I’m sure these words sound familiar: “I don’t know what to do”, “my life is so monotonous”, “my life doesn’t fulfil me”, “I don’t see the point of any of this”, or, as they say where I’m from, “everything’s going down the toilet”.
These kinds of feelings and thoughts have become more common lately.
We all have the power and the ability to keep going no matter what obstacles we face. We have that power because we can choose, at every moment, what we do, what we think and who we want to be.
But that blessed brain of ours sometimes short-circuits and leaves us with a very cloudy view. When that happens, you need to take some time to reformat the system and change the way you think, the way you see the situation and life in general.
What to do when you’re trapped, stuck or [insert word…]
First of all, we must stop doing the same things. We have to stop being prisoners of old habits, and probably of our usual circle.
To do that, we’re going to draw on some advice from Marc Chernoff, who runs Marc and Angel, an excellent “realistic motivator” whose advice inspired this post. (Read: This is how failure leads you to success.)
The good thing about life is that every night, when you go to sleep and wake up in the morning, it’s a new day. Yesterday is gone, and the new day is yours. You are in charge of it and you shape it. Every day is a new day full of possibilities and opportunities. So remember:
1. Feeling stuck is a feeling, not a fact
When we feel stuck, our first instinct is usually to look outside ourselves for someone or something to blame. But your life is your responsibility. Whether it’s going well or badly, you created that situation with your successes and your mistakes.
So you have to try to stop focusing on how you perceive the external situation and start focusing on the way you see things and how to change that perception of yourself. Because, really, when our life isn’t on the right track, deep down I think everyone knows they are responsible for their own situation. And when you change the way you think and see things, you get the chance to change yourself, and therefore to change your surroundings.
2. Don’t relive yesterday’s bad news today
You can’t have a better today if you stay focused on yesterday’s problems. What I should have done, what could have been, what I could have had, what I had and lost… most people misuse that information from yesterday. Yesterday’s problems shouldn’t be a burden today, but an extra lesson about certain things we mustn’t repeat. That is resilience.
A failed marriage, a lost job, a business that closed or three flings that never happened. They are all solved the same way. Throw out yesterday’s frustrations and spend that energy building a new life that can include everything you didn’t have or lost. Because today is a new day, a new week, a new beginning.
3. It’s time to make a change, probably a radical one
Feeling stuck means failing the three most basic questions about happiness: Do I like what I do? Do I like where I live and who I live with? Am I happy?
As someone once said: “If you don’t like your life, change it. You’re not a tree.”
Read: How to radically change your life
4. It won’t be easy, but in the end it will be worth it
Most of us do the same things for a long time. These are what we call habits, and many of those habits are what got us “stuck”. So when we want to change, first of all we have to change many of our habits.
That is where a stage of transformation would begin, one that sometimes involves sacrifice until the new habits replace the old ones. You may feel uncomfortable at first, but you’ll feel even more uncomfortable if you stay stuck. Which habits should you adopt? Here are 25 habits of successful people + 20 daily habits to improve your life. Draw up a plan for changing to the habits you want to adopt.
It’s in your hands to become the person you want to be.
5. Let’s drop the excuses
As the saying goes: “those who want to get there look for a way; those who don’t, look for excuses”. There is only one person who can stop your growth and progress, and that person is you. You are your own best ally or your own worst enemy.
Among the most common things that stop people from reaching their goals are fear of failure and laziness. Everyone has an excuse. What’s yours? Now get rid of it. There, you’re cured.
Read: Simple steps to reach your goals
We mustn’t forget that real growth, real change, always happens from the inside out. To change any situation, we first have to change ourselves. And to change ourselves, we first have to change the way we think, the way we act and, above all, our habits.
But we mustn’t forget either, even if we repeat ourselves on this point, that happiness in life is not a destination but a journey. In other words, happiness doesn’t come to the person who has reached their goals and met their objectives; rather, our objectives are met because the person knew how to use and appreciate what they had to get what they wanted.
Life is an adventure, so you have to try to make it fun, because we are here to live life, not to suffer it.
And finally, look at it from this point of view:
When a person finds themselves trapped or stuck, it’s a sign that they have reached a dead end in their life, a kind of pit, where sometimes the only thing left to do is take steps forward. As Warren Buffett himself put it: “sometimes getting out of a hole is as simple as to stop digging”.
But keep one clear message in mind: your life depends on you. You are in control of your life, and you can go as far as you are willing to go. But that purpose requires sacrifices and changes. Are you willing to change?
Further reading
- How life is like a football match: an analogy for success
- Life is a game, and this is how you play it
Featured image: Scotted400, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
