they’re having with you right now.

Don’t underestimate their resilience.

4. Don’t Tell Someone To “Man Up”.

This happens more than people realise, especially with men and mens mental health.

Someone opens up, shows emotion, admits they’re struggling, or says they’re not coping well, and straight away the response becomes, “You need to man up.” “Get on with it.” “Other people have it worse.”

But that doesn’t help. If anything, it usually says more about the person saying it than the person struggling.

It can come across as self-centred, unaware, and at times even patronising, because you’re judging someone else’s internal world through your own coping mechanisms, your own pain tolerance, and your own way of dealing with things.

You wouldn’t tell someone with a broken leg to go and run a half marathon and expect them to perform like everyone else. So why do people expect everyone to handle emotional pain, stress, pressure, or mental struggles in exactly the same way?

Some people naturally have more mental resilience in certain areas. Some people don’t. One person can sit through an ankle tattoo without flinching, and someone else can’t. One person can pick up a spider without thinking twice, and someone else freezes.

We all have different a different perspective of things. Different struggles or pain points. Different thresholds. Different severity levels. Different ways of coping. Different ways of managing what life throws at us.

5. Don’t Compare (And Don’t Make It About YOU).

This happens more than people realise.

Someone opens up, and straight away the other person starts talking about what happened to them, what happened to their mate, their cousin, their relationship, their anxiety, or their version of stress.

And the conversation shifts.

This moment isn’t about your coping mechanisms, your pain, or your story. It’s about them.

6. Focus On What They’re Actually Trying To Say.

Sometimes people don’t always say exactly what they mean, especially when they’re stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, or emotionally drained.

That’s why listening isn’t just about hearing the words coming out of someone’s mouth. It’s about paying attention to what they’re actually trying to communicate underneath all of that.

How is this situation making them feel? What are they struggling to put into words? What keeps coming up as they speak?

At this stage, you’re still not jumping in with advice or telling them what you would do. You’re there to understand what’s really going on, and more importantly, you actually want to understand it.

7. Productively Engage.

Once you’ve listened properly, once you’ve understood where they’re coming from, and once they feel heard, that’s when you engage back.

Not to take over the conversation. Not to make yourself sound wise. Not to start listing solutions they didn’t ask for.

You engage because now you actually understand enough to support them in a way that makes sense for them, not for you.

And by the way… you STILL might not know what to say or what to do yet. It may take weeks or months of understanding someone or learning how to be there for them.

In the meantime, what you can do is reassure them. Reassurance that they have you in their corner. Not 24/7… not in a way where it affects your own life, but you’re there. Because you want to be. Just like they are for you.

8. Guide The Conversation To A Better Place.

Once someone feels like you’ve actually listened, understood what they’re trying to say, and not made the conversation about yourself, things usually start to feel a little different anyway.

At this point, you’re not trying to act like a therapist or some life coach. You’re not trying to magically solve what they’re going through either.

Sometimes helping someone can be as simple as helping them see things a little clearer than when the conversation first started. Maybe they’ve been overthinking. Maybe they’ve been carrying something on their own for too long. Maybe they just needed to get it out.

Sometimes being there for someone is simply helping them leave the conversation feeling a little lighter than when they came into it.

DO NOT sway the person to the pub or a party. Thats not a better place. That’s called an unsupportive distraction, and it’s probably to serve yourself, not them.

9. Don’t Assume You’re Finished.

Being a good friend, partner, or family member has no use by date.

If this is someone in your life, support usually doesn’t stop there. Support means consistent and grounded care, loyalty, and balance.

It doesn’t mean you have to keep bringing serious conversations up or asking deep questions every day. Sometimes it’s just checking in. Sometimes it’s remembering what they told you. Sometimes it’s noticing when something feels off and being the one who asks if they’re alright.

And more importantly, it’s about getting over your ego or part of your masculinity, to be able to reach out to people when it may feel like a vulnerable or ‘unmanly’ thing to do. It’s also about not being self-centred or selfish.

Unfortunately with a lot of people, sometimes a check-in isn’t really a check-in either. Sometimes “you good?” Or “what you been up to?” just becomes a conversation starter.

Real support is sometimes slowing down for a second, being present in the moment, and asking, “Are you alright… alright?” or “Haven’t heard from you in a while, how are you? How’s things at home? How’s the family?”

That’s when people usually know you genuinely mean it.

Because when someone knows they can come to you without feeling judged, rushed, or misunderstood, that’s where real support starts to mean something.

And when you strip all of this back, it usually comes down to three simple things:

Listen, understand, support.

Josh DG.

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Article written by Josh DG.

Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

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Sometimes accountability gets simplified too much. People think it means admitting you were wrong, saying sorry, or telling someone you take ownership. But all of those things are external. They’re behaviours. They show accountability on the surface, whether it’s real or not.

You can say you take accountability out loud or over a message, but what you do after is what actually shows if you mean it. It’s the same as saying sorry. You don’t really know if someone means it until their actions change afterwards.

That part is obvious. The part people don’t really talk about is what happens internally…

For most of the time, real accountability doesn’t start with what you say to other people. It starts with what you’re willing to face within yourself.

It’s the difference between saying something because you feel like you should, and actually understanding what you did, why it happened, and what it means going forward. That internal part is where most people avoid it, because that’s where it becomes uncomfortable.

What avoiding accountability looks like

For example, say you overshare something and afterwards you feel anxious about it. Most people try to push that feeling away. They distract themselves, they move on, and after a few days or a week everything feels normal again. But nothing actually changed.

The same thing can happen in everyday situations. You might make a mistake at work, your boss pulls you up on it, and you say, “yeah, that’s on me.”

On the surface, that looks like accountability. But internally, you’re still going over everything else in your head: what led up to it, what someone else did, why it wasn’t fully on you. You move on from it, but you haven’t really faced your part in it.

That’s why the same situations can keep coming up, or you keep getting pulled up on similar things, because nothing underneath has actually been addressed.

You didn’t sit with the situation. You didn’t go back over it. You didn’t face the thoughts you were having or let the feeling of embarrassment or discomfort actually settle. You just moved past it.

Taking accountability isn’t just something you show to other people, it’s something you need to accept within yourself as well. You need to mean it. You need to understand what you’re taking accountability for, why it matters, and how it affects situations going forward. Otherwise, you’re just saying it.

In that example I gave above about oversharing… if you overshare, real accountability would be going back to what you said, reading the messages again, thinking about the situation properly, admitting to yourself you overshared more than you should of, feeling a type of way about it, and sitting with that uncomfortable feeling instead of avoiding it. That’s the difficult part, because you’re choosing to stay with something your mind is trying to move away from.

But that’s also where things actually change. Sometimes those feelings need to come out properly before you can move on from them, and when you sit with it long enough, you get to a point where you can say:

“This is what I did, it’s uncomfortable, but I own it.”

Then you move forward, not by avoiding it, but by understanding it.

Why people don’t fully take accountability

Sometimes people don’t fully take accountability, and it’s not always in the way people think. It’s not always ego, denial, or someone being difficult. A lot of the time, it comes down to a lack of awareness.

They haven’t fully become aware of their own thoughts, their emotions, or their behaviour in that moment. So even when they think they’re taking accountability, they’re only doing it at a surface level. They haven’t actually broken the situation down properly.

They’ll think about the situation and admit to themselves, “yeah, I messed up there,” but they don’t stay with that. Almost straight away, it turns into justification. They start thinking about what the other person did, how they felt in that moment, and why their reaction made sense.

It goes from recognising what they did, to explaining it, to softening it. They’re still thinking about it, but not in a way that leads to change. That’s why it feels like accountability, but nothing actually changes afterwards.

Accountability isn’t always about big mistakes or how you’ve affected other people. Sometimes it’s about you.

The example of oversharing isn’t about hurting someone else. It’s about recognising your own behaviour, understanding it, and taking responsibility for it internally. Because if you don’t do that part, nothing really changes. You just move on and repeat it.

Why it’s hard to admit you’re wrong

Another part of this is simpler than people think. A lot of people don’t take accountability because it would mean admitting they were wrong.

And most people don’t like doing that…

Admitting you were wrong comes with a level of vulnerability. It means you have to face what you did properly. It can bring up emotions, and it puts you in a position where you don’t feel fully in control.

In today’s world, that’s uncomfortable. People don’t want to feel exposed like that. They don’t want to show emotion. Especially for men, that can feel like something to avoid rather than lean into.

So even if someone knows they should take accountability, there can be a barrier there. Not because they don’t understand it, but because they don’t want to sit in what comes with it.

It’s the same reason people avoid sitting with their thoughts, their emotions, or certain areas of their life. Whether it’s something like meditating or just taking time to reflect, a lot of people avoid it because it means sitting in discomfort.

That’s what this comes back to… taking accountability means being willing to feel uncomfortable and admit something you’d rather avoid.

What real accountability actually looks like

Real accountability is quieter than people expect, and it usually happens when no one else is there. Accountability comes down to one thing. Not what you say, but what you’re willing to face.

You can say the right things. You can admit fault. You can even believe you’ve taken ownership. But if you haven’t actually sat with it and accepted it properly (internally), nothing changes.

That’s why people repeat the same situations. They moved past it, not through it.

Taking real accountability will feel uncomfortable, but…

You stay with it and look at your part in it properly. You accept it for what it is, even when it would be easier not to, and you don’t rush to move on just to get rid of the awkward feeling.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. You can be doing everything you need to do, moving through your day, handling things the way you should, but something still feels off.

It’s not always obvious. It’s not always something you can point to. But it’s there.

That feeling usually comes from somewhere. And from my perspective, most of the time it comes down to two things.

Purpose, and/or your nervous system.

Your Purpose:

Sometimes it’s not about what you’re doing day to day, it’s about how your life feels overall. You can be going through your routine, doing what you need to do, but something still feels off.

That’s where purpose comes in. And from my perspective, this is less about what you’re doing, and more about how you see yourself within it.

Over time, especially in a fast-paced world, you start to build an idea of who you should be, what your life should look like, and where you should be by now. That idea doesn’t always come from you. It builds from what you see, what you’re exposed to, and what gets reinforced around you.

So without realising it, you’re not just living your life, you’re comparing it. You might be working a normal job, following your routine, doing what needs to be done, but at the same time there’s a part of you that feels like it’s not enough, like you should be further ahead or doing something more.

It’s not always about wanting something unrealistic. Sometimes it’s just the gap between where you are and where you think you should be.

So now you’ve got two things happening at once… the version of you that’s living your current life, vs the version of you that you feel like you should be… and guess what… they don’t match.

That’s what creates that same push and pull feeling. You’re moving through your day, but part of you feels off, not because something is clearly wrong, but because it doesn’t line up with what you expected your life to look like.

It can come from titles, roles, labels, things that show value from the outside. You might want to be known for something, you might want a certain level of success, a certain position, or a certain identity that feels like it represents you properly.

When you don’t feel like you have that, it creates pressure. Not loud pressure, but something that sits there, and you feel like you’re in between, not where you used to be, but not where you think you should be either.

That’s where it starts to feel like you’re working against yourself again, because one part of you is moving through your current reality, while another part is focused on a different version of your life that hasn’t been reached yet.

That gap is what creates the tension.

Your Nervous System:

The other part of it comes from how your body reacts within your day to day situations. I won’t go into this in a technical way, I’ll explain it in a practical sense.

Your nervous system is how your body reacts to situations. It’s the automatic side of you, the part that responds without you needing to think about it.

When I say your body, I mean your physical reactions. Things like tension, your heart rate, that feeling in your chest, or that sense of being on edge or overwhelmed.

Think of it like a network, information is constantly being sent back and forth through your body. You don’t see it happening but you feel the result of it.

Your nervous system sends information to your brain, your brain processes it, and your mind gives it meaning, which is what you then experience through your thoughts, how you feel, and the behaviour that follows.

But all of that doesn’t just move in one direction. Your body can trigger your thoughts, and your thoughts can trigger your body. That’s why it can feel like it keeps feeding itself.

When your nervous system reacts in a way that doesn’t match what you consciously want to do, that’s when it starts to feel like you’re working against yourself.

For example, you might feel anxious about something even though another part of you is excited for it. Or you wake up and go to work, but something in you feels like it’s holding you back even though you’re capable of getting through the day.

So now you’ve got two things happening at once, the version of you that wants to move forward, and the version of you that feels resistance, and that’s where the friction comes from.

This is how I look at it:

Say you’ve got a social event later.

• Your nervous system reacts first. Before you’ve even properly thought about it, your body responds. You might feel tension, your chest tightens slightly, or you feel a bit on edge. That’s your body reacting automatically to the situation.

• Your brain processes what’s happening. It picks up on that reaction in your body and what’s going on around you, whether that’s the thought of the event or something you’ve noticed.

• Your mind gives it meaning. You might think, “I don’t feel right about this,” or “something’s off,” even if another part of you is still looking forward to it.

• You then experience it. Your thoughts start to follow that meaning, how you feel becomes stronger, and your behaviour might change. You might start overthinking, pulling back, hesitating, or even considering not going.

At the same time, another part of you still wants to go. And then, the feeling of friction/brain fog starts. It’s usually because your nervous system has been shaped by past reactions, so it responds in a certain way automatically, even if your current thinking is different.

One part of you is reacting based on what it’s used to, while another part of you is trying to move forward based on where you are now.

To wrap this all up:

The reason you feel like you’re working against yourself in life, comes back to 2 things (also not limited to): your idea of purpose, and/or your nervous system.

Either your life doesn’t feel like it matches who you think you should be, or your body is reacting in a way that doesn’t match what you want to do.

One is internal, one is external, but both create the same feeling. That push and pull, that sense that something isn’t fully aligned. When that’s there, it doesn’t matter how much you try to move forward, how many positive affirmations you say out loud, part of you still feels like it’s holding you back.

Josh DG.

(if this helped in any way, please subscribe for more and share with a friend).

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

Website: https://joshdg.com

Josh DG on Substack: https://substack.com/@joshdguk

Josh DG on Threads: https://Threads.com/@_JoshDG

Josh DG on X (Twitter): https://x.com/_JoshDG

You read a self-help book and it makes sense. The way it’s explained is clear, the steps sound practical, and it feels like something you can actually apply to your own life. You start thinking about how it could fix what you’ve been struggling with and how things might change if you followed it properly.

So you try to apply what you’ve read.

But it doesn’t quite work the way you expected it to. You can’t follow it in the same way, or it doesn’t fit into your day the way it was described. After a while, it just becomes another thing that didn’t stick, even though it made complete sense when you read it.

Self-help books can be useful. A lot of them are written from real experiences and things that have genuinely helped the person who wrote them. That’s why people are drawn to them, and for a lot of people, they do help.

But not for everyone.

Most self-help books are written from a first-person point of view. Someone explains what worked for them and how it improved their life. The problem is, just because something worked for them, it doesn’t automatically mean it works for you.

Part of the reason that gets missed is because of the hope behind it. You’re reading something that clearly worked for someone else, so you start thinking it could do the same for you. You see the steps, the structure, the changes they made, and it feels like a way forward.

That’s where things start to go wrong.

You start treating it like something you need to follow, instead of something you need to understand.

This is why self-help books don’t always work for you, even when they make complete sense.

You’re not the same person as the one who wrote the book. You don’t think the same way, you don’t respond to things the same way, and you’re not dealing with the same situation. So applying something exactly as it’s written doesn’t always fit.

That doesn’t mean the advice is wrong, it just mean it isn’t for you, at the moment.

A better way to look at it is this..

Self-help books aren’t instructions, they’re suggestions. You’re supposed to take parts of what’s being said, pick out what actually makes sense to you, and build your own way from it, not follow it exactly and expect the same result.

A simple example of this is fitness. There are general structures people follow, and they work for a lot of people. But even something like that isn’t universal. Some people respond differently based on how their body is built or how they naturally develop, so following something exactly the same doesn’t guarantee the same outcome.

The same thing applies mentally. You’ll hear advice like going outside or changing your environment, and for a lot of people that helps. But if someone is dealing with social anxiety or struggling to be in public, that advice doesn’t fit their current state.

So when they try it and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t feel like the advice is the problem. It feels like they are.

That’s where frustration builds. It turns into questions like “why can’t I do this properly?” or “why isn’t this working for me?” and over time that can affect your mental health. It can increase anxiety, lower confidence, and make it feel like nothing is working.

It’s also why some mental health advice doesn’t work the same for everyone.

Not every method fits every mind.

Self-help advice usually focuses on behaviour. What to do and how to do it. But if your mind doesn’t process things the same way, or your mental health isn’t in a place where you can apply it, it won’t stick.

That’s where people get stuck in a cycle of trying new things, not seeing results, and feeling worse because of it.

There’s also another side to this. Self-help books are a market, and like any market, there’s money in it.

Some authors genuinely help people. But there’s also a side where things are simplified, exaggerated, or even made up to make something more appealing. Certain ideas sell better, especially when they tap into how people feel.

That doesn’t mean everything is false or fake. But it does mean you have to be aware of what you’re taking in. Not everything is written with you in mind.

That’s why the way you approach it matters more than the book itself. If you treat everything as something you have to follow exactly, it creates pressure. If you treat it as something to take from and adjust, it becomes useful.

That’s the difference between trying to force something to work and actually finding what works for you.

Josh DG.

Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

www.joshdg.com

Self-confidence can feel hyped one minute and gone the next.

You can feel good about yourself, clear in what you’re doing, sure of your direction, and then something small shifts.

No feedback, no acknowledgement, no congratulations, and suddenly it doesn’t feel the same. Nothing about you has actually changed, but the feeling has.

A lot of self-confidence is influenced by what comes back to you. Whether people respond, whether something gets recognised, whether there’s some kind of sign that what you’re doing is working. When that’s there, confidence feels natural. When it’s not, it starts to drop.

It’s easy to feel confident when things are being confirmed. When people are telling you, praising you, when things line up, when it feels like you’re ahead. But when all of that stops, that’s where things can change.

You might not notice it straight away, but it shows up. You start second-guessing things you were fine with before. You question decisions that made sense earlier. You look for something to tell you you’re still on the right track. Not because anything has actually gone wrong, but because you were relying on external validation to feel confident in the first place.

A lot of people try to fix that by getting more feedback or validation.

More external confidence boosters. And kind of like a quick dopamine hit.

When you get the confidence boost, it lifts things again. You feel more sure of yourself, your path in life, more certain that what you’re doing is right.

But when it doesn’t? your self-confidence drops again.

Your confidence ends up going up and down based on what you’re getting back from the world, not just what you think yourself.

That’s why confidence in general can feel inconsistent. Some days you feel sure of yourself or life, other days you don’t. It depends on what’s happening around you, not just what’s going on within you.

It can feel like confidence is something you either have or you don’t, but a lot of the time it’s coming from what you’re relying on without noticing it. If it’s coming from outside of you, it’s always going to change when those things change.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

A lot of people group everything together.

Thoughts, emotions, reactions, behaviour, mental health. It all gets treated like one thing, but it’s not. And when you don’t separate it properly, nothing really makes sense.

You can try to fix your habits, but your thinking doesn’t change. You can try to control your emotions, but they keep coming back. So you end up doing things that sound right, but don’t actually shift anything.

That’s where most people get stuck. Not because they’re doing something wrong, but because they don’t understand what they’re actually working on.

The easiest way to look at it is to break it into three parts:

• The Brain

• The Mind

• Mental Health

The brain is the physical part. It’s the thing you can point to, the structure, the chemistry, the part that controls functions, signals, and responses. It processes information at a mechanical level. Everyone has one, and fundamentally, it works in a similar way for everyone.

The mind is different. You can’t see it in the same way, but it’s where everything gets interpreted. It’s where your thoughts gain personality, where meaning gets assigned, and where your perception of things comes from. Two people can go through the same situation and experience it completely differently, not because their brain is different, but because their mind processes it differently. That’s where individuality sits.

Then you’ve got mental health. It’s not a separate system on its own, it’s more like a reflection of what’s going on inside the mind. It’s the overall state of it, how stable your thoughts are, how balanced your emotions feel, and how you’re processing things day to day.

To make it clearer, think of them like this. The brain is the outer box. Inside that sits the mind, and inside that sits mental health. Each layer is connected, but they’re not the same thing.

Another way to look at it is this..

The brain is like your thumb, the mind is your fingerprint, and mental health is how clearly that print shows up. Everyone has a thumb that looks roughly the same, but no two fingerprints are alike. That’s where individuality sits, and that’s why two people can experience the same situation in completely different ways.

I always say your mental health is like a running total or calculation of everything that’s happening daily. So your mental health level adjusts throughout the day. Sometimes more severely than other people.

Your mental health level isn’t fixed. It shifts constantly based on what you experience, what you think about, how you react, and what you take in. That’s why you can feel fine one day and off the next, or unbalanced 20mins after feeling fine. Sometimes triggered by the things happening around you, or sometimes because of genetic or biological reasons.

The problem is, most people try to treat all three things the same. They try to fix thoughts by ignoring them. They try to improve their life by copying routines. But if you don’t understand which part you’re actually dealing with, you end up applying the wrong tool which doesn’t help when managing yourself day to day.

For example, if your mental health is low, adding more structure might help.. but if your thought patterns are the issue, structure alone won’t fix that. If your mind is constantly interpreting things negatively, your mental health will reflect that, even if your habits look good.

And that’s also why “just stay consistent” doesn’t work for everyone. Because consistency is behaviour, but not all problems sit at the level of behaviour. Some sit in how you think, some sit in how you interpret things, and some sit in patterns that have built up over time. Those don’t change just because you follow a routine.

Another part people overlook is how these three affect each other. What you experience affects your mind, what your mind focuses on affects your mental health, and your mental health affects how you think, feel, and behave. It’s all connected, but not interchangeable.

That’s why awareness (being aware of yourself and areas of life) matters more than anything. If you don’t understand yourself, you’ll keep trying to fix things at the wrong level.

That’s my understanding of the connection between the brain, the mind, and mental health. There are different perspectives on it, but from my experience, separating them is what actually helps, and something I hope you can take something from.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

Website: JoshDG.com

Substack: Josh DG

Threads: @_joshDG

X: @_JoshDG

There’s a lot of talk about self-improvement now. Discipline, routines, progress, staying consistent. You see it everywhere, and on paper, it all makes sense.

So why does something still feel off?

You can be doing everything you’re supposed to do and still feel like something isn’t clicking. You’re trying to stay consistent, you’re making better decisions, you’re more aware than you used to be, but it doesn’t feel grounded. It feels like you’re doing the work without actually feeling the result of it.

That’s the part people don’t really talk about. Because from the outside, it looks like progress, but internally, it can feel empty.

The issue isn’t that you’re not improving. It’s that a lot of what’s called self-improvement now is built around how it looks, not how it actually works. At some point, it shifted. It stopped being something you experience and became something you show.

You don’t just build habits anymore, you present them. You don’t just make progress, you track it, post it, and make it visible. Even if you don’t think you care about that, it still affects how you move. Because once something becomes visible, it also becomes something you measure, and that’s where things start to change.

Instead of asking if something is actually helping you, you start asking if it looks like progress. That shift is small, but it’s enough to disconnect you from what you’re doing.

You can follow a routine that looks disciplined and still feel all over the place. You can stay busy and still feel like you’re not moving forward. You can copy habits that work for someone else and wonder why they don’t stick for you.

At first, it still feels like progress, because doing something always feels better than doing nothing, but over time it stops landing, because it was never built around you in the first place.

That’s why it starts to feel fake. A lot of people are building their version of self-improvement based on what they’ve seen, not what they’ve actually understood.

You see routines online, you see people being consistent, you see people improving, and without realising it, you start building your own version around that. Not around how your mind works, not around your mental health, not around your actual day-to-day life. And that’s where things quietly fall apart.

Because your mind isn’t generic, and your mindset (what your mind is set on, and your perception of those things) isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Our minds are like the fingerprint on our thumbs, unique. So following something that looks right doesn’t mean it works right.

That’s also why a lot of advice doesn’t reach people. It sounds good, but it doesn’t connect, because it skips the part that actually matters.

Someone dealing with anxiety isn’t going to experience discipline the same way. Someone dealing with depression isn’t going to respond to “just stay consistent” the same way. So when it doesn’t work, you don’t question the method, you question yourself, and that’s where the disconnect gets deeper.

Now add everything else on top of that. You’re constantly seeing what other people are doing. Their routines, their habits, their results. Even if you don’t mean to compare, you do, quietly.

You feel like you should be doing more, like you should be further ahead, like what you’re doing isn’t enough, even when it is. Because you’re measuring internal progress against external snapshots, and those two things never line up.

Over time, your mind starts to link progress with being seen. So when you do something right, it doesn’t fully register, not until it’s visible, not until it’s acknowledged.

That’s when self-improvement turns into performance, and performance doesn’t feel real, because it isn’t.

It looks like movement, but underneath, it rarely is.

That’s why you can feel stuck even when you’re doing everything right on paper. Real self-growth doesn’t come from looking productive, it comes from understanding yourself properly. What actually helps you, what actually drains you, what actually fits your life.

That part isn’t visible, and that’s exactly why most people avoid it, but that’s also the part that makes it feel real again.

Because once what you’re doing actually matches how your mind works, it stops feeling forced. You don’t need to show it, you don’t need to prove it, you don’t need to measure it against anyone else.

It just makes sense.

That’s the difference between something that looks like self-improvement, and something that actually is.

Josh DG.

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Josh DG writes about mental health and self-improvement. He explores the mind, anxiety, and depression, showing why self-improvement only works when mental health is part of the process.

His content is honest and grounded, shaped by experiences rather than distant theory. He understands that when it comes to mental health and self-improvement, what works for one person may not work for another. That belief runs through all of his work, offering perspectives that are real.

https://JoshDG.com

https://threads.com/@_JoshDG

https://x.com/_JoshDG