What’s Keeping Me Stuck?

Where do you find yourself sitting on a comma? In my life, I often feel stuck when it comes to matters of knowing what to do and having a sense of purpose. In my life, I’ve done quite a few things professionally and a number of things personally. Looking back, I suppose I could acknowledge all that I’ve experienced and what it’s given me.  I’m certainly grateful and consider myself lucky to have what I’ve been given. I also acknowledge the privilege that my success comes from in this societal system.

Let’s also talk about why I’ve found myself stuck over the years. I’ll share more stories in other posts. For this one, let’s talk about the most common reasons I’ve felt stuck. Each of these is a challenge. I’ll explore how I overcame these challenges in other posts. Spoiler alert, I don’t think I’ve ever overcome them completely. While I may come to some resolution for a given situation, they tend to resurface again for each new challenge, acting like unwanted houseguests who show up every time I find myself in a new bind. So perhaps solving them is less accurate than developing a relationship with them.

Here’s my top 10 list of reasons I often feel stuck in my life:

1. Not having a clear sense of direction. This. One. Right. Here. If you want to watch me struggle like a child fighting sleep, put me in a situation where I don’t know the objective, outcome, purpose or goal. If I don’t know one or or more of these, I will get myself so lost and paralyzed with fear of doing work/action that is pointless and wastes time. Ironically, I’m an explorer by nature. I love problem solving, exploring and spontaneity.  But those have to be clear objectives up front. Even those options can have their own direction and imply a foundation that is stable otherwise. However, when I am struggling to understand the meaning of what I’m experiencing, it sends me into a tailspin. In human design, I’m what’s called a manifesting generator and this is apparently inherent in the design of my nature. I’m not saying that I always expect to have the answers… I’m just acknowledging that when I don’t, it can really hamper me. Wheels spinning on high speed! In what area of your life do you feel directionless?

2. Getting overwhelmed or overexcited. This one is talked about fairly commonly and many folks seem to relate to this one. Overwhelmed is pretty clear. If I have too much going on, am too busy and overworked, I simply don’t have the bandwidth to work my way through my challenges and get myself unstuck. This is also if I have too much on my mind. This includes todo lists, dealing with conflicts, anticipating threats, being emotionally depleted and feeling insecure. Conversely, when I get excited about things that could represent potential and possibility, it can be easy for me to get paralyzed in the sheer enthusiasm of it all. So may options, choices, things I want to do… Ideas will generate without limit. I will fill my plate to the extent that it is impossible to choose, initiate and take action. I can also get so excited about so many options that I don’t want to ruin anything by having to face the reality of execution.  Over excitement is overwhelm for me. Where in your life do you find yourself overwhelmed and/or overexcited?

3. Self doubt and fear. Hello my friend. I’ve known you all my life and our relationship has been so complicated. Like many people, I’ve lived a life of limiting beliefs. We could get into the childhood and trauma of it all, but what matters here is that this self doubt is there, it often runs free before I catch it and it can be the single greatest thing that keeps me from getting started, much less moving all the way to possibility. What’s also dangerous is how seductive and familiar it is. When my sabotaging voice starts telling me all the ways I fall short, am not good enough, and don’t deserve what I want, it is so easy for me to let it run and drag me along behind it until I’m exhausted and run down. Fear is also part of this voice. Not only am I really good at predicting what could possibly go wrong, I’m able to anticipate all the reasons doing something might waste my time or not be worth the effort. This is deception and misdirection, of course. What’s really paralyzing about fear is that it’s not always what could go wrong. Sadly, i believe I’m also afraid of what could go right. Afraid of success. What is your relationship with self doubt?

4. Misalignment of goals, intentions, environment and more. This one chalks up to the larger environment. In our hustle culture, we are taught that we must grind it out, take relentless action, “just do something” and so much more. Regular messages of “taking action” are meant to counter the narrative of being lazy and guaranteeing progress. These messages may even be true in some circumstances. However, there are times in my life when I’ve found myself in the wrong place, wrong time, with the wrong people and with the wrong intentions. The examples are too numerous to list, but when misalignment has happened in my life, I often didn’t realize it until later on. In these times, I was faced first with getting out of misalignment. Recognizing misalignment can sometimes come with self-judgment. “How did I get here?” and self blame are familiar defaults. Yet, as I told a friend one time, sometimes the only problem to be solved is to remove yourself from a hole. Figuring out where to go next doesn’t even become an option until after you’re out of the hole. What is misaligned in your life?

5. Attachment to a thing, person, ideal, belief or something else. This often comes with misalignment. Generally when I’ve realized I am in misalignment, there’s something I’m holding on to. Sometimes it’s clear. Often it’s not. What a gift (though frustrating) when someone else points it out to me. I am particularly prone to attaching to beliefs. Especially the ones about myself. That’s a topic for its own post and I touched on it above. Learning to let go of these beliefs is particularly challenging and often takes much time, work and repeated attempts at change. To be honest, there are still many beliefs I continue to hold onto that I know are holding me back. I’m slowly learning to let go of some things. At least I believe the things I hold onto are getting smaller, like my gadgets and travel accessories. When it comes to people, I’m both a loyal person and a people pleaser. One of my greatest life challenges is learning not only how to put my needs first, but also learning what the hell my needs even are! Scroll back up to #1 above and imagine how that works when you don’t have a sense of where your whole life is going!

6. Not having the skill set needed. This one is both obvious and obscure. On the one hand, there have been times in my life when I’ve wanted something that I simply didn’t know how to do. In the workplace, yes. That speaks for itself. New job, new role, challenging new project, and so forth. This also applies to things I’ve wanted to do that were just interesting to me. Learn spanish. Start a podcast. Learn how to be a life coach. And there have been many, many times in my life that I didn’t have the emotional intelligence or interpersonal skills to get myself off a comma. Dealing with conflict, leading a team, overcoming my limiting beliefs and so on. What makes this challenging is being open to, and recognizing, when I didn’t have the skills. This required being open to the fact that I didn’t know something (my ego doesn’t like this). It also required allowing myself to seek help, explore options/resources and consent to becoming a beginner at something and accepting the long, slow process of learning and not being good at something. Not easy for a perfectionist. What is a skill that you want to learn?

7. Lack of inspiration and incentive. This one is a little different from direction and goals. This one is figuring out my Why. It’s not uncommon to know what I want to do or what needs to be done. I have long lists of “shoulds”, “coulds” and “ought tos”. What’s sometimes missing is my reason. Not “the” reason, as these are often stated or obvious. My reason, my why, my motivation. If I can’t attach my own sense of purpose to a thing that is to be done, I lost inspiration really quick. This takes me out of flow stage (doing it easily, happily, enthusiastically) and into grind state (forcing, laboring, struggling). What’s really icky is that often I feel like many things “have” do be done and that it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. I’ll force myself to get it done, especially if it is for someone else. What’s tragic is all of the great ideas I’ve had that don’t get done because I haven’t found a compelling reason to inspire me. That’s not to say that I should act on every idea I generate. That would be impossible. However there are plenty of ideas and tasks that I’ve become paralyzed on because I simply didn’t know why they mattered to me. What things in your life do you find uninspiring?

8. Trying too hard. Let’s call this one what it really is… impatience! Another one of my life buddies that I can’t seem to break up with. This often happens when I’m inspired because I get so excited that I want to get moving NOW. I want to get to the finish line NOW. I want to get the outcome NOW. It also shows up when I’m not excited about the task and want to move it off my plate as quickly as possible. What it looks like is spending long bursts of time and effort to get as far ahead as possible. Not waiting for feedback or input from others. Taking steps on things I’ve asked others to help with. Spending all my energy up front in planning and preparation, then having nothing left for execution and quality control. I’m not talking about the times when I’m in the zone and full of excitement. I’m talking about the times when I deliberately ignore the voice that says “take a break, give it time to simmer, step away from it for now”. I operate under the assumption that if I just push a little harder and go a little longer I’ll get it finished. What often happens is that I either stall, give up or neglect something else that is far more important. What is something in your life where you might be trying too hard?

9. Not knowing where or how to start. This one sounds similar to some of the others, but there’s a distinction. I’m such a good predictor and forecaster in my own mind, I can easily get paralyzed right at the beginning. I may have a clear What and Why, but not know where to begin. This is often less about what is the first step, but which is the “right” first step. I will project out all the possible pathways and debate whether to go path A or path D or path Q, all because of the “if, then” dilemma. I’m so good at planning ahead that I get addicted to the planning, organizing, allocating and never taking a step. They are either all good options (how to choose?) or risky options (what if something goes wrong?). This planning addiction keeps me from taking action and taking risks because I’m trying so hard to see around all the corners. In the end, it hampers my learning process and keeps me from making progress, any progress, on the objective. Where have you spent too much time planning and not taking action?

10. Not asking for help. Dammit! This one is a pisser. I’ll admit that I am fiercely independent, like to get things done on my own schedule and like to keep things moving. Where this bites me in the butt is that I can be overly self-reliant and miss out on the opportunity to collaborate for an easier process or better end result. It also limits greatly what I might be capable of achieving. What gets in my way is impatience (I can do it faster myself), perfectionism (I’ll have to explain it and then redo it), fear of letting go (delegation), and obligation (everyone is busy and I can’t ask anyone to make my needs a priority). That last one stings and it’s probably tied to a bunch of the other ones. There’s more to this list, as well. What’s sad is that I can’t really know or say how much this one has cost me, because I haven’t allowed myself to try. What are the reasons you might not ask for help?

Of course there are other things that get in the way when I’m eager to be in motion. These are the most common and broadest examples.

When these things come up for me, it’s usually frustrating. Often angering and emotional. Yet, when I experience these things, it often turns out that I’m on the brink of learning something about myself and frequently on the edge of a breakthrough.

I look back on the many times I’ve faced these obstacles and am amazed at how often the same ones come up, over and over again.

Where do you find yourself sitting on a comma and what’s keeping you stuck?