Do you feel like your to do list is on repeat and you aren’t able to move things forward?
Did another weekend pass by and the project you wanted to complete remains...incomplete?
Is there always something more important that gobbles up the one thing you want to do?
Do you always make time for everyone other than yourself?
I get it. I’ve been there. I still hang out there sometimes. It’s called getting stuck and I am extremely familiar with it. Somehow getting stuck feels both icky and familiar at the same time. Like that chocolate piece of cake that feels so great and then the sugar headache that follows since you ate it once again on an empty stomach. You know what I mean?
I’ve been dreaming and scheming for a long-time to move a project about getting unstuck forward for a long time. Wouldn’t you know that my unstuck project got stuck for a very long time. Oh irony how I love you.
So what’s the story when we get stuck? What exactly is happening in the first place? I’d say a whole lotta lying, listening to that inner critic inside of us, and honestly...fear of the other side of being stuck. Yes, strangely and ironically enough we fear what life would be like if we got unstuck. Will we actually like it? Or will we wish we could reverse the tape of life and go back to how things were before we got stuck? Here’s the thing, we first need to decide. Do we want to stay stuck or get unstuck? Really, the important question is how do I feel? If you are feeling stuck, you are feeling some level of frustration, irritation, anger, sadness, and maybe even overwhelm. In other words, it does NOT feel good.
Most of the time we see feeling stuck as a problem. I know I did. For years I lived in stuckland. I worked in a tenured government job that felt off with the deepest depths of my soul despite the work being absolutely interesting. I’ve been in relationships that lost their zest and felt stale. I’ve sat on my couch on a Saturday afternoon, feeling uninspired, and no idea why. In all of these scenarios I remained stuck because I had absolutely no idea how to create something different. No amount of advice on what to do could move me forward and it all had to do with the not so little lies I was telling myself along the way that formed my mindset.
Enter in the major myths of why we are stuck. Aka the stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about why we should be stuck. Getting stuck is a fascinating thing and for the next three joy tips I’m going to explore three major myths I’ve uncovered in my own dances with getting stuck over and over and over again. If you aren’t on my newsletter list, make sure to join for some special bonuses to help you get unstuck by clicking HERE.
Myth # 1 - I don’t have enough time.
This myth was a very hard one for me to swallow. I mean VERY. I had a long, ironclad story, with data to back it up! I analyzed my time and there were NO open blocks of time. People who have looked at my schedule have been known to feel overwhelmed by just glancing at the color blocks filling every waking minute. I had a pretty awesome story about why I absolutely, positively, did not have time for change in my life. No time people! Stop trying to convince me otherwise! Whether it was a simple change like moving things off of my to do list, or big things like finally leaping from my government job to try on entrepreneurship for size, I definitely did not have time for it.
Listen, I still pull this card some days because it’s familiar. I exercised this as my truth for decades. However, things are different now. I know that the freeing truth about being stuck is that we are not making enough time. Why is this freeing? Because underlying this inconvenient reality is the power of choice that lies in our hands!
Life is full of tradeoffs. If I prioritize laundry, emails, or doing more research over creating my online courses it’s not because I don’t have time to make my courses, it’s because I’m choosing to spend my time on laundry, e-mails, research and not my course. Now there is some essence of decisions we have to make about our time that may be different than we planned, but that has to do with getting clear about our choices in each moment. More on that in future myths :)
For this week’s Joy Tip Wednesday I want you to dance with the first myth of being stuck. Here’s how:
Announce that you are unstuck. Being honest with ourselves about this is everything. Once we shine the light of awareness, clear seeing on what is happening, it no longer has the same power over us. So own it and feel good about it. Because this is absolutely not a problem, it’s an opportunity! When I finally do this when I'm stuck, it often feels like a huge sigh of relief. Tell a friend, e-mail me and share your stuck story, or write your revelation to yourself in a journal.
Notice when you tell yourself “I don’t have enough time.” Find all the places, all the things, all the people, everything and anything where this not-so-little, sneaky, myth shows up in your life. Maybe you create a list, or meditate on it each day during lunch, or share over a coffee with your best friend.
Get clear on how you spend your time. What are you choosing to spend your time on over the area of your life calling out to get unstuck? You can do this by grabbing a notebook and pen and writing down your “what I spend time on” list. Get really clear on what you are choosing. This can be a hard truth to swallow, but I promise, this is really important to recognize that the “I don’t have enough time” story is absolutely holding you back and just, not, true as you see the other ways you are spending your time. Social media? *cough cough.* It was strangely my biggest time suck in tiny bits and pieces like a few minutes here, a few seconds here. The cost of these seconds and minutes was immense as it took my attention and focus away over and over again from what I cared about most. Over time I discovered it distracted me from the discomfort of stepping out into unstuck territory.
I have some of the best news you could receive all week. Feeling stuck is an invitation from the Universe to get curious.
It’s telling you that you are out of alignment with your truth and authentic self. Feeling off is a blessing wrapped in the disguise of discomfort. (Note: All blessings don’t feel yummy). If we open ourselves to turn towards the stuck feeling, and have the courage to acknowledge that we are stuck in the first place, we start automatically turning the wheels of getting unstuck.
I’m currently finishing the design of a Get Unstuck online course. Tell me what you want to know most about getting unstuck. Share your biggest obstacles, the tricks you’ve tried that didn’t work, the practices you’ve tried that did work. You can share your thoughts by clicking HERE.