This quote by Carl Jung explains why you can feel stuck, tired, or uninspired — and how neuroscience and small daily choices help you flip the script.
Ever feel like you’re doing everything right? Eating well, setting goals, trying to stay positive? But still end up tired, unmotivated, or stuck in the same emotional loops?
There’s a reason. And it’s not laziness, weakness, or lack of ambition. It’s wiring.
Your brain is brilliant at one thing: survival. Not happiness. Not freedom. Not self-expression. Just keeping you alive using as little energy as possible.
What drains that energy?
- Too many choices
- Too many unchecked thoughts
- Too many unconscious patterns running the show
Let’s break that down.
1. Choice Overload = Brain Fatigue
Every decision costs you mental energy. From what to eat to what to wear to how to respond to that message. Tara Swart, neuroscientist and leadership coach, explains that your brain runs on glucose and oxygen. Each micro-decision uses up that fuel.
By the end of the day, your brain is running low. That’s why you scroll, snap, snack, or second-guess yourself. Not because you lack discipline, but because your prefrontal cortex is tired.
The solution isn’t to try harder. It’s to reduce unnecessary decisions. Simplify to preserve power.
Create structure. Eat similar meals. Decide once and stick to it. You’re not boring, you’re efficient. You’re saving your best brainpower for what matters most: connection, focus, creativity.
2. What You Focus On, You Filter For
Dr. Tara Swart explains how your Reticular Activating System acts like a filter in your brainstem. It lets in what it believes is important. And what feels important? The thoughts and emotions you keep repeating.
If you often think “people don’t get me” or “things never work out,” your brain will start filtering for evidence of that. Even when something good happens, you might not notice it. Your brain sees what it expects to see.
This isn’t personal. It’s protective.
Swart says, “The brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality.” Which means you can retrain your filter.
Visualising what you want, while feeling the emotion of it being true, changes what your brain thinks is important. It starts registering support, opportunity, ease.
You don’t need to fake it. But you do need to feed your brain new images and expectations. Over time, that becomes your new reality.
3. Jung: Your Fate Is Just Your Unconscious in Action
Carl Jung once said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Most of our daily thoughts, reactions, and choices are not conscious. They come from old stories, past experiences, inherited beliefs. If you never stop to examine them, they keep running your life.
You might keep choosing the same kind of relationships. Keep sabotaging your own success. Keep attracting situations that match your deepest fears.
Not because you’re doomed. But because the unconscious is trying to keep you in the familiar.
Your nervous system doesn’t care if something is healthy. It cares if it’s known.
But the moment you shine a light on those hidden patterns, they lose their grip. You begin to choose differently. You begin to respond instead of react.
So What Can You Do?
1. Simplify your life.
Cut down decisions. Build daily rituals. Clear mental space.
2. Question the loop.
When a negative thought comes up, pause. Ask: Does this belief support the person I want to become? Or: What if the opposite was true?
3. Visualise your future.
Feel what it’s like to be the version of you who already lives with ease, clarity, or power. Do it often. The brain changes through repetition and emotion.
4. Get curious, not judgmental.
Instead of blaming yourself for triggers or patterns, ask: What is this showing me about what I believe under the surface?
You don’t need to fix yourself.
You need to free yourself.
Free yourself from the noise of choices that don’t matter.
Free yourself from thought patterns that aren’t true.
Free yourself from unconscious beliefs that were never yours to begin with.
Your fate isn’t fixed. It’s filtered. And you get to change the lens.
Would you like support in this process? Just contact me!
Bianca Kersten