Before You Decide You’re Stuck: Feeling Stuck in Life

Imagine you're walking through the woods and suddenly your boot won't move.

You pull your foot up. Nothing.

You pull harder. Still nothing.

Great. I'm stuck.

So you do what seems obvious. You pull harder. Maybe you twist a little. Maybe you start getting pissed off. But the harder you fight it, the more stuck you feel.

Then you finally stop and look down.

There's a stick caught across the back of your boot.

You move it.

That's it.

You weren't buried knee-deep in mud. You didn't need to dig yourself out. You didn't need someone to come rescue you. You just needed to figure out what was actually holding you there.

I think we do this in life all the time.

Something isn't working, so we decide we're stuck.

We stay in a job we don't like because changing careers seems impossible. We don't start something because we don't know exactly how it's going to work. We tried something years ago, weren't good at it, and quietly decided it wasn't something we could do.

Sometimes we don't even know why we're stuck anymore. We've just been standing in the same place for so long that we've accepted it.

And once you've decided you're stuck, it's pretty easy to find evidence that proves it.

You pull harder in the same direction.

Nothing happens.

See? I'm stuck.

So you pull even harder.

But maybe pulling harder isn't the answer.

Maybe you need to rock your foot back and forth and break the suction.

Maybe you need to untie the boot.

Maybe there's a branch hooked behind your heel.

Maybe you need someone to give you a hand.

And, yeah, sometimes you're actually knee-deep in mud.

Some problems really are hard. Some take a lot of work. Some require money, time, help, or a whole bunch of things to line up before you can get moving again.

This isn't one of those you can do anything if you believe in yourself things.

Sometimes you're genuinely stuck.

But I think we're pretty bad at knowing the difference between a huge obstacle and a small obstacle we haven't actually examined yet.

Something can feel impossible simply because we've never stopped to figure out exactly what the problem is.

I've had things in my own life that seemed enormous from the other side. Things I put off because I assumed they'd be too difficult, take too long, or just weren't for me.

Then eventually I tried.

And sometimes the thing I'd spent years building up in my head turned out to be... not that hard.

The obstacle was real.

I'd just given it way more power than it deserved.

So if there's something you've been feeling stuck on, maybe don't start by asking how you're going to completely change your life.

Just look down.

What's actually keeping you from taking the next step?

You might be buried in the mud.

Or there might just be a stick behind your boot.

Before you decide you're stuck, figure out what's actually holding the boot.