67. The Crab Pot Effect: Why People Try to Pull You Back When You're Making Progress

You finally make the big move: quit the job, start the clinic, change everything.

You’re excited, relieved, maybe even a little smug.

And then…the opinions arrive.

Suddenly the people around you are questioning the plan, pointing out the risks, and making you wonder whether you’ve lost your mind.

You probably haven’t. But you may be dealing with a classic case of crabs in a pot: people pulling you back down just as you start climbing out.

So how do you know whose feedback to listen to, and whose fear to leave behind?

Why people get weird when you make a big move

When you decide to leave a job, open your own clinic, change your business model, or make some other meaningful move toward more freedom, your decision doesn’t happen in a vacuum. 

The people around you have their own feelings about it, and sometimes those feelings show up as unsolicited advice, loaded questions, dire predictions, or a sudden enthusiasm for pointing out every possible way your plan could fail.

That reaction can be especially disorienting when it comes from someone who has always supported you. You were feeling solid about your decision, and now their doubts are bouncing around in your head, slowly turning into your doubts.

Before you let that happen, it helps to ask one question: 

Where is this resistance actually coming from?

Two kinds of pushback

Most of the resistance you encounter will fall into one of two broad categories: people who are worried because they genuinely care about you, and people whose reaction is driven primarily by their own fear, discomfort, or self-interest.

The first group deserves your attention. Someone who loves you may see a risk you’ve overlooked, or they may simply be scared because they care deeply about what happens to you. You don’t have to agree with everything they say, but there may be something useful in the conversation.

The second group is the feedback you need to be much more careful with, because it may have very little to do with what’s actually best for you.

Your decision might force a colleague to confront the fact that they’ve dreamed about leaving too, but haven’t. Someone may struggle to understand why you’d walk away from the security or prestige they value so highly. Your departure might mean more work, less money, or some other inconvenience for another person.

Their reaction can sound a lot like helpful feedback:

• How are you going to find patients?
• Are you sure you can make enough money?
• Why would you give up a job like this?
• Have you really thought this through?

But when the resistance is coming from that place, you don’t need to absorb it as useful feedback. Their fear, jealousy, discomfort, or self-interest can sound persuasive, especially when it comes wrapped in concern, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to shape your decision

Welcome to the crab pot

There’s an old metaphor that captures this dynamic perfectly.

Imagine a pot full of crabs, all trying to climb out. As soon as one crab gets high enough to make some progress, the crabs underneath grab onto it and pull it back down. Everyone wants out, yet their scrambling keeps anyone from actually escaping.

People can behave in surprisingly similar ways.

Your decision to pursue something different can hold up a mirror to the people around you. If you can leave the prestigious job, maybe they could too. If you can build your own clinic, maybe the thing they’ve been telling themselves is impossible isn’t quite so impossible. If you can choose more freedom, they may have to think about the compromises they’ve made in their own lives.

That can be uncomfortable, and sometimes the easiest response to that discomfort is to reach up and pull the other crab back down.

Don’t automatically adopt someone else’s fear

When resistance starts coming your way, your job is to get curious about where it’s coming from before you give it space in your head.

Ask yourself:

• Does this person genuinely have my best interests at heart?
• Is there something useful or specific in what they’re telling me?
• What does my decision mean for them?
• Could their reaction be connected to their own fears, values, or circumstances?
• Would I have wanted this person’s advice before they offered it?

There will also be people who fall somewhere in the middle. A spouse, for example, can love you fiercely and still have very real fears about what your decision could mean for your shared finances, lifestyle, or responsibilities. Those conversations deserve more nuance because their wellbeing may genuinely be connected to the outcome of your decision.

I’m not telling you to dismiss everyone who questions you. But it is important to become much more discerning about whose feedback gets a vote.

Keep climbing

When someone’s resistance is rooted in their own fear or self-preservation, giving their feedback too much weight can keep you exactly where you are. The status quo feels safer to them, and if you absorb enough of their anxiety, it can start feeling safer to you too.

Keep moving.

As you build the business, career, and life you actually want, you also become an example of what’s possible. Sometimes the same people who questioned your decision at the beginning will watch what happens, see you create something that gives you more freedom, calm, creativity, and joy, and eventually start asking how you did it.

So the next time the opinions arrive, listen carefully… but also pay attention to where they’re coming from.

Some feedback deserves a conversation, and some deserves a polite nod.

Too many voices in your head about what you “should” do next?

Book a free discovery call,and we’ll sort through the noise together: what you actually want, what’s holding you back, and which advice is worth listening to.

You’ll leave with more clarity, a sharper sense of direction, and a better idea of what to focus on next.