Why You’re Not Behind
(And How to Start Moving Again)
How many people are walking around with the quiet (or not so quiet!) feeling that they are behind?
Behind in work. Behind financially. Behind creatively. Behind on goals. Behind everyone else on tasks that look so easy and even joyful for others. The difficult part is that this feeling rarely creates clarity. Usually, it creates pressure.
Pressure makes everything feel urgent. And I’m not talking about the “good urgency” trick we can use sometimes as a productivity tool. I’m talking about the Urgency that makes it harder to think.
And when thinking becomes harder, even small tasks start to feel emotionally heavy.
So instead of moving forward, many people spend weeks — sometimes months/years — trapped in invisible comparison loops while calling it “trying to catch up.”
But feeling behind is not always a sign that you failed. Sometimes it is simply a sign that:
too much has happened
your energy changed
your priorities shifted
life became heavier than expected
or you have been measuring yourself against unrealistic timelines for too long
This week inside the Show Up Productivity Hub, we are exploring a gentler productivity shift: from behind → moving 💗
Not perfect. Just moving again.
So, while I’ll add my most recent and very own tragic-comical struggle around this theme in the comments, buckle up, ready to drive your own transformation!
The feeling behind “the feeling behind.”
Sometimes the real problem is not lack of discipline. It is discouragement.
You look at unfinished projects.
Open tabs.
Messages unanswered.
Plans that started with excitement and slowly became pressure.
And your brain turns all of that into a story:
“I should be further ahead by now.”
But productivity becomes much harder when every action feels emotionally loaded.
Because now you are not just answering an email. You are trying to prove you are capable, you are consistent, you did not waste time, you still have potential!
That is exhausting. And exhaustion often looks like procrastination from the outside.
7 things to do when you feel behind
1. Stop measuring against your hardest season
You may be comparing today’s progress against a version of you (of someone else) that had: different energy, fewer responsibilities, more support, less grief, more certainty or simply a different life!
That comparison is not neutral and most of the time, even not fair.
It quietly turns productivity into punishment.
2. Pick one thing that matters today
Not ten. One. When everything feels unfinished, your brain stops trusting progress because nothing feels complete. One meaningful action restores movement faster than an overwhelming plan.
3. Start smaller than feels impressive
Tiny movement counts. Especially after discouragement. A small completed step could rebuilds trust, reduces resistance, lowers emotional weight and creates momentum.
You do not need a dramatic comeback. You need re-entry.
4. Finish something easy first
Sometimes your nervous system needs evidence that movement is still possible. Completion matters. Even small completion. Especially small completion.
(Honestly, this idea is exactly what inspired the pop-up tear-up task sessions I’m excited to start hosting again: DONE & GONE ✂️ — mostly silent body doubling but with tiny tasks written on little pieces of paper, and the option to tear them up together at the end of each timer🍅. Ridiculously satisfying and surprisingly effective!)
5. Clear one open loop
Open loops quietly drain attention. One message. One form. One decision. One unfinished task.
Closing even one loop can create surprising mental relief.
6. Protect one hour or one timer unit from noise
Not optimized. Protected.
No comparison. No scrolling. No performance.
Just space to think and move.
7. End with a visible next step
The goal is not to finish your whole life today. The goal is to make tomorrow easier to begin.
Leave yourself: one sentence, one open document, one sticky note, one prepared step.
Movement becomes easier when the entry point already exists.
Imagine what moving could feel like
Not rushing. Not proving. Not catching up to everyone else.
Just: clearer, steadier, more connected to yourself again in one thing.
Imagine ending the day thinking:
“I moved something forward today.”
Even quietly. That matters more than most people realize.
WEEKLY PRACTICE
This week’s practice: notice where pressure enters
Complete these gently right now, and each time you need:
I feel most behind when __________________
One comparison I want to release is __________________
One thing I actually handled well recently is __________________
Movement would feel easier if __________________
And maybe ask yourself:
What if I stopped treating every delay as failure?
WEEKLY EXPERIMENT
During the next week, Pause and notice with these prompts as many times as you feel “the feeling behind” feeling:
Am I trying to move forward — or trying to prove something?
What would movement look like without punishment?
Which task would help me trust myself again?
MEMBER SECTION
Member Corner — this week’s handout
As usual, feel free to apply this week’s theme in the way that works best for you — in your notebook, on your iPad, during a focus session, or simply through a few quiet reflections. If you’d like to follow along with the handout I prepared around this theme, you can find it in my Gumroad shop.
And a little reminder for our dear SUPH members: this printable is available for free for you inside the Member Corner page, together with the other resources for this month 💗
It is a printable PDF that you can print out, or use digitally on your iPad, to continue exploring and supporting this week’s theme.
Also in the Member Corner this week, I’d love your input: please have a look and let me know which time you would prefer for a live workshop together around the 12-week plan.
As anticipated above, I’m also restarting the ✂️ DONE & GONE — Tear-Up Post-it/tasks (in Flown) — a spontaneous silent coworking format built around deep focus, visible movement, and low-pressure accountability.
The idea is intentionally simple: instead of verbally reporting progress, participants write their intention on a post-it or piece of paper at the beginning of the session, then quietly reveal whether they moved it forward — or not — at the end of each Pomodoro round. Honestly? It’s surprisingly motivating, funny, human, and oddly liberating.
I’ll share more as the experiment evolves, but if this kind of accountability sounds helpful, I definitely recommend checking the FLOWN sessions and future updates inside the Member Corner / Chat for Pop-up notifications.
WEEKLY PREVIEW
One thing I keep noticing about meaningful productivity is that momentum usually returns through repetition, not pressure.
A small idea becomes more useful when we meet it more than once — in a prompt, a question, a reminder, a quiet pause at the end of the day.
That’s the role of the Show Up Productivity Hub Notes. Throughout the week, I’ll share short reflections connected to this theme: visual reminders, gentle questions, practical prompts, and evening check-ins to help you notice what supported your movement.
I especially love using the evening prompt inside my pages practice (published each day around 9 pm CET) — as a soft landing point to review the day, release a little pressure, and leave myself a clearer entry point for tomorrow.
My hope is that these small notes help the week’s theme stay present in a simple, doable way. Here’s the rhythm we’ll follow together this week:
Monday: Start moving again
Tuesday: Notice comparison loops
Wednesday: Reduce emotional friction
Thursday: Choose movement over pressure
Friday: Notice what helped you move
Saturday: Gentle reset
Sunday: Prepare the next small step
Keep walking with us 💗
You do not need to earn the right to begin again. Remember: You are allowed to restart: slowly, imperfectly, quietly, and multiple times!
Any Movement counts. And we are walking with you!
Get unstuck. Show up. Keep going. 💗
A great article, Madda. You are right, and often I forget the extra mental bandwidth that comes from closing some loops, tabs, and just clearing some space. It’s also very hard to let go of that comparison that we do, comparing ourselves to our younger selves, friends, or colleagues. But more often than not, it ends up doing more harm than good. Thank you for the prompts this week.