If you feel stuck in life and feel like it’s time to take action, you are in the right place. In this guide, you will find everything you need to know to get unstuck and build the life you want.
Feeling stuck is not a fun place to be, I know that from my experience. In 2019, I was a management consultant working in London, and while my life ticked all the boxes, I felt incredibly unhappy. There were so many options out there, but deciding on which path to take was way more painful than I’ve expected. I’ve figured it out in the end, and so can you if you follow the steps in this guide.
Ok, trailblazer, let’s get you unstuck!
Why do I feel stuck in life?
Let’s explore what kind of ‘stuck’ are you and how did that happen. You might fall into one or a few buckets below.
“I feel like I am wasting my life.”
You might be stuck in a job you hate or a career that isn’t aligned with your talents and passions. Or maybe you waste your days on mindless scrolling, feeling useless and not moving towards your goals.
It’s likely that you are not living your life in line with your core values and not doing what fulfills you. It’s healthy for any human being to want to do something noteworthy with their life. You want that too, but not sure what that looks like or how to get there.
“I feel overwhelmed with options.”
You have ideas on what you could do with your life, but there are too many. “How do I choose the right path?” you may be asking. You end up researching different career options, courses, certifications, but not actually pursuing any of them.
Abundance of choice in the modern society created a problem of “analysis paralysis”. If you choose one path, you have to give up on all other possibilities. So, instead of making a decision and moving on, you stay stuck in a false belief that until you chose, you have all the options, ultimately robbing yourself of any.
“I don’t have any energy or motivation.”
You feel physically and mentally exhausted most days, lacking the energy or drive to pursue your goals and dreams. You might feel hopeless, depressed and doubting your ability to get what you want in life.
Low energy and motivation often stem from prolonged stress, burnout, or unresolved emotional issues, which can cloud your outlook on the future. Overthinking and worrying about your life is yet another energy drainer that keeps you even more stuck.
“I don’t have a purpose in life.”
You feel like you are just floating by in life without a sense of direction in spite of your achievements. This feeling comes from a lack of a clear sense of purpose or alignment with your values and goals. “If only I knew what I should be doing, I would go and get it”, you might think. But you don’t know what you want or what is your calling, so you end up feeling empty and apathetic.
“My life feels meaningless.”
You struggle to find joy or meaning in daily activities. “Is it all there is to life?” you might be wondering. You feel like there must be more to life. Instead, you are stuck in a rut, feeling like all you do is tick the conventional boxes of success and happiness and not actually living your life to the fullest.
What does it mean to “get unstuck”?
Now that we are clear on what “being stuck” means, let’s clarify what it actually means to “get unstuck”. When you get unstuck, you will:
Be clear on who you are, where you want to go and how to get there
Start moving toward your goals
Feel empowered, confident, and optimistic about the future
Feel at peace with yourself
Feel proud of the work you do
Feel you are living up to your full potential
Sounds good, eh? Time to get unstuck!
How do I get unstuck in life?
While your situation and journey are unique, there are three key steps that you need to follow to get unstuck in life.
Step 1. Understand who you are
When we are born, we are taken by the current of life — college, job, promotion, another promotion…until one day, when you realise you are living your life ticking society’s boxes and not really living your life in sync with who you really are.
But what does it mean, knowing yourself? It means understanding your core values, passions, talents, beliefs, and aspiration. What you might find meaningful in life could be completely different for someone else. We often use our immediate social group as a proxy for who we want to be and what we want to do with our lives. But this proxy can be misleading.
Instead, spend some time on thorough self-discovery to find your true self.
Knowing who you are means:
Knowing your personal values
Understanding what drives you
Having clarity on your priorities in life
Knowing your talents, interests, and strengths
Understanding what gives you energy and what drains it
How to get to know yourself
There is no one size fits all in personal discovery. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Try journalling to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Consider your values, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations.
Guided self-reflection tools like My Life Quest, can be a good tool to discover who you are in a structured and fun way.
Ask trusted friends, family members, or mentors for their perspectives on your personality, behavior, and qualities.
Pay attention to what energises you and what drains your energy. Exploring different hobbies and experiences can help you uncover your passions and interests.
Consider taking personality assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Big Five Personality Traits, or the Enneagram.
You can define your core values for free with the help of AI in My Life Quest app.
Step 2. Get clear on what you want
Some of us were never taught to pay attention to what we actually want. If you have no idea what to do with your life, you might need to practice on smaller things, like what do you want to wear or what you want for lunch.
Once you get into the habit of listening to your desires, it will be easier for you to dig into the bigger stuff, like what kind of career might be right for you or what kind of relationship are you looking for.
If you already have some ideas of what you want but still feeling stuck, you need to spend some time organising your yearnings. It is completely normal for us to want conflicting things. All you need to do is prioritise your desires and decide what matters to you the most right now.
One way to do that is to create a map of yearnings. Write all of your dreams, desires and wants. All of them, small and big! Now organise those into clusters — you might end up with buckets like Financial Freedom, Health, Bucket List, Relationships and so on.
Now go through all of your wants and decide for each one if it is:
Must have — you are unwilling to compromise on it;
Very important- very important to you and you are willing to work hard to get it;
Nice to have — would be nice to have it in your life, but only if it doesn’t hinder other things in your list.
You can use colored pencils to mark each one of your wants to get a visual representation of your yearnings. This will help you immediately see what is truly important to you right now. And free your head from all the worrying about all those options that you have in your life.
Step 3. Run life experiments
Now, the most important step to getting unstuck! You must start doing things. You must know that you will never know all the details about all the options you have in life. And you don’t know whether you will like something unless you try it. So, once you have some idea of what you could do with your life, start moving.
Life experiments are a great way to de-risk your pursuits. They are a great tool to help you get unstuck when attempting to do something big or uncertain. They allow you to ‘date’ your idea and learn more about it before deciding whether you want to continue on that path.
Depending on your risk appetite and the level of uncertainty that you are dealing with, you can run a few types of life experiments:
1. Go all-in
Quit your job, start a business, move to a new country, sell all your stuff and become a minimalist. If you are an ‘all or nothing’ kind of person, this might be the best approach for you. It involves more risk, but allows you to test your ideas quicker.
2. Date the idea
Try out a destination before committing. Shadow someone on a job, take a sabbatical to join a startup accelerator, spend a few months in another country to see if you like it, pack up your stuff in a storage unit and live with only a few items for some time.
3. Conversational research
Talk to people from different walks of life who did the thing you are interested in doing. e.g. talk to an artist, watch YouTube videos from the minimalists, join an entrepreneur meetup. This is the least risky approach and requires minimum investment from you, so you can do as many of such experiments as you want.
A few examples of life experiments to get you going:
Thinking of moving to the countryside? Book a farm on Airbnb and test the countryside lifestyle for a couple of weeks.
Wondering if you want to have a dog? Sign-up as a dog sitter and explore various breeds you are considering.
Looking to try out a potential career direction or want to test a business idea? Create a landing page or a website for your new business idea or shadow someone who does what you want to do.
Not sure if you want to have a child? Spend a week with your friends who have children.
You get the idea! The most important thing is taking action. This is the only key and magic ingredient for getting you unstuck, my friend.
Conclusion
You’ve spent enough time analysing, researching, prioritising and theorising, it’s time to act! Sometimes you need to just do it. Despite all the ‘yes, buts’ in your head. You don’t need to have it all figured out. All you need to do is figure out which lily pad to jump on next.
Not that scary, right?
One last thing before you go…
If you are tired of being stuck and ready to create the life you life, try My Life Quest. It is a personal discovery journey that will help you understand who you are, get clear on what you want, create a strategic life plan, and start moving with life experiments.
Try for free now: My Life Quest.
Great post, it really inspired me! Thanks Natalya