Why You Feel Stuck in Life (and What to Do This Week)

Feeling stuck usually isn't about not trying hard enough. It's about putting your effort into things that aren't you, and only half committing to them. You're busy, but nothing is building. The way out isn't grinding harder at the wrong thing. It's noticing where you were most yourself, going back to it, and committing all the way.

Six months of "this isn't it"

I never had the moment a lot of people describe, where you did everything you were told and then realized it wasn't the life you wanted. Nobody handed me a script to follow. My version of stuck looked different.

The solar company I'd built my work around went under. I lost my income, my team, and honestly a big part of how I saw myself. Then I drifted for six months. I tried interior design. I tried insurance. I went back to pest control.

Every one of them felt like this isn't it, and I couldn't have told you why. Nobody was telling me to do those things. I just kept picking up the next one.

Here's the part I'm not proud of: I wasn't really committing to any of them. I was looking for reasons each one wouldn't work. I knew I wasn't giving it everything, and I still couldn't stop drifting.

Then, on the day I showed up to start back at pest control, I got a call to come back to solar. I flew to California and closed a deal on my first day, in Spanish, on a system I'd never seen before.

Six months away, and the skill hadn't gone anywhere. I'd been stuck because I'd drifted away from what I was built to do, not because I'd lost anything.

Two kinds of stuck

Some people are stuck on a script that isn't theirs: the degree, the stable job, the path someone else drew. If that's you, read the rules you never agreed to.

Others, like me, are stuck without a script. You're trying things, but none of them fit, and you're only half in each one. That kind of stuck feels like motion without progress.

Both have the same way out: stop auditioning things that don't fit, and commit to the thing that does.

Three questions to find your way back

1. When did you last feel most like yourself? At work or anywhere else. Pick a specific time.
2. What were you actually doing? Not the job title. The activity: talking to people, building something, solving problems, teaching.
3. Am I committing, or auditioning? Be honest about the thing in front of you. If you're collecting reasons it won't work, you're auditioning.

What you're good at doesn't expire. It waits for you to come back to it.

What the research says

Specific plans beat good intentions. In a review of 94 studies, psychologists Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran found that people who decided exactly when and where they'd act on a goal ("Tuesday at 7, I'll call him") followed through far more often than people who just intended to. Vague plans tended to stay vague. (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006)

When you feel stuck, "I need to figure my life out" is about as vague as a goal gets. One specific step at one specific time is how you start moving again.

This week

1. Answer the three questions in writing. Take ten minutes, no more.
2. Pick one small step toward what you wrote for question two, and decide exactly when you'll do it this week.
3. Do it, then write one line about how it felt. Compare that line to how the last few months have felt.