Two Questions To Un-stuck Yourself
Have you ever felt stuck?
Chances are you have, because you’re reading this, which means you’re human and all humans get stuck (Unless you’re AI, in which case, bleep bllorp 11222.112.22.1222.121112)
“Stuck” is one of the most unifying feelings we all experience.
Feeling like you’re going nowhere fast, going in circles, spinning your wheels.
Feeling “stuck” is profoundly human. As long as there has been writing, there have been stories of feelings of “stuckness.”
We all go through it, yet that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s YOU.
Yes, “everyone feels stuck sometimes,” but this time it’s ME, and this time it SUCKS.
The real issue is not that you feel stuck, it’s what the feeling of being stuck leads to: quitting.
Giving up.
Failure.
Whatever you call it, the result is the same.
You can’t hit a home run if you don’t get up to bat. You can’t win the game if you are no longer playing.
And conversely, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Thomas Edison, when asked “how it felt to fail 1000 times in his attempt to invent the incandescent lightbulb.” replied, “I didn't fail 1000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1000 steps.”
What am I saying?
If you quit, you lose, and if you don’t quit, eventually, you (might) win.
Therefore, your goal should be simply not to give up. Keep your head in the game long enough to hit a home run (or choose whatever metaphor you prefer).
Feeling stuck is the fast-track to quitting.
This is because your brain hates wasted energy, and nothing wastes energy more than being stuck in the mud, wheels spinning, getting nowhere.
When you feel stuck, the signal that your subconscious mind gets is “this isn’t worth it, let’s cut our losses before it’s too late.”
The obvious irony being that quitting is the ACTUAL only way you fail, so your mind is literally playing tricks on you.
Why Do You Stay Stuck?
If being stuck is so devious and dubious, why do you do it?
Why don’t you just GO? Move! Do the thing!
It is, after all, that easy (it has to be, Nike said so).
You want to get in shape? Just get off the couch and go to the gym.
You want to learn Spanish? Just use that app you downloaded but never opened.
You want to read more? Just turn the TV off 30 minutes earlier.
Etc, etc, etc. All of these actions are simple and take little to no effort. Yet they can feel like the most insurmountable task. Why?
That’s thanks to self-talk.
That’s the literal voice in your head, your subconscious thoughts. Thoughts that you’d hope would be kind to you, but often are not.
Not out of malice, remember, it’s safety. Your mind wants to save you from wasting energy.
When you think “I want to get in shape” but you don’t take the action of going to the gym, sometimes it’s your subconscious belief that “this won’t work” or “I can’t do that” or “i’ve tried before, and it didn’t work, so this will be the same,” or a hundred other variations, which keep you from taking the action necessary to actually work towards that goal.
This is, again, your mind trying to keep you safe by conserving energy, not wasting it on a futile attempt.
The issue is that you actually COULD get in shape. It WOULD work. You are not doomed to repeat the same loops forever, but as long as you think that way, you are.
Getting UN-Stuck
So you can’t stay stuck for too long. If you do, you will start to lose hope, you’ll give up.
It’s imperative, then, that we snap you out of your slump ASAP.
Easier said than done. If you could do that, you’d have done it already. Add to that the fact that you have your subconscious mind doing its best to keep you safe, feeding you “stuck statements” that serve as fuel to keep you going nowhere
It seems like the deck is stacked against you. Maybe it is.
Luckily for you, there’s a simple 2-step framework to short-circuit the self-talk that keeps you stuck, so you can get out of your own way, and start moving forward.
To get unstuck, simply ask yourself:
Is this true?
Is this useful?
Here’s Why It Works
So much of our cumulative stuckness is founded in feelings, not facts.
I’m not good enough, it’s too late, it’s too hard, I’m too broke, I don’t know how.
Whatever “excuse” you can come up with (or reason, or justification), 999 out of 1000 times, will be a feeling. Feelings are not facts.
So when you ask “is this true?”, you can’t FACTUALLY say yes. Even if it FEELS true, that does not make it so.
“It’s too late” - has someone older than you ever done this thing?
“I’m too broke” - Can this be done for zero money?
“I’ve failed 10 times, there’s no point to trying 11” - Does 10 failures guarantee the next one?
“"I don’t know how” - Ever heard of ChatGPT?
I could go on, but you get the gist. When you ask, “is this true?” you see that whatever is holding you back falls apart with a little scrutiny.
Ok, but what about when it doesn’t? Sometimes you are right.
Then question 2 comes in, “Is this useful?”
Which, if it’s keeping you stuck, inherently, we know is not.
And since it’s just a thought, you can go ahead and disregard it.
Now you are free to do the one thing that you need to do to get out of stuckness: take action.
With nothing inhibiting you. No thoughts or reasons why you can’t.
You know the facts. You aren’t held down by fictional stories in your head.
You are free.