7 Clear And Easy Steps When You Feel Stuck In Life
Table of Contents
It’s 2:00 AM, and you can’t sleep. You type in google by the light of your computer. The question is, “What do you do when you feel stuck in life?” We know about this question. Nikki and I have each spent 20 years with clients, working in therapy and coaching. We’ve heard the question and walked with others to the answer. It’s a question everyone asks at some point, including us.
Maybe it feels like your back is against an emotional wall of what you want and what you should want. Perhaps you feel like there are no options.
Maybe you see plenty of options and don’t like any of them. Sometimes there are way too many options to know what to choose, so you just choose…nothing.
Maybe there isn’t anything “wrong” with anything, but things just feel off. Perhaps you feel bored and uninspired like a 2-liter Coke that’s gone flat in your fridge?
Sometimes we can even feel stuck when life is just fine. Have you built a satisfying life that anyone would want, but you no longer feel like you fit in it? What if there’s not anything terrible going on? But it has been so long since anything good happened? 4 Reasons Wanting More From Life Is Really Great Thing
This Just Isn’t What I Thought Life Would Look Like.
Maybe it’s the realization that often comes with birthdays that end in 5 and 0, like the meaning we give 30 years old, 40 years old, 65 years old, and counting.
It could be a situation where you don’t know what you thought this age (whatever age this is) would look like, but this sure as hell isn’t it.
You’re Not the Only One Who Feels Stuck in Life. We All Go Through Our Process.
It doesn’t matter who you are. Everyone feels stuck in life sometimes. The question is, “how do you get unstuck in your life?”
We all have stories, details, and weird choices that we can’t remember why we chose what we chose. You know the feeling. You can’t go home, but you can’t stay here.
We are all unique individuals with our own situations and reasons. We are all figuring it out as we go. However, we also all tend to start in the same place. First, there is the feeling of not being able to move or just nothing moving, period.
Then there is the feeling of not having any choice. It usually dribbles down into, “Why me?” and “How in the world did I get here?” That’s if you even know where “here” is right now.
Next comes the excuses that your brain says are solid reasons why things are the way they are. After that we look for someone to blame because this has to be someone’s fault, right?
If you aren’t careful, you might just wander back to where you started feeling stuck, trapped, and getting nowhere.
Those feelings are good indicators to know something is wrong, but they aren’t a good place to solve the problem. What is that saying, “You can’t get there from here.”
So, you have to start somewhere else.” We suggest that you start from more of an Enchanted Perspective.
So What Is This Enchanted Perspectives Thingy?
We believe in Enchanted Perspectives. Enchanted tends to sound like “Bibbity Bobbity Boo” and fairy dust in your hair. That’s fun, and we like a dose of that now and then ourselves. However, what we mean by “Enchanted” is a way of thinking, doing, and being that helps you experience more of what you choose in your life.
We also mean giving less energy to what you don’t want. To us, the word “Enchanted” means a way to discover your vision, a way to clarify intention, awareness, and direction. We mean “Enchanted” as a way to inspire, create and manifest.
Everyone knows what perspective is. It’s how you choose to look at things. Most people forget they have a “choice” in looking at almost any situation. Have you ever known someone who can find something wrong with anything?
Have you ever known someone who can see the good in even the hard stuff? That is a choice in perspective that can change everything that happens next.
Definition:
So by definition (our definition), Enchanted Perspectives is creating tangible ways to make real choices to create your life by desire and design instead of denial and default.
We strive to live it ourselves. The fun and inspiring part for us is watching you create and manifest as you learn to have Enchanted Perspectives too. What Is An Inverted Bucket List And 5 Meaningful Reasons To Have One
Living in an Enchanted Perspective is a lot of little pieces that create practical and significant change. Let’s map this out with clear steps to getting unstuck in your life. There is plenty of information out there about….everything.
What’s hard to find are “application” and “navigation.” We believe you need all three and include each in our steps. With these 7 clear and easy steps come real and meaningful questions. They are for you to answer for yourself about yourself. So here we go…
Step 1: Get A New Enchanted Perspective- The Difference Between Being Stuck In Life And Being Tangled.
The word “stuck” by definition insinuates that there is nowhere to move, nowhere to go, no options, and no help in sight. But, even if life feels like that, it isn’t very likely to be true.
We’ve all heard of people “stuck” on the side of a mountain who still figure out a way to get down. We’ve read about people being in hopeless situations, but they figured out what to do to get out.
Stuck feels like…well…stuck. But it is seldom what’s going on. What is usually happening is that you aren’t stuck. You are tangled. What if that is what’s happening to you? What if you aren’t stuck, but you ARE very TANGLED? Am I Stuck In Life Or Just Tangled? 6 Insightful Questions To Find Out Now.
What is the difference between stuck and tangled? “Stuck” is a feeling. “Tangled” is the actual situation making you feel stuck. When you keep looking at your life, reciting, “I’m stuck,” you tend to feel unable to move, can’t see options, and maybe even feel hopeless. “I’m Stuck” just gets you more… stuck.
Stuck is a perspective. Once you stop focusing on your “stuckness” and focus on your situation, things start to move again.
You will see the moving parts that got things twisted up in the first place. Once you know what got tangled in your thoughts or choices or beliefs, you’ve got something tangible to work out.
Is Tangled Better Than Stuck?
Tangled is the more accurate word for most of life’s mishaps, regardless of the messy details. Tangled means there might be many moving parts, lots to unpack, lots to consider, and often one side pulling against the other.
However, being tangled is a better situation than being stuck because with stuck can come a feeling of helplessness. When you realize you aren’t stuck, you also know that anything tangled can be equally untangled. Now we can get somewhere. Often, you are just tangled in the overthinking in your head. That can be untangled, also. (Click here to get your overthinking t-shirt!)
I Feel Stuck In Life. Tell Me More About This, “Tangled” You Speak Of.
Think of Christmas lights in the bottom of a cardboard box (the ones you swear you will put back in a more organized way next year). Think fishing reels with lines and sinkers wound around each other.
Think of necklaces wadded up in the corner of your jewelry box. They aren’t stuck. You just have to take a breath, figure out where the ends are, find some patience, and start unwrapping.
What gets wrapped up left, wadded upright, and then twisted upside-down can get untwisted. It can get untangled just as it all got tangled in the first place. The same goes for you and whatever pile of poopy-doo you might be finding yourself experiencing. 5 Easy Ways To Find A Balanced Perspective In A Teeter Totter World
Take one situation at a time. You wouldn’t pile the Christmas lights with the fishing rods, would you? Pick one situation and say to yourself, “this looks like a tangled mess, but what are the parts that are tangled?”
The parts could be the step-by-step way the situation all came to be. It might be the mixed feelings you have about it. Perhaps it’s the influence someone else has on this situation.
Action For Step 1: Pick One Topic To Work With When You Feel Stuck In Life.
Let’s untangle the feeling from the situation. Pick one topic. You may have several. If you make a list, only work with one issue at a time.
Take a piece of notebook paper and write the feeling of one topic at the top of the page. Then below this, draw several circles big enough to write in.
Create one-word descriptions or short sentences describing all the thoughts and feelings on this topic. Put each one in a circle.
Don’t try to figure out what anything means or solve anything. Just get all the pieces sorted out, even if the parts contradict each other, especially if the parts contradict each other.
That’s usually where they got tangled to start with. Need more space? Add more circles. It’s like laying all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle out on the table and just seeing what you have to work with.
Step 2: Define The Problem When You Feel Stuck In Life.
Looking at the untangled parts will help you know what the topic/situation really is. Don’t make this too complicated. If everything in your circles is about how much your job sucks, the problem is probably, “I’m unhappy in my job.”
If the untangled pieces are all about how drab and disconnected your relationship is, the problem might be, “I have a boring, disconnected relationship.”
Don’t be afraid to say it out loud. How can you find answers if you aren’t sure what the problem is? Sometimes we are scared to define the problem because we fear having a problem with no solution.
Please know that your soul is never given a question without the ability to hold the answer. Defining the problem is part of the answer. 8 Clear Steps How To Make A Good Choice About Anything
Action for Step 2: In A Couple Of Spaces Below Your Circles, Write What You Feel Or Think The Actual Problem Is.
Step 3: Feel Stuck In Life? Get Clarity On The Solution You Seek.
Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems with the same mind we used when we created them.” That means the mind that created the problem will not be the same mind that creates the solution.
Unfortunately, as sweet humans, we tend to spend way too much time acknowledging the problem and not near enough focus on the solution.
Staying focused on the problem for too long keeps you in the mind of the problem. We need the mind of the solution. Say to yourself, “I don’t know the answer to this, but what would I know if I did?”
Starting the sentence with, “I don’t know…” lets your brain off the hook, and it will stop trying so hard.
When our mind tries too hard, it just sits and spins like the little wheel on your computer when the internet is slow. Now you can start with a new mind, one that might have something to tell you that you’ve not heard yet.
The solution you need might be something like, “I need a new job,” “We need to find a marriage counselor,” or “I need to find something exciting and challenging.”
Action For Step 3: What Is The Solution You Hope To Find?
Step 4: When You Feel Stuck In Life, Put The Solution You Are Looking For In The Form Of A Question.
Now you’ve untangled the pieces. You’ve defined the problem. You’ve defined the solution you wish you had. So now, take a deep breath. What is your heart-of-hearts question?
If your Fairy Godmother was standing in front of you and you knew she had the wisdom and clarity for your question…what is the question? Finally, with a straightforward question …the answer has room to manifest. How To Move Forward When You Feel Stuck In Life: 8 Awesome Things To Know
Maybe it’s “How do I get out of this job and into another with the least amount of financial loss and company fallout?” Perhaps it’s “If I’m ready to have someone in my life, what would I hope they would be like, and where might that person be?”
Don’t turn this into a sudoku puzzle. Just get clear on what you want to know. This clarity provides your inner being, higher self, and innate instincts something to work with and for.
Science tells us that when you have clarity on your question, your mind and being will work on the answer. It will do this even while doing the dishes or even sleeping.
Action For Step 4: What Is Your Question?
Step 5: When You Feel Stuck In Life, Understand Your Life Spiral And Your Learning Curve.
Anytime you feel a need to get unstuck (tangled) in your life, it’s easy to get anxious. You can start wondering if you are doing it right, taking too long, or making things harder than it has to be.
One of the most comforting things we explain is the Life Spiral. It helps us take a moment to be patient with our process. We can give ourselves room to grow and time to breathe in that patience. Here is how it works:
We all hope life is like a moving ramp, just going from lower to higher with no bumps or hiccups. We dream of not even having to pick up our feet, just roll on up to our destination.
Then we get some life miles on us and decide that we crave more challenge and character creating than that. We realize that we probably came here for more than getting from here to there. We decide that life must be more like a staircase, going up one step at a time. Finish one step, go on up to the next.
But before too much life gets under our feet, we decide we don’t know how life works. We hoped for a staircase, but it feels more like this.
When You Feel Stuck In Life, You Might Actually Be Leveling Up.
In the words of ancient Masters, as well as in an Enchanted Perspective, “Life Is A Spiral.” We spiral up from one level to the next. Each level is a place of more clarity, more wisdom, more fun, more joy, more excitement, and better air to breathe.
As you go from a lower level of awareness to a higher level, we call it “Leveling Up.” You can loop around a single level as often as you like, but know you will eventually get bored or frustrated or even possibly feel… stuck. Every time you come to that X, you will have thoughts like, “Well, here I am again.”
You might think, “Crap! How did I get here again?” You might even feel like you did something wrong because this feels way too familiar. When you feel those feelings…like you have been here before, it’s because you have been.
It might have been months ago, years ago, or decades ago, but you’ve felt like this before. Our lives run in cycles and spirals. Maybe this situation reminds you of when you were seven or when you left home for the first time. It doesn’t matter that you logically know it’s not the same. It feels the same. How to Observe Your Thoughts and Easily Calm Your Mind
Remember that “leveling up’ isn’t about being better than anyone else. It’s just about doing better than you did last time. This is why we all look back over the years and cringe at our actions. Who we are now would have handled that differently. However, the spiral we were on then…it was what it was.
Yes, You’ve Been Here Before.
That feeling is a good sign, even if it doesn’t feel like it. It tells you that you are back to the X, you have grown, and you have the excellent opportunity to make a decision. You have to decide to go around again or climb up to the next level.
It’s your choice and your call. There is no shame in going around again, but ohhh, the joy of leveling up. It can be scary stuff and make you bite your nails, but once you are there…ahhh….you are in a new and higher space in life.
No Worries. You’ve Got This.
Don’t be afraid of the journey. You have already done it countless times throughout your years. Look over your life. You can find the places where you got stuck. Then you went around a few times too many and got bored. You might have then got reckless, got frustrated, felt stuck, and then scooted yourself right on up that curve.
There is no shame in taking a few laps on a level. Sometimes we have to. We can all think of places in our life where it took us a few times around the loop to get it right.
But it’s also ok if you sometimes know, “I’ve got this,” and you fly around that loop in a quick run because you are so ready for the change. It’s because you really have learned so much and are moving a bit faster through this piece of your spiral.
Give yourself a lot of grace in knowing that the space from one loop to the next is a curve, sometimes a long one. That curve is your “learning curve.” Sometimes, you have to untangle some stuff and find a bit of solution to get the momentum to move on to your next level.
Understanding this makes it easier to encourage yourself to shoot for the moon or be gentle with yourself when it takes a few tries. Remember the saying, “To get something you’ve never had, you may have to do something you’ve never done.”
Yep, give yourself a kick in the pants if you need it, but do it with a soft house slipper, not steel-toed boots. You can and will level up, but be kind and patient with yourself while you’re doing it.
Action For Step 5: Be Gracious With Yourself. If You’re Reading About How to Get Unstuck In Your Life, You May Be Leveling Up As We Speak.
Step 6: When You Feel Stuck In Life, Map This Out. Where Are You, And Where Do You Want To Be?
It’s not only ok to want a map; it’s wise to have a map. Even with modern GPS, you have to know where you are to get where you want to be. So step 6 to get unstuck in our life is just that, knowing where you are and where you want to be. You need a map, and you get to make your own.
You now know what the feeling is and what the tangled pieces are. You understand the problem and see the solution you are looking for.
You know the question you most need to answer, and you can reduce worry and anxiety by realizing the spiral that your life is moving in now.
Map It Out!
So let’s make your map. We often talk about the fact that we all need a life map. However, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) tells us the map is not the Territory. The Territory is any situation we find ourselves in at any moment. Our map is our interpretation of that situation.
So all your other steps help you do this one. Sorting out the tangled pieces, defining the problem, the solution, and the question you want to answer is defining your Territory.
Understanding that you are on a spiral, not a staircase, also helps you understand the Territory (the actual situation). The map is how you feel about where you are and where you feel like you want to be.
So the map asks, “Where am I?” and it asks, “ Where do I want to be?” Think about what you want your life to look like. Most people will thoughtlessly start listing lavish things like six swimming pools and a pony.
But that isn’t anything near what they really want. It’s absolutely ok to want something with a price tag. But the “thing” is not what you want. You want how it will make you feel.
These are just a few of the most common things we humans want: freedom, love, a solid sense of self, and feeling safe. Of course, we think we want money, but we really wish to have the freedom money buys.
What Part Of The Map Is Making You Feel Stuck In Life?
Where is it you want to be? What do you want your life to look like? More importantly, what do you want your life to feel like? Close your eyes, turn on your internal GPS and get a direction, a visual, a feel for what you are hoping for.
Maybe you know all the details or don’t know anything about how this will happen. Perhaps you just know what you don’t want. Fine and fine. Write it down as concise and straightforward as you can feel it.
Use the same internal GPS for “Where are you now?” Are you ok where you are but not content? Are you in a really ick space and ready to move to a new state of being? It doesn’t matter if the state that needs changing is emotional, mental, or a literal different state on the continent.
Does your job pay the bills but give you no real sense of accomplishment? Are you trying to stop a habit and not doing any better this week than last week?
Were you close to where you wanted to be, but sort of lost your way? If you still feel stuck in your life, own it. No shame and no blame.
How do you quantify where you are on your journey, on your path, in your life? Let’s use a number. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the space you would like to be and 1 being a dungeon with alligators, where are you on that scale. If 1-10 is too diverse, use 1-5
Just because you aren’t where you want to be doesn’t mean you aren’t on your way. In this GPS exercise, you may find that you are closer than you thought.
Action For Step 6: Questions To Ask Yourself
Ask yourself, “Where am I?”
Ask yourself, “Where do I want to be?”
Give it a number: On a scale between 1-10 or 1-5,
Where are you?
Step 7: When You Feel Stuck In Life, Pull All That You Have Found Together For An Action Plan–Even If They Are Just Small and Steady Actions.
When you think, “How do I get unstuck in my life,” you are in a perspective of lack of options, opportunities, and answers. Hopefully, in doing the actions with each step, you have more of an Enchanted Perspective of creating options and manifesting solutions.
Many quote Wayne Dyer’s words, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” However, it was Max Planck who said it first.
Max was the 1918 Nobel prize-winning physicist considered the father of quantum theory. So the quote is regarded as a Law of the Universe. Can You Create Your Own Cliffs Notes? Yes, Build Your Own Power Library
Think about it. A physicist tells us that when we change how we look at something, we change our perspective and change the situation in and of itself.
But, of course, that doesn’t mean just think puppies, kittens, and unicorns when you see something you don’t like. It just means asking yourself, “What if?” “I have no idea what I’m doing right now, but WHAT IF I did?”
Let’s Work With Some Examples So You Can See How This Works.
It means putting it in another perspective, and the situation may just become a different situation. What if you aren’t stuck but just tangled?
If things are just tangled, they can UNTANGLE. Once untangled, you can get a clearer perspective on the problem, the solution, and even the question.
You’ve Got This!
So free yourself from believing you are stuck in life. You aren’t stuck. You are tangled, and what gets tangled can equally be untangled. Do your steps to find where the pieces got knotted and where you’ve twisted up in them. 7 Easy Journal Ideas To Finally Find The Real And Authentic You
There is a solution, and it’s your solution. Being stuck is a perspective. Use these steps to heal your perspective. Even better, it can transform into an Enchanted Perspective that says, “You’ve GOT THIS!!
Pixi-Pebbles…When You Feel Stuck In Life
Pixi Pebbles are songs, quotes, videos, interviews, movie references, and books that we each personally pick for you.
We’ve used these little Pixi-Pebbles to move ourselves from a feeling we’re not enjoying very much…to a feeling that helps us discover our vision of intention, awareness, and direction.
They lead us to hope, possibilities, and a fire under our butt to live life by design instead of default.
In our blog 7 Clear And Easy Steps to Get Unstuck In Your Life message, these are the Pixi-Pebbles that came to mind.
Just a little inspiration to get you from here to there.
Not only one of our favorite car dancing songs (yes, we are those kinds of people), it’s the song when we feel stuck that propels us to the next best step…
Check it out on youtube:
