Unpacking The Block
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Clarke's questioning sequence for the moment someone says they want to make a change and then does not. Her claim is that the stated blockers — time and money — are almost always cover for a psychological barrier: a life script embedded from around age seven, plus an inner critic that is loud about what can and cannot be done. The method works by making the block specific enough to test. You name the automatic voice, pick one barrier, demand the evidence behind it, trace where you first heard that thought, and then interrogate the inner critic directly as either a muse or an opponent. The final turn is the one people avoid: examining the fear of success rather than the fear of failure.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Catch the automatic voice
When you move toward the change, notice exactly what comes up: I do not have the money, I do not know what I am doing, I have no connections, I will not be good enough. Write the sentence down in its own words.
- 2
Take one barrier and whittle it down
Do not attack all of them at once. Pick a single objection and break it into what would actually have to be true for it to hold.
Watch out Time and money are the two biggest excuses people reach for; treat them as suspects, not facts.
- 3
Demand the proof
Ask who says you are not good enough, and where the critique or the evidence for what you can and cannot do actually comes from. Often there is none. Where there is — a genuine skill gap — it converts into a concrete question about training, cost and willingness.
- 4
Trace the origin of the thought
Ask where you first heard that thought. This locates where the narrative was internalised, what you were seeing that cultivated the mindset, and separates an inherited script from your own assessment.
- 5
Interview the inner critic
Hold a direct conversation with it and establish which it is: a muse that sharpens you, or something dead set against you doing this thing. Naming which one changes how much authority it gets.
- 6
Flip to the fear of success
Ask what happens if this is a mega success. How might it change you, move you out of your current comfort zone or realm, and change how people perceive you? Unexamined, this fear keeps people deliberately paddling below their level.
Pro tip This is the question Clarke says gets the biggest rise out of clients.
- 7
Check you actually want it
Before building a plan, ask whether the thing needs to become work at all. Monetising a hobby can remove the joy that made it valuable — sometimes the honest answer is that it stays a hobby.
In the wild
At a team retreat in Wales, Ali asked people what they would do if they did not have to work. One team member said she would explore singing — she already makes videos and streams. He asked what was stopping her; she said she did not have time alongside a day job. He offered to drop her to three days a week and asked again. At that point the objection stopped being practical: there was an emotional block at the threshold of actually following the thing. Time was never the barrier, which is exactly what Clarke's sequence is designed to expose.
→ The stated blocker collapsed under one follow-up question, revealing the real one.
Clarke pushes the question one step further than most coaching does: does this hobby need to turn into something you monetise? Someone might be genuinely good at singing and, on inspection, want it to stay exactly where it is. Running the block sequence and finding no fear at all — just a preference for keeping the thing unmonetised — is a legitimate result rather than a failure to break through.
→ A clear decision to keep the passion as a hobby, with no residual guilt about not pursuing it.
Common mistakes
Accepting time or money as the real reason
These are the two default excuses. Removing them, as Ali did by offering part-time hours, usually reveals a psychological barrier that was there the whole time.
Prepping and planning instead of starting
Perfectionism disguises itself as diligence. People spend all their time on preparation and none on action, because starting is where the exposure is.
Only examining the fear of failure
The unexamined fear of success — of changing, of being perceived differently — is what keeps people capping themselves just below their real level.
From the transcript
“barrier that there's the inner critic that's really loud about what can and can't be done and generally we use time or money those are…”
“well who says i'm not good enough like where is there the critique or the the proof that states what i can and can't do”
“and i think oftentimes what we don't talk about enough is that fear of success”
From the episode
How To Design Your Career For Happiness - Samantha Clarke
Samantha Clarke