“I Just Feel Stuck”: Letting Go of Who We Used to Be

Not too long ago, I was coaching Andrew. He was in his late 40s, with decades of solid experience. But he sat in my office, looking frustrated, and said,

“I just feel stupid these days. Like I can’t keep up anymore.”

I’ll be honest. That hit me. Because I’ve heard it so many times before.

We talked it through.

Turns out, he wasn’t lacking ability or smarts. He was stuck holding onto an old version of himself. The “expert.” The “guy who always knows the answer.”

But the world around him had changed. New systems. New ways of working. He hadn’t updated his view of himself. He was trying to solve new problems with old assumptions.

I asked him,

“What if you stopped trying so hard to be that guy? What if you let yourself be a learner again?”

He went quiet for a moment. Then he had a light bulb moment.

That was the start of real change.

Why We Hold On

Let’s be honest. It’s comfortable to stick with the familiar version of ourselves. The one who has the answers. The role people expect us to play.

But if we don’t let go of that, it can hold us back.

The world moves on. Industries change. Expectations shift.

If we don’t adapt, we risk becoming stuck, frustrated, even obsolete. And worse, we start blaming ourselves for feeling lost instead of realizing we just need to evolve.

My Own Story of Reinvention

Early on, I was in marketing and general management roles, working in big companies, leading regional teams. It was all about results, targets, managing people. That was my identity for years.

Then I experienced retrenchments, shifts in industries, changes in priorities. Every time, I had to ask myself:

“Am I going to keep clinging to who I was, or figure out who I need to become now?”

When I left corporate life, I didn’t just want to restart and forget it all. I reinvented. I took my experience in leadership, strategy, mentoring my teams—and I turned that into a career coaching practice.

And now, in this latest chapter, I’m doing it again. I’m focusing more on writing, running workshops, and sharing ideas in a way that helps introverts in particular—people who learn deeply, reflect, and don’t always want the loud motivational hype.

I’m blending what I know about business with what I understand about people, and packaging it in a way that’s relevant today.

It’s not about erasing my past. It’s about putting it to better use.

This is what I mean when I talk about reinventing, not restarting.

(I actually wrote a book on this very idea, if you’re curious about practical ways to do it.)

How Do We Move Ahead?

If you’re reading this and thinking “that sounds a bit like me,” here’s a starting point.

✅ Notice where you’re stuck. What assumptions about yourself aren’t serving you anymore?

✅ Get curious. What’s changed in your field? Your team? Your customers?

✅ Ask questions. It takes guts to say “I don’t know.” But it’s also how you stay sharp.

✅ Reframe your value. Instead of “I should know this,” try “I’m valuable because I can keep learning.”

✅ Blend old and new. Don’t throw your experience away. Figure out how to use it in new ways.

I’ve seen so many people transform once they let go of who they were and give themselves permission to grow.

It’s not always easy. But it’s freeing.

You don’t need to become someone completely different. You just need to stop letting the old version of you be the only one allowed to show up.

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