Why "Just Stay Motivated" Is BS: The Science of Actually Achieving A Goal
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Release Date: 01/07/2026
Better Than Confident - The 3 H's
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Confidence has become the thing everyone's waiting for to deliver their 'dream' life. Once I'm more confident, I'll launch it. Once I'm more confident, I'll speak up. Once I'm more confident, I'll apply, I'll move, I'll ask. And so we wait... Here's the problem with confidence - it's fragile. It goes up when things go well and falls flat the second they don't. Which means the one time you need it most is the exact moment it abandons you. In this episode I'm sharing three qualities I think are wildly underrated - and far better to build your life on than confidence. They're not feelings you...
info_outline
Why Being Wrong Helps You Get More Out of Life
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Confidence is overrated — and honestly, it's a trap. "Once I feel more confident, then I'll…" But how do you actually get confident? By doing the thing. Which means waiting to feel confident before you start is a loop with no exit. In this episode, Kate makes the case for three qualities that beat confidence - because unlike confidence, you don't have to wait to earn them first. One takes your worth off the table so you can risk the outcome. One is what gets you through it going badly. And one is the uncomfortable one that tells you whether you're chasing the right thing at all. Three...
info_outline
Get Good at Feeling Anxious (The Most Underrated Life Skill)
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Nobody teaches you how to feel anxious. They teach you how to make it stop. And that's the problem — because most of us aren't actually struggling with anxiety. We're struggling with our resistance to it. This isn't another anxiety toolkit. I've done the breathing episodes, and all of that still stands. These are the few things I actually use on myself and with my coaching clients that I rarely hear anyone talk about. Inside this episode: Why the answer isn't more positivity — and why your brain knows when you're lying to it. Why your body on a treadmill and your body mid-spiral are doing...
info_outline
Stuck Between Two Choices? Why Hardest Decisions Often Matter The Least
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
If you're the kind of person who can spend a week deciding which restaurant to choose or what colour to paint your nails — this one's for you. I'm tight on time this week, so this is a short, punchy one. But it's built around something one of my coaches said that completely flipped how I think about indecision — a single line that turns the usual story about why decisions feel so hard on its head. (It's the opposite of what you'd assume.) I get into why the decisions that torture you the most are often the ones that matter the least, the three questions to run before you flip a coin, and a...
info_outline
You're Not Undisciplined. You're Unfenced. (How to Stop Almost-Starting)
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
I nearly fell off the reformer. I was mid-Pilates class listening to David Epstein on Modern Wisdom when he said something so back to front I had to hear it twice: if you want to be more creative, don't give yourself more freedom. Give yourself fewer options. And then he explained why - and it cracked open something I've been teaching for years without ever having the words for it. So I went down a rabbit hole. If that's true, what else is? What else are we doing, with completely good intentions, that's quietly the very thing keeping us stuck? I found three things. They sound wrong. They...
info_outline
Are You Falling for One of These 7 Excuses? (Spoiler: They're All Fear)
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
"I don't have time." "I'm just being realistic." "Now's not the right time." "Who am I to do that?" Here's the uncomfortable truth: every one of those is fear wearing a disguise. Fear rarely shows up with a name tag. It dresses itself up as busyness, as being realistic, as gratitude, as "that's just not me" - sneaky little excuses that sound so responsible you never think to question them. And so it quietly runs the show — picking what you say yes to, what you talk yourself out of, and how small you let yourself stay. In this episode, I hold up the most common excuses I hear from my...
info_outline
Why Being Bad At It Means You're Doing It Right
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
You had the idea. You were buzzing. "I'm going to launch the podcast / become a speaker / learn Spanish / finally chase the thing." Then you actually went and tried it - and felt like absolute rubbish at it. I know that feeling intimately. I once gave a resilience talk so badly that I sat in my car afterwards and bawled my eyes out, thinking who am I to be doing this? I'm not cut out for it. Turns out, I was just bang in the middle of a stage that every single person moves through when they go after a goal or learn a new skill. There are four of them - and one in particular is where...
info_outline
When Life Feels Out of Your Control, Ask This
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Some seasons of life just happen to you. The trip gets cancelled. The diagnosis lands. The person you love is suddenly gone - and none of it is fair, and none of it is yours to fix. That feeling - like life is happening to you and you've got no say in it - is, to me, the worst feeling of all. So this week I'm sharing one question I've reached for in my hardest, loneliest, most unfair moments. From my first year in America, crying in an empty apartment, through losing my sister - and through this past year, losing Mum. It's not "stay positive." It's not a silver lining. It's something...
info_outline
When I Thought I Was Going to Get Kicked Out of the Country (a "what if" vs "what is" story)
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
For a few weeks earlier this year, I was convinced I was about to lose everything I'd built here in the US — and have to start my whole life over on the other side of the world. This episode is about what happened in my head during those weeks — and the one shift that pulled me back out. I'm getting into why our brains bolt straight to the worst-case scenario (it's not a flaw — it's your brain trying to protect you), why rehearsing the disaster can quietly make it more likely instead of less, and the simple question I kept having to come back to when the what-ifs were at their...
info_outline
What Most People Get Wrong About Confidence
Okay, Now What? - With Kate Gladdin
Have you ever told yourself you'll go for the promotion, post the thing, start the business, or finally put yourself out there... once you feel confident enough? This episode is your gentle wake-up call. I'll be honest with you, this past week was a heartbreaking one. I open up about the sentencing in my mum's case and why I went quiet for a bit. But I also share a conversation I had with a CEO that completely flipped the script on how I talk about confidence, and how most of us think about it. If you've been waiting to feel ready before you take the leap, you're not lazy and you're not...
info_outlineYou're three weeks into your goal. The excitement's worn off. You're questioning everything. Your brain is screaming at you to quit.
And then someone tells you to "just stay motivated."
Here's the truth: motivation doesn't last. It's not supposed to. And the reason you keep quitting your goals has nothing to do with willpower, laziness, or not wanting it badly enough.
There are five predictable emotional stages every single person goes through when making real change—and most people quit at Stage 3 because no one told them it was coming.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- Why that initial excitement is designed to fade (and what happens when reality hits in Stage 2)
- The Valley of Despair—where dreams go to die and your only job is to not quit
- How to recognize when your brain is throwing a tantrum versus when something's actually wrong
- Why the struggle isn't evidence you're failing—it's evidence you're growing
- The one mindset shift that changes everything: seeing discomfort as proof it's working, not breaking
Here's what nobody tells you: every successful person you admire has stood exactly where you're standing right now—in the messy middle, doubting everything, wanting to quit. The difference isn't that they didn't experience the Valley of Despair. It's that they expected it, prepared for it, and pushed through it.
This episode gives you the framework to do the same. Whether you're building a fitness routine, launching a side hustle, or finally going after that goal you've been putting off—understanding these five stages will change how you approach change forever.
Because once you know Stage 3 is coming, you stop using it as a reason to quit.
Ready to stop quitting on yourself? If you're in Stage 2 or 3 right now and need someone to help you push through (not just give you another pep talk), I've got limited one-on-one coaching consult spots available each week. Visit https://www.kategladdin.com/coaching to book your call.
Remember: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.