What If I’ve Tried Coaching or Self-Help Before and It Didn’t Stick?

AT A GLANCE: What If I’ve Tried Before and It Didn’t Stick?

• Change happens through a cycle of trying, reflecting and adjusting, not in one pass of a book, course or programme (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983).

• Habit research shows new habits typically take closer to two months to feel automatic, often longer than most courses or programmes run (Lally et al., 2010).

• Repeated attempts, even ones that don’t fully work, build the self-belief that makes trying again easier (Bandura, 1977).

• Responding to a setback with self-compassion, rather than self-criticism, is linked to more motivation to try again, not less (Breines & Chen, 2012).

• The Women’s Wellbeing Lab meets you at the point of starting again, not starting over, with tools you can adapt to your own life.

In This Article

1. Why Earlier Attempts Often Don’t Last

2. What Didn’t Work Before Is Useful Information

3. The Guilt of Putting Yourself First

4. Starting Again in the Women’s Wellbeing Lab

Books end. Courses finish. Most programmes run for a set number of weeks, then stop. If something you tried before didn’t stick, it’s easy to decide that’s about you: not disciplined enough, not committed enough, not suited to this kind of thing. Research into how people actually change shows something different.

Change doesn’t happen in one attempt. The Change Cycle (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983) describes relapse, going back to an earlier stage after taking action, as a normal, expected part of changing a behaviour. It isn’t a return to the start. Most people who relapse are still aware there’s something they want to change. They’re ready to try a different way of doing it.

There’s often a second part to this too. Someone else says a programme worked for them. A coach or trainer says do this and you’ll get that result. When it doesn’t happen the same way for you, it’s easy to decide the problem is you, rather than the method, or the fact that one approach doesn’t fit everyone the same way. That belief carries a cost: frustration, and often less self-compassion right when it would help most.

Why Earlier Attempts Often Don’t Last

Change happens through a cycle: try something, see what’s working and what isn’t, adjust it, then try again. Prochaska and DiClemente’s Change Cycle (1983) describes this directly: moving back to an earlier stage after taking action is part of the pattern, not outside it. A book, course or programme doesn’t carry you through more than one pass of that cycle. A book ends at its final page. A course ends after its last session. A programme ends on its set number of weeks.

Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts and Wardle (2010) tracked how long it took people to make a new daily behaviour feel automatic, and found a median of 66 days, with results ranging from 18 to 254 days depending on the habit. A programme that runs for a few weeks often ends before that process is even halfway through.

There’s a second reason a single pass isn’t enough. A review of 317 experiments on retention found that returning to something periodically produces better results than taking it in once (Cepeda et al., 2006). A course worked through and then set aside doesn’t build that return in. Ideas fading afterward reflects how memory works, not whether the approach fit.

If what got in the way last time was simply never having enough time to begin with, What If I Don’t Have Enough Time for My Own Wellbeing? looks at that specific barrier directly.

What Didn’t Work Before Is Useful Information

If a wellbeing activity, mindset or tool didn’t become routine last time, or didn’t produce the outcome you wanted, that’s useful information. It tells you something about timing, format, or the kind of support you had around you, not something about your character.

Repeated attempts build self-efficacy, confidence in your own ability to follow something through, even when an attempt doesn’t fully succeed (Bandura, 1977). Each attempt adds information you didn’t have before: what felt achievable, what didn’t fit, what needs to change next time. That information only exists because you tried.

How you respond to an attempt not working also shapes whether you try again. Breines and Chen (2012) found that people who responded to a setback with self-compassion, rather than self-criticism, spent more time preparing for a second attempt at a difficult test, and showed more motivation to improve across several further experiments in the same research. Responding to yourself with self-compassion after something doesn’t work is linked to trying again more, not less.

The Guilt of Putting Yourself First

For many women, there’s a second layer underneath “it didn’t stick”: guilt about giving time to it in the first place. UK data shows women do an average of 26 hours of unpaid work a week, compared with 16 hours for men (ONS, 2016), more than double the share on cooking, childcare and housework specifically. Against that backdrop, setting aside time for your own wellbeing can feel like it’s taking something away from everyone else, rather than being time you’re allowed to have.

You might recognise a thought like “it’s not bad enough to need this.” That’s not a reason to wait. Wanting to improve your wellbeing is enough of a reason to start.

The Pause Practice includes a guided activity to help you name that guilt and begin to question it, rather than let it decide for you whether you’re allowed to start.

Starting Again in the Women’s Wellbeing Lab

The Women’s Wellbeing Lab is designed around that same cycle: it meets you at the point of starting again, not starting over. Rather than giving you one fixed path to follow, it gives you evidence-based tools and coaching activities you can adapt to how your own life actually works, so a different approach this time doesn’t mean abandoning what you’ve already learned about yourself.

There’s no programme position to fall behind on, so coming back to it, whenever that is, doesn’t mean starting again from zero, and changing levels as life changes is expected rather than a sign anything went off track.

At Connect & Reflect, missing a Monthly Reflection Session doesn’t mean missing out on it: your wellbeing area is still included in that month’s recap video, and a follow-up email brings you the relevant resources, so you can work through them in your own time.

At Guided Growth, you book your monthly 1:1 session for whenever works for you, and you can change it if your plans shift. The accountability and support continue either way, through email check-ins and your self-paced access to the Lab’s resources, no matter how life shifts.

The Lab’s own framework, Pause, Clarity, Action, Experiment and Evolve, follows that same cycle directly: pausing to notice what’s happening, gaining clarity on what you actually need, taking action, experimenting with how you try it, and evolving your approach based on what you learn, rather than committing to one fixed plan from the start.

It’s designed not to need a full programme restart, or a fresh streak, every time life gets in the way. If what’s actually getting in the way is wanting to wait until things feel bad enough first, Support Doesn’t Have to Wait Until Things Get Worse looks at that directly, and if it’s wanting space to reflect without sharing it in a group, What If I’d Rather Not Share in a Group? covers that.

Starting Again Doesn’t Mean Starting From Zero

The Women’s Wellbeing Lab gives you evidence-based tools and coaching support you can adapt to your own life, with no fixed programme to keep up with and nothing to fall behind on if things shift again. Start with a 7-day free trial.

Start with Essentials Today

If something feels like it just won’t stick, that isn’t a full conclusion about your discipline, motivation or dedication. It’s an indication that the plan wasn’t yet the final version, the one that actually works for your real life. The guilt that often sits alongside it follows the same pattern: wanting to put time toward your own wellbeing isn’t something to justify first. If you’re ready to try again, there’s no programme position to pick up from, and no fixed pace to match. You start from wherever you are, with whatever you’ve already learned about what fits.

FAQs: What If I’ve Tried Before and It Didn’t Stick?

How do I know it will be different this time?

It might not be the same programme, but what actually helps, flexible timing, support that fits around your life, and self-compassion rather than self-criticism, is the same either way. The Women’s Wellbeing Lab is shaped around exactly that evidence, rather than a fixed schedule to keep up with.

What if I stop using it after a few weeks?

Nothing happens to your membership or your progress. There’s no programme position to fall behind on, so coming back later picks up from wherever you left things, not from the start.

Is it selfish to make time for my own wellbeing?

No. UK data shows women already do significantly more unpaid work each week than men (ONS, 2016), which makes time for your own wellbeing something you’re owed, not something extra you’re taking. Wanting to improve your wellbeing is enough of a reason to start.

What if I don’t know why it didn’t work before?

That’s common, and you don’t need to know exactly why before trying again. Timing, format and the level of support available all play a part, and you can change any of those this time without first having to work out exactly what was different before.

Can I try something free first?

Yes. The Pause Practice is a free, 10-minute activity you can start straight away, with no account needed, a good place to begin before deciding on anything else.

How is this different from a course or programme I’ve already done?

Every course and coaching programme works differently. How the Women’s Wellbeing Lab Compares to Apps and Coaching Programmes goes through the specifics.

Resources

• Prochaska, J. O., & DiClemente, C. C. (1983). Stages and processes of self-change of smoking: Toward an integrative model of change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 51(3), 390–395. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.51.3.390

• Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674

• Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

• Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599

• Office for National Statistics. (2016, 10 November). Women shoulder the responsibility of ‘unpaid work’. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/womenshouldertheresponsibilityofunpaidwork/2016-11-10