You’re Not Stuck. You’re Trapped.
Stuck is a you problem. Trapped is a system problem.
In 2016, I completed my graduate degree in Instructional Design and Technology. Online courses were just starting to pop. Not like now where everybody and their cousin is selling a course from their kitchen table. Back then the wave was building, and I could feel it.
I thought: I’m literally being trained to design learning experiences. Maybe I could build a business around this.
So I did what you do when you have an idea but no roadmap. I found someone who said they could show me how and I paid her $8,500 to do it.
Let me tell you what $8,500 bought me.
Marketing gimmicks.
Go live.
Post more.
Show up in stories.
Be visible.
Just believe in yourself and the clients will come.
She kept saying mindset.. mindset…mindset like if I could just think my way into confidence, and the business would build itself…well it didn’t.
Here’s the problem. I’m neurodivergent and I was sitting in a program built for people whose brains work differently than mine — being told the reason it wasn’t working was because I wasn’t believing hard enough. I found myself constantly thinking:
What is wrong with me?
That question — “what is wrong with me?” is the most expensive question a woman with expertise can ask. Not because of the money she spends trying to answer it, but because of the years she loses believing that the question is valid.
Nothing was wrong with me. The program was wrong for me. I just didn’t have the language for it back then. So I walked away feeling cheated, gaslit and lost. I was $8,500 lighter and no closer to releasing my work into the world in a way I envisioned.
Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then.
I wasn’t stuck. I was trapped and those are two very different things.
Stuck implies the problem is internal — your motivation, discipline, or mindset. The fix for being stuck is usually to do something.
Trapped means the structure around you isn’t built for you to move forward. The doors look open, but they’ll have you going in circles. The advice sounds right, but it doesn’t account for your brain, personality, or actual expertise. You’re doing the work. You’re showing up. Yet, you’re still not getting where you need to go.
Stuck is a you problem. Trapped is a system problem.
The entire personal development industry has been selling you solutions for stuck when what you actually need is a way out of a trap.
That program I paid $8,500 for? It wasn’t a system. It was a collection of disjointed tactics packaged to look like one and because I was formally trained in instructional design — in how adults actually learn, how the brain processes information, and how you move someone from understanding to behavior change — I could see it.
The program had no throughline. No sequenced learning path. No mechanism for getting someone from concept to concrete work to finished product. It was well-marketed. I’ll give it that. The sales page was beautiful. But once you got inside, it was piecemeal.
A gimmick here, a mindset exercise there, and a “just go live” pep talk on Thursdays.
That’s not transformation.
That’s noise with a price tag.
Even though I could diagnose the problem, I couldn’t solve it for myself.
I could see that the program was broken.
I could articulate exactly what was missing from a learning design perspective.
But I still couldn’t translate my own expertise into work I could release.
I had the knowledge. I had the credentials. I had the formal training.
I didn’t have the system and for nearly a decade, that gap — between knowing and doing, between expertise and execution kept me trapped.
Not stuck. Not unmotivated. Not lacking confidence.
Trapped.
It took me almost ten years to find what I was actually looking for. I found a program that didn’t start with mindset. It started with how to teach.
How to take someone from their problem to a transformed identity.
How to structure the path so the transformation isn’t an accident — it’s an architecture.
The experience broke something open in me. Not because it made me believe in myself. It gave me a system that matched my expertise. For the first time, I could see the full path — from where my audience is to where they need to be.
From trapped expert to untrapped authority (my signature transformation)
That’s when I stopped asking what’s wrong with me and started asking a better question: What is missing from the structure?
The Reframe
If you’ve been calling yourself stuck, I want you to reconsider that.
Stuck implies you need to push harder or that you need more motivation. I bet you’ve consumed every podcast, book, and program that promised it only to still feel the same way. Stuck implies the problem is you.
But what if the problem was never you?
What if the advice didn’t work because it wasn’t designed for the way your brain works?
What if the program didn’t deliver because it was gimmicks stitched together, not an actual system?
What if you’ve been trying to escape a trap using tools built for a rut?
A rut needs momentum. A trap needs a different door.
The Exercise
This week, I want you to think about the last time you invested in your growth, whether it was a course, coach, program, or book — and it didn’t land.
Don’t think about what you should have done differently. Think about the structure itself.
Did it give you a clear path from where you were to where you needed to be?
Or did it give you a collection of ideas and tell you the rest was mindset?
You don’t need more motivation. You need a system that’s built for how you actually think, work, and create.
If you’ve been looking for something that could help you untrap your expertise so you can publish, pitch, or present without negotiating with fear at the finish line — I’m building it and if you’re a free subscribe, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, tell me:
what would be most supportive for you in releasing your work to the world?