Find yourself stuck? Here are ways to get moving!

Are you feeling frustrated and unable to make progress on something you know you should be doing? Are you beating yourself up because you “should” be doing something you deem important?

Welcome to the club! We all encounter stickiness at some point in our lives. Whether it’s a big work project that is looming over your life, a change you know you need to make, or an internal struggle that keeps you from stepping forward, stickiness is a normal part of modern life.

Once you realize you’re stuck, first find the friction point and define it carefully. Getting underneath all your surface excuses and finding the deeper resistance to the movement you want to make is the first step in moving forward. Talking out loud with a friend or counselor can help you identify the real obstacles that are holding you back. Take a closer look at old beliefs and feelings that may be keeping you stuck. Perhaps it’s time to truth test these stories and discover whether they are actually reflected by the real world.

Here are four common ways we get stuck and ways to free yourself.

1. The goal is too big or too distant. This is a common problem. Say, for example, you want to go to grad school or change a career or move to a foreign country. These are big changes.While it is important to have big goals, if we don’t chunk them down into bite sizes that give us small wins, we’ll get discouraged and probably quit before we get the result we’re looking for. So take that big goal and break it into smaller steps that you can easily do. What’s the first smallest step you can think of? Do that. (I recommend Jane McGonigal’s book, Super Better: the power of living gamefully as a fun “hack” for tackling big goals.)

Be alert to perfectionism lurking in the apparent obstacle. We often fear falling short of the mark and let fear hold us back from getting good enough results to move forward. Gather your courage, and get started. Once you’re moving, you’ll find that perfectionism has less of a grip on the reality of the task at hand.

2. You believe you can’t do it or don’t deserve the goal. There is an old belief or habit of thought or feeling that is standing in your way. For instance, maybe a parent or teacher shamed you for wanting to take music lessons or martial arts and you believed you couldn’t get what you wanted. Identify the old belief beastie that is blocking your progress, then–and this can be surprising— befriend it. Get to know why you formed this belief in the first place. It was probably a solution to an earlier problem that worked then but doesn’t now. Appreciate what this old belief gave you back then, and update it to reflect who you are now. Your circumstances and abilities have changed since that early experience. (I recommend Sarah Peyton’s wonderful workbook, Your Resonant Self Workbook: from self-sabotage to self-care for this and the next obstacle.)

3. A corollary to the old belief obstacle, is a trauma-learning, something seared into your unconscious awareness (or maybe conscious!) that you haven’t been able to shake. Maybe you were bullied as a kid when you tried to assert yourself and every time you go for that public relations job, you have a panic attack. If you panic or feel fear every time you approach your goal, then look for past trauma. Doing the necessary work with a counselor to heal that trauma will help you move past this “one-trial learning” or other trauma reflex.

4. There is something you need to know in order to move forward. For instance, maybe you need to leave a bad relationship before you can move your career forward because that relationship is sucking up your courage and self-esteem. Most of us do our best to distract ourselves from the pain. Sit with the discomfort of being stuck long enough to understand the message the apparent obstacle is trying to convey to you.

Finally, here’s another fun way to liberate yourself from stuckness. Go shopping! Go "shopping" and try a few new things that are just outside of your comfort zone. This can introduce you to new options and expand your possibilities. Remember, small frequent experiments often yield good results over time. Don't be afraid to test out something different and learn. Over time, quantity will yield quality, and you'll find yourself making progress towards your goals.