Why ‘Try Harder’ Fails: When Behaviour Change Isn’t Enough
“If only I tried harder…” — how many leaders have whispered that to themselves in the quiet after a long day? Willpower has become the default prescription for performance gaps. Do more, push further, add another behaviour to the list. But if trying harder really worked, every leadership manual would have solved it years ago.
The truth is that behaviour sits on top of something deeper. Under pressure, we don’t operate from conscious choice — we operate from nervous system patterns set long ago. Which is why the best intentions, the new habits, the coaching advice, can all collapse in the heat of the moment.
The harder we try to override these patterns, the more strain we add. And soon the cycle is not just exhausting, but demoralising.
The problem with behaviour-first models
Most leadership development assumes new behaviours create new results: speak up more, step back more, manage time differently, apply a new framework. These can help in the short term, but they rarely hold under pressure.
Why? Because when stress spikes, the nervous system pulls leaders back to its default setting. Old loops run: overthinking, over-explaining, avoiding conflict, or doubling down with force. The behaviours you practised in coaching fall away.
The nervous system underneath
The nervous system drives responses before conscious thought has time to intervene. A flash of self-doubt or a surge of defensiveness isn’t a lack of skill — it’s a conditioned response firing faster than strategy can.
This explains why many high-performing women feel stuck in repeat patterns. Despite all their skill, knowledge, and effort, they find themselves caught in loops they can’t think their way out of.
How “trying harder” backfires
When the pattern resurfaces, the instinct is to double down: try harder, add more effort, grit through. But this only compounds the problem. Effort amplifies stress, making the nervous system even more reactive.
Soon it’s not just the pattern itself that’s draining — it’s the shame of “failing” to change it. Leaders end up blaming themselves rather than the model that set them up to fail.
The alternative: reset the source
Real change comes from resetting the baseline. Integrative EMDR doesn’t add new behaviours on top — it works at the level of the nervous system. By reprocessing the imprints that fuel reactivity, it removes the trigger itself.
This frees leaders from the need to self-correct constantly. Change stops being a battle of willpower and becomes a natural way of being.
When the baseline shifts
With a reset nervous system, the strategies and behaviours you’ve learned don’t vanish under pressure — they become effortless. The energy once spent on resisting old patterns is released for clearer thinking, steadier presence, and authentic authority.
Leadership stops being an act of strain, and starts feeling like alignment.
Closing thought
Leaders don’t fail because they lack willpower. They stumble because their nervous system pulls them back to an old set-point. Trying harder only tightens the loop. Real transformation comes from resetting that baseline — so the behaviours you want flow naturally, without constant self-correction.
The Leading Edge Reset makes that reset possible. Not therapy, not surface tactics — but a deeper recalibration that lasts.
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