There’s a version of problem-solving that feels productive but actually keeps you stuck. It goes like this: something goes wrong, you feel bad about it, and you decide that before you do anything else you need to fully understand why it happened. Makes sense on paper. In practice it tends to turn into weeks of spinning your wheels while the actual problem gets worse.
The why matters. Eventually. But there’s an order to things, and most people have it backwards.
When You’re in the Hole, Your Brain Lies to You
When something is going wrong, whether it’s pain, stalled progress, low energy, or not feeling good about how you look or feel, your thinking is not neutral. Research on pain catastrophizing shows that people in pain states consistently overestimate how serious their situation is and underestimate their ability to recover. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just how the nervous system works under stress. The brain threat-detects, and everything looks like a threat.
This means any conclusions you reach while you’re deep in it are going to be colored by that state. The guy who’s been in back pain for three weeks and has now convinced himself he has a herniated disc, nerve damage, and possibly a rare degenerative condition he found at 2 AM is not being irrational. He’s just operating from a brain that is trying to protect him by preparing for the worst. The problem is it also makes him afraid to move, which makes everything worse.
[Search: pain catastrophizing and recovery outcomes]
The Back That Needed Action, Not Answers
The client I mentioned in the email had never dealt with pain before. Middle-aged, active, generally healthy. Then a lower back tweak showed up and he immediately needed to know why. We talked through the possibilities. Yard work, stress, a workout, accumulated stiffness from neglecting mobility. Could’ve been any of them. Could’ve been all of them. We genuinely didn’t know yet.
What I told him was that we didn’t need to know yet. That was not what he wanted to hear.
The pain stuck around. Started shifting sides, which sent him deeper into research spirals. Then it crept down his legs. Then foot pain appeared. By the time he came back in he was convinced something was seriously structurally wrong and that we needed a diagnosis before we could do anything useful.
So we stopped chasing answers and started doing things that could actually help. We found positions that gave his nervous system some relief. We modified painful movements and found ranges that worked without setting him off. We kept him moving rather than letting him park on the couch waiting for clarity. Slowly his symptoms started to calm down.
Then, once he was moving better and thinking more clearly, we went back through it. Family members had gotten sick around that time. He’d been driving hours to visit them regularly, sitting far more than usual, stress piling up quietly, mobility work disappearing from his routine. A few things converging at once. With that clearer picture we found the areas to address and built around reducing those risk factors going forward.
Action first. Understanding second. That order is not optional.
The Strength Client Who Couldn’t Stop Asking Why
A woman I trained wanted to get stronger. Good goal, showed up consistently, genuinely cared about the work. She’d been stuck at 15-pound presses for months and could not figure out why. That question consumed her. Why aren’t the weights going up? Why isn’t my body changing? Why does everyone else seem to make progress faster?
The problem was she was focusing all her energy on questions she couldn’t answer from the outside and none of it on the things that were actually in her control. Volume was inconsistent. She wasn’t always training hard enough to force an adaptation. Sleep was irregular. Protein intake was low. And when she got demoralized by the lack of progress, those habits got worse, which made the progress worse, which made her more demoralized.
We stopped talking about why and started talking about what. What are you eating this week. What does your sleep look like. What does your training log say about effort level. Once the focus shifted to the controllable inputs, things started moving. Six months later she’s pressing 27s. Same person, same gym, same coach. Different focus.
The why question is useful. It just has terrible timing.
Six Years of Getting It Backwards
I’ll keep this one short because it’s not really about me, but I spent about six years trying to think my way out of chronic pain before I made any real progress. Chasing the root cause, reading everything, trying to find the one thing that explained all of it. Meanwhile I wasn’t doing the general things consistently that would’ve helped regardless of the cause. Daily movement. Strength training. Mobility work. Managing stress. A more well-rounded approach to my overall health.
Once I stopped trying to solve it from the outside and started just doing the work, things shifted. The understanding came later. And honestly it came easier because I was in a better state to actually process it.
So When Does the Why Actually Matter
It matters after you’ve taken action and made some progress. It matters when you’re thinking like an outside observer instead of someone who is scared and frustrated. It matters for reducing the chances of the same thing happening again.
A client who figured out their back flares up every time work stress spikes and they stop moving can build a plan around that. A client who realized their energy crashes every afternoon because they’re not eating enough protein at lunch can fix that. Understanding the pattern is genuinely useful. You just need to be in a place where you can think about it clearly and without panic.
The sequence is: do something that helps, feel a little better, then look back with fresh eyes.
What to Do Right Now
Pick one area where you’re stuck. Not all of them. One.
If you’re in pain or feeling stiff, find a movement or position that gives you some relief and do it today. Not after you understand why you’re stiff. Today.
If you’re unhappy with your weight or how your body feels, go for a walk and eat one solid meal with protein and vegetables. You don’t need a plan yet. You need a data point that you can do something.
If you’re struggling to get stronger, open your calendar and schedule your next three workouts right now. Before you feel ready.
If you’re tired and out of breath doing things you shouldn’t be, add ten minutes of movement today. That’s the whole ask.
Once you’re moving and feeling a bit more like yourself, then go back to the why. You’ll be surprised how much clearer it looks from that side.
[Search: behavioral activation and action before motivation]