4 Science-Backed Drivers to Rebuild Motivation and Confidence When Feeling Stuck
How to Rebuild Momentum When Life Feels Out of Control: The 4 Drivers of Agency
Feeling stuck, uninspired, or like life is just happening around you?
You’re not alone. Between the pandemic, natural disasters, political chaos, and the general uncertainty that seems to hover like unwelcome background noise. This is especially true as creative and holistic entrepreneurs. Many of us have quietly lost our sense of agency—the inner belief that you can shape your future through your own actions.
I first heard about the 4 drivers of agency on The Mel Robbins Podcast with psychologist Angela Duckworth, and it stopped me in my tracks. This is exactly what coaching does, and why it’s one of the most powerful resources during seasons of transition, growth, or uncertainty.
Psychologist Albert Bandura—a Stanford legend and the father of social learning theory—studied this deeply. He called it self-efficacy, which is just a fancy way of saying:
“I can do this if I try.”
That simple belief is the fuel for everything—creativity, confidence, resilience, and hope. Without this self-efficacy, we freeze.
(If you’ve read my post on Freeze State you know exactly what I mean—when your nervous system shuts down, even the smallest step forward feels impossible, but it is also the step forward.)
Over the past few years, I’ve had to consciously practice these drivers myself. Between the uncertainty of COVID, witnessing Hurricane Helene’s devastation, political chaos, and almost constant travel (50+ times in 2 years!), I found myself needing to rebuild momentum again and again. Every time I land somewhere new, I reset and boost myself—from organizing sticky notes to finding the perfect ergonomics for my workspace. What keeps me inspired and creative isn’t perfection or discipline—it’s returning to what Bandura identified as the four drivers of agency.
Agency is that inner switch that flips on when you remember you’re not powerless.
When I first heard these four drivers, I thought:
“This is exactly what coaching does.”
Coaching—especially when mixed with mentorship and consulting—systematically rebuilds these four elements so you can navigate change with clarity and confidence. I’ve seen it transform people’s capacity to move forward, including my own.
Coaching helps you rebuild momentum by fueling your body, belief, examples, and small wins—exactly what Bandura found humans need to move forward in these drivers of agency.
The Science Behind the 4 Drivers of Agency
Understanding the drivers of agency can help creative entrepreneurs regain motivation and creative momentum.
1. Physiological Well-Being: Your Body Sets the Tone
This first one is the foundation—your body has to be on board for your mind to follow. You can’t feel in charge of your life if your body’s running on fumes. Fatigue, stress, poor sleep, hormonal shifts (without support), and burnout hijack your nervous system and convince your brain that everything is a threat. When your system is fried, agency goes offline. Burnout recovery is key.
Practice: Rest. Hydrate. Move your body. Simplify your inputs. You’re not weak for needing recovery—you’re human. Get holistic, medical, or mental health support where you need it.
How coaching helps: Most people think they need a new business plan when what they really need is a nervous system reset. Coaching helps you create structures that support energy, not drain it—so you operate from clarity instead of survival. For one client, she was ready for change but needed to upgrade her boundaries and prioritize self-care. Coaching helped her do both.
2. Verbal Persuasion: Borrowing Belief
Even the most capable humans lose trust and faith sometimes. That’s where the right words from the right person make a real impact. When someone genuinely believes in you—and reflects your strength back—you activate new possibilities in your brain. It’s not “rah-rah” fluff; it’s neurobiology.
Practice: Surround yourself with people who speak to your potential, not your limitations. And if that’s hard to find, start being that voice for yourself and cultivate a new circle of community.
How coaching helps: Coaching is structured encouragement with substance. From the first session, you gain confidence in your vision, your gifts, your resources, and your next steps. My 90-minute Visioning & Strategy intake, which starts every coaching package, helps you clarify your next direction faster than months of overthinking ever could. For one client, after she clarified her vision, this meant not just receiving support in sessions, but building acknowledgement and structure into other professional relationships as well.
3. Modeling: Seeing What’s Possible
We need to see possibility before we can create it. When you see someone who’s done what you’re trying to do—especially if their values and energy feel aligned—you start to think, “Oh, maybe I can do that too.” Stories of people who’ve rebuilt businesses, created freedom after burnout, or started ventures you aspire to create help turn doubt into possibility.
Practice: Follow examples that expand you, not ones that make you feel behind(common on social media). Study and connect with people and businesses who’ve built what you want in a way that feels true to you. Access mentors and learn from their journey.
How coaching helps: Coaching gives you live examples of clarity, boundaries, and aligned strategy. You get to see—and then experience—how freedom, flow, and prosperity can coexist on your terms. One client interviewed successful artists to overcome her “starving artist” belief and built confidence to take bold steps in her own work.
4. Mastery Experiences: Small Wins Create Big Shifts
This is the most powerful driver of all. Small wins rebuild hope. Every single time.
When you experience a tiny success—writing the first sentence, sending an invoice, making a call—you create proof: I can do this if I try. This is also key for moving out of “freeze state.”
Practice: Break tasks into micro-steps. Don’t aim for the finish line when frozen—just open the Google Doc. Make the call. Clean the desk. Close any small loops you can control. For me, this often looks like bookkeeping, organizing, or recycling content for social media.
How coaching helps: Coaching turns overwhelm into structure. Every small win is celebrated and built upon until confidence becomes natural. Over months of sessions, clients move from low to high momentum and feel capable of taking bold action. One client described it as a “shot in the arm” because she would leave sessions energized and ready to act.
Why These Drivers of Agency Matters Now
The world has been throwing curve-balls like it’s on commission. It’s easy to lose momentum, go into freeze, or drift into hopelessness. But hope isn’t a personality trait—it’s something we rebuild through these four drivers: body, encouragement, examples, and small wins.
That’s the work I do with clients. Coaching isn’t about pushing harder; it’s about helping your build these drivers of agency so you can move forward with clarity, groundedness, and energy to rebuild momentum.
Your next step: Start with one small win today. What’s one thing you can do right now to nurture your 4 drivers of agency?
If that one thing is exploring coaching, book a call. If you feel too burned out even for that, take this quiz to figure out your next step.
