Three tips to help you get unstuck
I love my Wayne Dyer calendar! It feels like everyday it has just the right quote I need to hear!
It feels almost magical to turn the page and read a wonderful piece of advice that makes you wonder and gets you thinking…
The quote I read the other day was saying “All of us are on our own paths, doing exactly what we know how to do at the moment, given the conditions of our lives.”
When I read it I started wondering about it.
At first, it speaks to me about expecting the best from others, about giving others the benefit of the doubt believing that they are doing their best. It shows me to be compassionate and have empathy about the people I met daily because we are all doing what we know at each moment and each of us have our own stories…
But it also made me wonder about myself, thinking about possibilities and growth.
Given the conditions that you are living right now, if you are doing exactly what you know how to do at that given moment, how do you grow and get past your current conditions?
That was the question that surfaced in my mind when I read the quote, and I realized a few things.
If you are feeling stuck and limited by the current conditions in your life, what can you do to move past them?
From my own experience I learnt that there are a couple of things that help overcoming the feeling of “stuckness”.
The first thing that helps is to ask yourself, are you being your absolute best under the current conditions? Are you committing fully into anything that you do daily? Are you giving all that you have at any giving moment? Or are you just letting things pass by, complaining and just not doing anything?
I’ve lived this a few years back, I was feeling stagnant and wondering how to get out of my rut when it came to my work as an engineer. I was focused on just letting the time pass by and not feeling progress.
Then it happened what is quite normal in the oil and gas industry, we hit a low market period. Being in the oil and gas industry you realize that there will be highs and lows and that companies will be cutting down resources when they hit their lows, and we, their employees, are the ones to be let go when things get difficult.
Just before that low market period hit, I had started to wonder if I was doing my best and enjoying where I was at the time. I started wondering if I was giving it my best. I realized that I wasn’t.
I started changing my behavior and started showing up with an attitude of helping out. I noticed quickly that I was more engaged and happier at work when I was focused on helping.
I learned during one of those low periods that you need to show that you are valuable to the company. I learned that sitting down and not doing anything does not help you to be valued.
I learned that showing up at work with the attitude of "how can I help?” is as valuable as being experienced. When you show up with the intent of helping and serving, when you give yourself fully and don’t care about helping even if it is “below” your “normal work”, that’s when others notice you and realize that you are someone to keep around.
I saw how the number or people at the building I worked at was reduced from 2,000 to 500 employees.
But for me, during that low period, I not only kept my job but I also received a bonus and a salary increase. And it was because I shifted my thinking to how can I help, I did my best and I was recognized for it by the ones that had a saying about who to keep and who to let go.
Of course, I know that not everyone will have the same results. There are many factors and a lot of the people that was let go were doing their best too.
But, even if you are fired, or your efforts are not recognized, you will still have a clear conscience that you did your best, that you tried all that it was in your hands, and you will not have regrets afterwards. You’ll avoid asking yourself the “what if I had done this or that…?” question…so…
Be of service, do your best, you never know who might notice you and give you the chance you were looking for!
The second thing that helps getting you unstuck is to ask, how can I know better?
If you are doing what you know how to do at the moment, then can it be that by knowing more you can do more and be better? So, can you know more? Can you learn, can you become more skilled?
As Maya Angelou says “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better”.
So, do you want to do better, to be at a different level, to get out of your rut? What are the new skills you could acquire? What new things can you learn?
This was what I started doing as well when I shifted my focus to how can I be of value? I was helping with things that were out of my normal scope of work, so I had to learn new skills.
You have to be willing to learn, because when you really want to help, you might have people asking you to do things that are not within your “normal” job scope… Maybe there are things that you wouldn’t normally do such as filing paperwork, helping out doing errands, organizing files, or working at a different department, whatever it is…you might need to learn new skills, get out of your normal tasks and grow into other areas… that’s what will help you growing, and when you are growing you are no longer stuck, you start moving forward!
Learn new things, acquire new skills, increase your knowledge.
The third thing, you have to be aware and honest with your feelings. If you are not aware with where you are, or how you feel and you don’t recognize that you are stuck, you cannot start taking the steps needed to get out of your rut.
If I didn’t stop and ask myself if I was enjoying what I was doing, or if I was doing my best, I couldn’t have changed my behavior. I’d be still stuck and maybe out of work if I hadn’t been honest with how I was feeling.
Pay attention to your feelings, be aware and honest with yourself.
So remember, if you want to get unstuck from where you are:
Be of service.
Learn new things.
Pay attention to your feelings.
A simple but profound quote from Wayne Dyer got me thinking about all of this…
Now, share with me below, what are some things that you’ve learn from your experience that helped you to get unstuck? Let me know, I’d love to hear from you!
xoxo,
Sofia