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Category 5

Doing something again when a feeling is in the way

How do I start doing things again when a feeling keeps getting in the way?

Updated 30 October 2026 · 8 min read

The short answer

You do not have to wait for a feeling to lift before you do something again. In a diary study of 53 college students, heavier days were followed by more putting things off. In short experiments with undergraduates and online US adults, kindness after a failure went with more motivation to improve. Pick one step that is yours.

If a feeling has stayed very heavy for a long time, or daily life has stopped working, a doctor or a therapist is worth reaching; after a death, one who works with grief. If you are thinking about not being alive, please reach someone now. The help box near the end of this page says how.

How a feeling gets in the way of a step

How it works

A bad feeling and a put-off step travel together. In a diary study of 53 college students over two weeks, days with stronger negative feelings were followed by more procrastination the next day. Putting things off did not predict any change in those feelings the next day. The design cannot show cause, and it tracked days, not hours.

Starting again is not a straight line, and it does not have to be. A disappointment, a breakup, a mistake or a loss brings the feeling of missing what mattered, and sometimes older feelings come with it. Daily life gives you somewhere to stand while you feel them. You do not have to finish one before you start the other.

Why small, wanted steps matter

Why it matters

Motivation that lasts comes from inside: from a step you want, not one you feel you owe. In three samples followed over time, people put more sustained effort into goals that fit their own interests and values.

A plan can carry a wanted step a little further. A large analysis of if-then plans (for example, "if I have had breakfast, then I walk") found a modest average effect on what people went on to do, and a small one after a bias correction. Effects were larger when people strongly wanted the goal, and when the plan linked a situation to a response rather than setting a schedule.

A plan can also change how a step feels. In a randomized trial with 81 undergraduates at one Chinese university, picturing a wished-for outcome and the obstacle in its way, then making an if-then plan for the obstacle, made academic tasks feel less unpleasant and raised willingness to start. It did both more than a positive-thinking exercise, and the effects held a week later.

Kindness after a miss is what gets you to try again. In short experiments with undergraduates and online US adults, people prompted to meet a failure, or a wrong they had done, with self-compassion were more motivated to improve and make amends than people in comparison conditions.

Four places starting again gets stuck

Where people get stuck

  1. Waiting to feel ready. There is no set time. A pause is not doing it wrong, and a step can start before the feeling lifts.
  2. A step that is too big, or not yours. Pick one you want. Effort lasted longer for goals that fit a person's own values, and plans worked better when people strongly wanted the goal.
  3. The fear that doing something means letting go. Moving again can feel like saying that what you lost did not matter. You can carry what mattered into what you do next.
  4. A step that did not happen. A miss can turn into a verdict on yourself. It is information about the step, not about you. Meet it with kindness, and pick a smaller one.

What studies of people after a death found

Why it matters

Staying connected to the person who died says more about carrying someone with you.

One model of coping with a death, the dual process model, describes movement between two kinds of task: facing the loss itself, and facing daily life and what has changed in it. At times a person turns toward each, and at times sets it aside, and the model counts time off from both as part of coping. It is a model, not a test of one.

After a death, you can carry the person with you into what you do next. A theory review proposed that whether keeping or letting go of a bond works better differs between people. Drawing on the remembered person as an inner base of support went with what the researchers measured as personal growth, in an online survey of 502 bereaved adults.

When getting started is worth taking to someone

If grief has stayed as heavy as the first weeks for a long time, or daily life has stopped working, take that to a doctor or a therapist who works with grief. Take any other feeling that has stayed that heavy to a doctor or a therapist too.

Behavioural activation is a therapy built around returning to activities a person values. In one feasibility trial with bereaved adults whose grief had stayed heavy, it went with what the authors report as large drops in grief, post-traumatic stress and depression symptoms, compared with people waiting to start. In a second trial, an online version guided by a therapist lowered grief, and its authors supported a different online treatment instead.

If you are thinking about not being alive, please reach someone now. The help box near the end of this page says how. For immediate danger, contact local emergency services.

A small step can carry the feeling

In my view

A hard feeling starts with something that mattered. A plan that fell through counts, and so does someone you loved who is gone. Feeling it is not time taken away from living. Sometimes a setback, a disappointment or a loss also stirs feelings we put away long ago so we could keep going. Whether the feeling is new or old, meeting it with kindness is how it stops running the show, and that is where real motivation comes from: not the push of "should", but the pull of something you want, once the old weight is not holding it down.

Doing something small again arrives in pieces, with the feeling along with it. A walk can have the disappointment, or the loss, in it. A feeling does not have to lift before a step is allowed, and there is no one right order.

Some days nothing wants to move. That is not failing. Feeling it can be the work of that day.

When a feeling is in the way of doing things, pick one step that is yours and small enough for this week, rather than a plan that belongs to someone else. If it does not happen, that is information about the step, not a verdict on you.

Own the step, meet the miss with kindness, take the next one.

That is what a healthy adult does, and a hard feeling, met with kindness, is one of the places a person learns it.

Where the research on starting again is thin

Where the research is thin, or disagrees

The step-taking studies are small or short. They include one diary study of 53 college students over two weeks, one trial of 81 undergraduates at one university with a one-week follow-up, and experiments measured within one sitting. The large analysis of if-then plans found only a small effect after a bias correction. The coping model, the bonds work and the activation trials are about people after a death, and the bonds work offers a model and one survey, not tests. The two activation trials were in grief that had stayed heavy, and in one of them more than half of those given the online version dropped out. No study here tests whether one small step, chosen near the end of a conversation about a feeling, makes any difference.

Noticing what comes before a step

One thing you might notice

If something small has been coming to mind, you might notice what is there just before you turn toward it, or away from it, and whether it has a word. Noticing is enough. Nothing has to follow from it. If noticing brings up more than you want right now, stop. That is fine too.

What a session does when a step wants to move

How Feelings Buddy fits

Feelings Buddy is built for working through feelings with self-compassion, toward self-acceptance and self-motivation. A hard feeling is the obstacle, not the destination.

A session is an AI working from written instructions, so it can get them wrong. Its instructions say to:

  • stay with the feeling first, and take "Nothing to do today, I felt it" as a complete answer;
  • never suggest a step and never praise one; the step is theirs, in their words.

There is no diagnosis, and a session carries nothing about risk into a later session. No one reads the conversation as it happens.

No study has tested Feelings Buddy. How a session works, step by step

Frequently asked questions

Is it avoidance to start doing things again?

No. Returning to things is part of working through a feeling, not a way around it. A break you come back from is different from steering around a feeling for a long time; if that is getting in the way of your life, a family doctor or a therapist can help you sort out what fits, and after a death, one who works with grief.

Can a plan help me follow through on a small step?

A plan helps a little, and most when the step is one you want. A large analysis of if-then plans found a modest effect on what people went on to do, and a small one after a bias correction, with larger effects when people strongly wanted the goal.

What if I make a plan and do not do it?

A missed step is not a verdict on you. Meet it with kindness and try a smaller one. In four experiments with undergraduates and online US adults, people prompted to meet a failure with self-compassion were more motivated to improve within that sitting than people in comparison conditions.

What if nothing wants to move yet?

Here is what I would tell you: then feeling it is the work of that day, and that is not failure.

If this is heavier than an article can hold. Some feelings need a person, not a page. If a feeling has stayed very heavy for a long time, if daily life has stopped working, or if you are thinking about not being alive, please reach someone now.

The crisis lines are at the foot of this page.

A family doctor or a therapist, and after a death one who works with grief, can help you work out what kind of support fits.

Further reading (10 sources)

The tier and grade after each source come from my own evidence file, not an independent panel. The note under each source gives the study details the article leaves out.

  1. Stroebe MS, Schut HAW (1999). The Dual Process Model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies 23(3), 197-224. DOI 10.1080/074811899201046. Tier 2, weak.

    Note: a model of coping with a death, not a test of it.

  2. Stroebe M, Schut H, Boerner K (2010). Continuing bonds in adaptation to bereavement: toward theoretical integration. Clinical Psychology Review 30(2), 259-268. DOI 10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.007. Tier 2, weak; abstract read.

    Note: a theory review with no new data.

  3. Field NP, Filanosky C (2010). Continuing bonds, risk factors for complicated grief, and adjustment to bereavement. Death Studies 34(1), 1-29. DOI 10.1080/07481180903372269. Tier 2, weak; abstract read.

    Note: a one-time online survey of 502 bereaved adults who volunteered.

  4. Papa A, Sewell MT, Garrison-Diehn C, Rummel C (2013). A randomized open trial assessing the feasibility of behavioral activation for pathological grief responding. Behavior Therapy 44(4). DOI 10.1016/j.beth.2013.04.009. Not yet graded in my evidence file; abstract read.

    Note: a feasibility trial against a delayed start, with bereaved adults who had enduring difficulties, over 12 to 14 sessions; my evidence file does not record the sample size.

  5. Eisma MC, Boelen PA, van den Bout J, Stroebe W, Schut HA, Lancee J, Stroebe MS (2015). Internet-based exposure and behavioral activation for complicated grief and rumination: a randomized controlled trial. Behavior Therapy 46(6). DOI 10.1016/j.beth.2015.05.007. Tier 2, weak; abstract read.

    Note: 47 bereaved adults with heavy grief and much going over the loss, across three arms (online exposure, online activation, waiting list); 59 percent of those given activation dropped out, against 33 percent for exposure.

  6. Sheeran P, Listrom O, Gollwitzer PM (2025). The when and how of planning: meta-analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. European Review of Social Psychology 36(1). DOI 10.1080/10463283.2024.2334563. Tier 1, moderate.

    Note: 642 tests pooled, with results that varied widely; one author introduced the technique.

  7. Sheldon KM, Elliot AJ (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: the self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(3). DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.482. Not yet graded in my evidence file; abstract read.

    Note: three samples followed over time.

  8. Breines JG, Chen S (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38(9), 1133-1143. DOI 10.1177/0146167212445599. Tier 2, moderate.

    Note: four short experiments, three with undergraduates and one with US adults online; self-compassion was prompted, not measured as a lasting trait; every outcome was measured within one sitting.

  9. Pollack S, Herres J (2020). Prior Day Negative Affect Influences Current Day Procrastination: A Lagged Daily Diary Analysis. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 33(2), 165-175. DOI 10.1080/10615806.2020.1722573. Tier 2, weak; abstract read.

    Note: 53 college students, weekday evenings over two weeks, as a secondary analysis; self-report only; correlational, and day-level lags cannot detect relief within hours of putting something off.

  10. Zhou X, Wider W, Wu H, Xu Y, Qin M, Borromeo AS (2026). Beyond positive thinking: A randomized trial of mental contrasting with implementation intentions to curb academic procrastination. Acta Psychologica 262, 106168. DOI 10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.106168. Tier 2, weak; abstract read.

    Note: 81 undergraduates at one private Chinese university, with a one-week follow-up; outcomes were attitudes toward tasks, not observed delay or finished work; the abstract gives no effect sizes.

Updated 2026-10-30.

Feelings Buddy is an AI-guided tool built for working through feelings, with self-compassion, toward self-acceptance and self-motivation. It is not therapy, not a crisis service and not medical or psychological advice, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. For adults 18 and over.