We can all get stuck in life from time to time, and some of us can stay in a continuous loop of not moving forward. Living in this space can leave us feeling completely helpless and totally disempowered. It is not a good feeling when we are stuck and not moving forward because as humans we feel fulfilled when we see progress in our lives. No progress can leave us feeling stagnant, unmotivated and uninspired which then can compound that feeling of being stuck.
That’s why it is so important that when we get stuck, we can get ourselves out of it and get moving again as quickly as possible. Here’s 5 tips on how to get unstuck and get back on track again.
#1 Know That You DO Have Choices
Often when we are feeling disempowered and stuck in life, or stuck in a particular area of life, we forget that we have choices. We actually always have a lot of choices in what we can do in any situation but often we lose sight of that because we are focusing on all the problems that are around us instead of the solutions. Start to look at the situation with a new perspective and ask… “What choices do I have here?” “What can I do to help the situation?”
Take a strained relationship for instance… if our marriage or relationship with our partner isn’t working and we’ve already tried a number of things to sort it out then we can give up and accept that life is going to be miserable moving forward. Or we can look at the choices that we have… because there are always more choices than we think…
We could obviously walk away and leave the relationship, we can also stay and accept that the relationship is crappy and live in misery, we could equally start having calm, open conversations about what is and isn’t working in the relationship with our partner, we could go to couples counselling and get some help from an expert, we could take our partner on a romantic weekend away to re-spark the romance, we could start helping our partner out more around the house so that they don’ t feel so stressed, we could have deep and meaningful conversations every night instead of watching TV, we could start exercising together, we could do something together that we used to love doing together but we never do anymore, we could add more playfulness and laughter back into the relationship… there are SO many choices!
Now, it isn’t necessarily going to be that you do one thing and that will fix everything, but knowing that you have more choices of what you could do to get this moving in your life again can help you to get unstuck. So if you are feeling stuck, what choices do you have? What are 3 steps that you could take to get you moving forward again?
#2 Take Responsibility
Now this is a biggie, but also the most confronting. The reason you want to take it seriously though is because it is also the thing that will get you unstuck the fastest! You see usually when we are feeling stuck, we are also feeling helpless and we have given our power away. We are blaming and justifying the situation that we are in on external factors… our partner, the government, our clients or our boss, our family or friends, the system, other people, and we can feel that the situation is out of our control to fix.
When we blame or justify our situation of why we are stuck, then we give all our power and control over to them, and from that place it is hard to move forward and get unstuck! Now this doesn’t mean that we are necessarily at fault for something, but we can take responsibility for our part that we play in it.
Let me give you a few examples… a couple of months back, one of our cars was parked outside our kids school while I had a meeting with my daughter’s teachers. Unbeknown to me, during the meeting someone crashed into our parked car and when I came out from the 2 hour meeting I found our car smashed up with bits scattered all over the road. Now obviously I wasn’t at fault here. My car was parked legally and in a sensible place, the other person just wasn’t paying attention and crashed into it. So it wasn’t my fault, but I can however take responsibility for my part in the situation… how I’m going to react to it. Now most people would be fuming and they would let that incident ruin the rest of their day and some would let it ruin the rest of their month!
Yes, it was a major inconvenience, yes it was annoying, but really it could have been much, much worse so I was grateful that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and plus it was an accident, it wasn’t like the person crashed into it on purpose. The person who crashed into it also left their name and number and they were insured so it was all going to get taken care of in the end… even though in the end it did take over a month to get the car finally fixed! I could take responsibility in the situation for how I was going to respond in that moment and the following moments after the incident occurred and acknowledge that I had heaps of choices about how to sort the situation out to get it all sorted.
Another example is I’ve had a client recently that had been having major challenges with their staff. There was a culture in the workplace of yelling, inappropriate language and putting other people down. Now this business owner came to me placing all the blame on the staff and the way the staff were behaving because they were causing all the problems. The business owner was feeling completely stuck and helpless in being able to move forward.
What he wasn’t doing was taking responsibility for his part in the situation and how he was allowing his staff to have this unacceptable behaviour in the workplace. He would just stand back in shock as the aggressive behaviour took place and would do nothing about it… meaning he was allowing this to take place in the work environment. Once he took responsibility for his part in the situation, he could do something about it and move the culture of the business forward to be a more respectful and calmer environment to work in.
So if you are feeling stuck right now, answer the question where are not taking responsibility?
#3 You Are More Amazing Than You Think
It is true! When we are feeling stuck we can also get really unmotivated and feel like we are useless and not good enough. Our self esteem and self worth takes a battering and we fall into a downward spiral of self pity and self loathing.
Know that you are more amazing than you think you are during these times. For a start you are still alive today! Which means that you have survived the harsh and cruel realities of life… you have overcome challenges, you have been through nasty situations, dealt with difficult people, and you survived! You at least have more strength, courage, and resilience than you will give yourself credit for and those are valuable qualities to have in a world that can be so rough and unfair at times.
What else have you done in your life? What have you achieved? What have you overcome? What qualities have got you through? What skills do you have? What are you proud of yourself for?
I can tell you that most people I talk to feel insecure and unworthy inside… not good enough to actually thrive in life which causes feelings of hopelessness and feeling stuck. But everyone is capable of getting unstuck, moving their life forward and thriving. You are so much more capable and amazing than you are giving yourself credit for.
You have great skills, you have great attributes, you have greatness inside of you; start to see it, believe it and appreciate it so that you can let yourself shine and move forward.
#4 Be Grateful
You know we all have some much more to be grateful for than we acknowledge. Yes, life is hard sometimes. I’ve been to the darkest depths of life many times, but even in those darkest moments, I truthfully still had so much to be grateful for.
When my 15 month old daughter was in hospital fighting for her life in intensive care, I still had things to be grateful for… she was in modern hospital with doctors and nurses that knew what they were doing, I had my husband by my side, I had concerned family members caring about us and what was going on, I lived in a country where they had the capability and resources to save her, I lived in a country where the hospital system was free so I wouldn’t have massive medical bills to pay at the end of the ordeal, and in the end of all of it I still had my daughter alive because the doctors and nurses saved her life … the list could go on for ages of what I was grateful for.
Because, yes, even in that deepest darkest period of my life, I still had things that I could be grateful for, and gratitude lifts your spirits and helps you to get unstuck. Gratitude helps you to move forward, to see the gems in even the darkest of situations.
When we were in massive financial debt and it felt impossible to go on, and the weight of the world was on my shoulders, I could be grateful that I had a house to live in (only just, but none the less I had one!) I could be grateful that I lived in a country with fresh, clean air, that I had people that loved me, that I had running water…
It can be easy to feel stuck and not think that there is much to be grateful for in your life, but have you really taken the time to look around and appreciate all that is there? If you are reading this it means you have a phone or computer or laptop, or are borrowing one, even that is something to be grateful for!
Embrace an outlook of gratitude, not just when things are going good, but every day, even when things are really challenging, because gratitude will help to move you forward again.
#5 Take Action
Lastly, take action. Action moves you forward. Actions gets momentum. Action gets forward motion. Action is a really important part of getting unstuck!
Sometimes we just need to get off our butts and take some action! Because it is easy to sit on the couch and feel sorry for ourselves and not take the action that we need to take. If we need a job then get up and look for a job, get on the phone and make the phone calls, go meet people and ask people if they know of anything that is going, contact businesses directly to find out if they have any spare work. It isn’t going to happen sitting on the couch feeling sorry for yourself.
Make sure also that the action that you are taking is in alignment with what you want to create. So if you are in business and you need more clients, then take action that is creating marketing and sales opportunities and not just scrolling Facebook endlessly hoping that clients will jump out at you.
So what action could you take today? What action could you take this week to get you moving forward again? Get clear on the action and then get up and go and do it.
