How to finally get unstuck and get going with life

We all get stuck in life at one time or the other. 

This happens usually when we have big life-changing decisions to make, when life seems monotonous or when you don’t feel fulfilled in your job or relationships. 

It feels like nothing new is happening, or you can’t get past certain problems in life. Sometimes we feel hopeless, thinking this reality has no end because you feel stagnant and see no end in sight. 

To get unstuck and to get moving, you might have to do a deep digging. You need to know what’s causing you to stay stuck and then work from there. 

So let’s find out why you could be feeling stuck in life.

Why do I feel stuck in life?

There could be no specific answers because everyone’s journey is different so you have to find your reason. 

But I am listing certain possibilities below, maybe you’ll be able to resonate with some.

• You don’t have a goal to work for in life and you don’t know what you want in life
• You don’t feel fulfilled by your current job, relationships, or living environment
• You are bored by the monotony of routine life and you are craving for more. But you feel scared to move out of your comfort zone
• Something terrible happened in your life, now you don’t know how to find happiness again and move on with life.
• You are stuck in your past. You are guilty of your mistakes and don’t seem to be able to forgive yourself.
• You are faced with difficult choices and you may have to face discomfort and pain to cross a barrier. 

I listed what all came to my mind but I am sure there could be more reasons that someone can feel stuck in life. Whatever your cause is, go through the steps below and see how it helps you. 

1. The answer lies in you

You know what? Many times you know what is your next step in life. You feel indecisive because you are scared of the solutions your intuition is giving you. 

You still want to remain in your comfort zone and not experience pain or discomfort. So you are stuck now. 

What if you did what your heart tells you to do?

The obstacles are suddenly no more there and you are set free. 

But I know that the situation is different for someone who has lost a loved one and hence lost the will and the drive to live. In such cases, get professional help if you can’t find a way to get on with life. 

Other than that usually all the answers we need are within ourselves. But sometimes we need to ask different questions than the usual ones to uncover those answers. 

For example, when I felt stuck in a difficult situation, my mentor asked me this question,

Will you be happy with your life after five years if nothing changed in your life right now?

A simple question, but it made me realize how I need to change my circumstances. That gave me the answers to get unstuck. 

2. Get out of your comfort zone

Is your life asking you for an upgrade but you are stuck in fear? 

It’s human nature to cling onto safety and security even though one is not fully satisfied and know that there are better options available. 

But fear of failure and fear of uncertainty hold you back. 

It comes from the notion that discomfort is bad, or failure is bad. But discomfort is part of growth and no matter how hard you try to hide from it, it will get to you eventually in some way. 

So accept it as part of your growth and learn to embrace discomfort and failure. 

Failure, after all, is only feedback on what works and what doesn’t work. Failure gives you the opportunity to improve and evolve. It helps you grow. 

When being called to do something out of my comfort zone, the question I ask myself is, 

“Is the pain of remaining stuck and stagnant worth it? Which is greater? The pain of remaining stuck and missing out on all the wonderful opportunities that life could give me? Or the pain of the temporary discomfort when I get out of my comfort zone?”

And even though you feel pain while growing, it soon will become your new comfort zone. 

3. Build courage slowly

Sometimes you are in a difficult situation and it feels very hard to move forward now because you are experiencing pain, confusion, and uncertainty.

When you feel sad and depressed, acknowledge it. You need to gather strength to move out of this situation so give yourself time to build courage. The important thing is instead of staying stuck in this situation forever, make plans in your mind about how you will move forward.

The wonderful thing about being a human being is we are resilient and have the strength to adapt to any situation. We might not know it yet. But don’t we see people around us who face all kinds of tragedies and yet move on and find happiness again?

We think we can’t do it, but it’s not true. The strength is inside all of us. 

And most of the time these worst-case scenarios are not as huge as our minds make it be. 

As a person who has anxiety, I know that many situations don’t have the power that I think they do unless I don’t give it importance in my mind. Our minds sometimes make it so big that when we experience it, it’s not that bad.

And when you are ready, take the first small step and build momentum from there. 

4. Surrender to the flow

We have notions about how our life should look like. 

We think we are meant to engage in a particular profession for the rest of our life or live with one person forever even if we see red flags all the time.

Sometimes life gives us clear signals of having to make a change, but we hold onto familiarity because of the fear of facing discomfort. 

Life is asking you to take a different direction because what you have been doing is obviously not working anymore. 

Consider it as the natural ebb and flow of life.

 If you resist the natural flow of life, you suffer more. You suffer more in your familiar place than in the unknown.

What you resist, persists. Therefore, stop resisting changes and embrace them with faith when they come your way. You won’t get stuck and you won’t suffer unnecessarily. 

5. Realize you always have a choice

When you think about it, it’s funny how feeling stuck is just that. A “feeling” you make up in your head. Because we usually feel stuck when we don’t know how to overcome a certain obstacle or we are scared to make a change. 

But are we really really stuck?

Don’t we always have a choice?

We do. 

We always have a choice.

We can always choose what makes us happier. And our heart usually shows what direction do we need to go to, to live a more fulfilled life. 

This is a good thing to know because once we are ready to get past our fears and ready to face any judgment that people will raise against our choices, we will get unstuck. 

Knocking on the same door that won’t open will definitely make you stuck. But when you open your eyes and see that there are other doors too, you will get moving again. 

You always have a choice, if you don’t care about what others say.

You always have a choice, if you are ready to face failures and discomforts. 

You always have a choice, if you listen to your heart. 

You always have a choice, if you decide your happiness matters. 

So, feeling stuck is sometimes just that, a feeling. Feed yourself with more empowering thoughts and you will find your way. 

6. How would you advise a friend?

It is when you think from your own brain that you feel stuck. It is said that human beings think almost 60,000-80,000 thoughts a day and majority of the thoughts are the same. That is, most of the time we are thinking the same thoughts that we had yesterday or day before yesterday. 

To get a different perspective, try to get into the brain of a person who you look up to and with whom you would switch lives with. 

How would he/she think? What actions would they take?

Or imagine your friend came up to you talking about the problem you have now. What advice would you give to her?

It is a truth that we can give great advice to others when it comes to a problem that they face. But when it comes to us, we are not good judges of our problems. 

It is because we are not as emotionally engaged with the problem as the other person. And since there are no emotions clouding our vision, we are able to think logically. 

So, shift your thinking by thinking from another person’s perspective and follow the advice. 

7. Map out your ideal life

If you are feeling unfulfilled, take out a notebook and write how your ideal life looks like. 

What do you miss now?

What can you do now to get closer to that ideal life?

What’s holding you back from taking the next step?

Maybe it’s the next step that’s keeping you stuck. Use the tips mentioned above and take the required action steps to move forward. 

You may have to face a great deal of fear or shed a large number of tears, but take the resolution to move forward no matter what happens. 

8. Practice mindfulness

Sometimes we feel stuck because we are living in the past. Maybe we don’t have the people in our past anymore with us right now and therefore life doesn’t look the same. 

So we get lost in the thoughts of our past life forgetting to live in the now. 

What I have learned is if you still have life and you are waking up every day, you have a purpose. If you woke up today, it means you still have a purpose in life. 

You may not know what it is now, but keep moving forward and it will be revealed to you one day. 

When the feelings about your past life come up, mourn the loss and acknowledge your feelings. Acknowledge that those feelings are there. Loss is a part of human life on earth as for new things to come into life, old things have to part with you. 

Trust in the future that is folding out for you and firmly believe that they are here to serve you better. 

The only limited resource we have is time and therefore take the resolution to live each day to your best. 

Related: How to start a mindfulness habit and be happier

9. Let the energy flow

If you are feeling stuck because life seems boring and monotonous, try to change up things – in your career, relationships, health care and even in your physical environment. 

Here is a list of things you can do to get unstuck and to let stagnant energy flow again

• Set new goals

Setting new goals – be it in any area of your life, is a good way to get out of a rut. Make sure these goals help you to have new things to look forward to and new levels to reach. 

• Get unstuck by raising your energy

Every morning, play high-vibe music and dance to it. Dance even if you know to dance or not. Trust me, this helps to let the energy flow throughout your body and instantly boosts your mood. 

• Start a planner

Get a planner or start a bullet journal and plan your days. Plan how you will execute your goals and make sure you have enough time slots set aside for having fun and for self-care. 

• Start new habits

If you think your current habits are not getting you where you want to be in life, start new empowering ones. 

Starting new habits requires some dedication and getting out of your comfort zones. It helps you to stretch yourself to new levels. It may cause some change in your routine because now you have to make time for it but maybe it’s what going to help you to get unstuck. 

Related :

• How are habits formed in the brain
• 8 reasons you don’t stick with new habits and how to make them stick
• 10 best habits to start to take your life to the next level
• 10 super healthy habits to improve your health

• Start a new business

Starting a side hustle is not difficult these days. Using social media, you can start making money with any of the skills you have. 

And if you think you don’t have the right skills, online learning platforms make it easy to learn basically anything in the world from your mobile screens. 

And when this is something you love, you will feel happier and more fulfilled and at the same time, you can earn a side income too. 

• Dig up old hobbies or create new ones

As I said, it’s easy to learn anything new in today’s world. If you have any old hobbies like sewing, crocheting, gardening, etc, that you stopped doing at some point in life, try reviving them. 

Stimulating the creative part of your brain is a great way to keep your days engaged and interesting. The satisfaction of seeing a  finished product that came out from your thinking and hard work is huge. 

• Learn new things

Learning is my favorite thing to do and something I never intend to stop doing until I die. 

You can learn by reading books (as you can imagine self-help books are my favorite), self-paced online courses, free Youtube videos, blogs, etc. 

Keep expanding your knowledge and it will help you grow and evolve in a way you never thought you could. Learning helps you to view life through new perspectives and thus helps you to transform your life. 

• Journaling

Sometimes when I feel stuck in repeated thinking patterns, I open my journal and start writing. It helps me to release my emotions from my head and gain clarity. 

I don’t know how but I get answers to my problems when I finish a journaling session on my own. As I said, the answers are always within us, we just have to break outside of the usual thinking patterns. 

Related: 10 reasons why journaling will transform your life

• Get outside and enjoy nature

Nature always has a way of soothing us. We also have so much to learn from nature. If you look at nature, it is never stuck. Yet, we see nature repeating the same events over and over every day. 

Sometimes, nature experiences pain through calamities, but after some time it heals itself and starts again It also keeps changing seasons, reminding us that life will not always remain the same and that one season of life will always end to give way to another. These are some lessons we can learn from nature.

I love thinking about these lessons when I observe nature. 

• Talk to your loved ones

Talk to someone about how you feel. Expressing your feelings helps you to release emotions and lighten your burdens. They might also have some insight into how you can solve your problems. 

• Move your body

Exercise helps you to boost your energy and feel fresher. It’s a great way to get things moving when you are feeling dull.

Related: How to start an exercise habit and stick with it

• Change things around at home

Move furniture around and rearrange everything to change things up. You can also try hanging new paintings, add some house plants or do a DIY macrame project to add more liveliness to your living space. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Change is inevitable in life. When you learn to surrender and embrace the flow of life, you grow and evolve. It also helps you to be happier because you do not feel stuck or stranded at any turning point in life. 

More from the blog:

• 8 ways to remove negativity from your life
• 27 ways to simplify life and live stress-free
• How to start personal development
• 7 common things you do that waste your life
• 9 limiting beliefs that hold you back from the life you deserve
• 10 life lessons to change your life in a year
• How to stay patient when going through tough times

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