I feel stuck, how do I get myself moving? So Glad You Asked!

Episode Summary:

Feeling stuck is a common experience, but it doesn't have to be permanent. In this episode of So Glad You Asked, Jean Madison explores the meaning of feeling stuck and provides actionable strategies to help you get unstuck and moving towards your goals.

Key Takeaways:

• Recognize that feeling stuck is often temporary.
• Identify what "stuck" means for you. Are you unsure of your direction, afraid to leave your comfort zone, or facing mental barriers?
• Define what you want. Start with small, achievable goals and clarify your vision for the future.
• Focus on what you can control. Don't let external factors or fear paralyze you.
• Take action! Even small steps can create momentum and break the cycle of feeling stuck.
• Build a support system. Share your goals with others and seek help when needed.

Actionable Steps:

• Pause the episode and reflect on these questions:
  • What does "stuck" look like for you?
  • What do you want right now?
  • What obstacles are in your way (real or imagined)?
  • What are small steps you can take today to move forward?
• Brainstorm a list of actions you can take to achieve your goals.
• Identify and let go of factors outside of your control.
• Reach out to your network for support and accountability.
• Consider scheduling a discovery call with Jean Madison for personalized coaching.

Resources:

• Connect with Jean Madison:
  • Instagram: @JeanMadison_
• Join the Whole Human Co email list: Here

Keywords: feeling stuck, unstuck, motivation, taking action, achieving goals, overcoming obstacles, career change, life coaching, Gallup Strengths, Jean Madison, Whole Human Co, podcast

Call to Action:

• Share this episode with someone who might be feeling stuck.
• Leave a review and share your thoughts on the episode.
• Submit your questions for future episodes.
• Visit Whole Human Co's website for more resources and information.

Remember: You have the power to get unstuck and create the life you want!

Jean Madison Offers Complimentary Discovery calls - If you're curious to learn more about 1:1 coaching, Strengths, Team Work, Leadership Development or Hiring and Onboarding Consulting, click here to schedule your conversation and get started on the road to Whole Human Change.

Find me on Instagram: @JeanMadison_

Explore intentional career, life, & relationship coaching or organizational & team development Here

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Chapters

• 0:01 Getting Unstuck
• 9:54 Taking Action to Get Unstuck
• 23:50 Taking Action to Get Unstuck Effectively
• 28:26 Taking Action and Moving Forward

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome back to so Glad. You Asked a podcast where we have conversations on career leadership and living an intentional life, and conversations with me, jean Madison, certified Gallup Global Strengths Coach and founder of Whole Human Co, where I'm focused on intentional career life and relationship coaching, as well as organizational and team development and well-being. Join me as I answer questions I'm asked by my clients and audience, as well as personal experiences and growth opportunities that I feel we could all learn from. If you have a question or topic suggestion you'd love to hear discussed here on the podcast, visit my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore, comment your questions here on the podcast or tap the link in the show notes that says send questions here to email me directly. Now let's dive into today's episode. All right, everyone.

Speaker 1: 0:44

Today we are going to be diving into the question I'm stuck how do I get myself moving? I would say that the vast majority of people who schedule discovery calls with me reach out to me in some way on social media or via email. Join my email list in any way. Become a part of the whole human co-community. Join my email list in any way. Become a part of the whole human co-community In one way or another. It's in order to tell me that they feel stuck. It's the number one thing that comes up on our discovery calls. It's the number one thing that people want to overcome. Yes, there's typically an end goal that they're feeling unstuck in the direction of, but that feeling of stuck is often what is keeping them from achieving what it is. They have in mind, what they want their next steps to be, and it can feel really overwhelming and crippling. So today we're going to talk all about how to get unstuck. First of all, I just want to say major kudos to you. If you are feeling stuck and you hit play on this podcast, that is an action that you've taken to get yourself unstuck and, based on what we're going to talk about today, action begets action, which will ultimately create momentum. So yay for you applause. You have taken the first step to getting unstuck, which is figuring out why you're stuck in the first place and what you can do about it. And just remember that this feeling is not forever. It is temporary and I'm going to help you through it. So today's episode will be fairly straightforward.

Speaker 1: 2:20

I want to share a few practices that I've used in the past for myself and that I use with my clients when they're feeling stuck. These practices won't by any means solve all of your problems and they aren't specified to you and how you most naturally think, feel and behave. That's what coaching is for. Rather, these are just some tools and practices to help you get moving, to shake things up and or bring you some much needed energy. I believe that a large part of getting unstuck is just getting moving, and that can be literally physically getting moving. It can mean getting the juices flowing. Moving. It can mean getting the juices flowing. It can mean just taking one step out of where you are and toward where you want to be. So that's really what we're going to focus on today is how do we just get a little bit of inertia, get a little bit of action that can help us get out of this place that we're feeling confined by. So you're feeling stuck Welcome, you're not alone.

Speaker 1: 3:31

The first thing I want us to talk about is what is stuck for you. Like, what does that mean? Because I find that it means different things for different people and it can look different for everyone. So I'm just going to ask a couple of questions I want you to consider. Is stuck really just, you are at a fork in the road and you're unsure which direction to choose. Is stuck really? Just the fact that you've outgrown your current situation, but it's safe and it's comfortable, and you're nervous to take the next steps, but it's safe and it's comfortable and you're nervous to take the next steps? Is stuck more around this idea of sunk cost mentality meaning you want to do something different but you feel like you're throwing away time, investment and maybe status in order to do so. Is stuck really knowing exactly what you want, but the voices of the people in your life are louder in opposition to that desire than your intuition is for it?

Speaker 1: 4:32

I ask these questions because sometimes being stuck quote unquote isn't really stuck. Knowing exactly what you're up against is crucial to being able to move your way through it. So in these examples that I just gave, they're not really stuck right. Sometimes there's a decision to make, sometimes there are barriers in your way, but oftentimes it's not that you don't know where you want to go, it's not that you literally cannot move toward that thing. It's that there's actually different kinds of barriers there mental barriers, physical barriers, too many options, lack of clarity these are all things that are keeping you stuck when, in reality, you're not actually stuck. We just got to take some action and get moving.

Speaker 1: 5:21

So if you are feeling this feeling of stuck and I keep visualizing like literally being in quicksand if you are feeling this feeling of stuck and I keep visualizing like literally being in quicksand, if you are feeling that right now, I would invite you to pause the podcast and ask yourself what do I mean by stuck. Feel free to just think about it, or you can journal about it, or maybe you voice memo if you're like driving or walking, whatever works for you. Ask yourself what do I mean by stuck and then come back and let's take some action. All right, welcome back. Hopefully you are back listening, armed with some sort of answer to the question what does stuck look like for you? What does it mean to you? What do you mean when you say I feel stuck? Now, whatever that answer is, whatever you came up with in your thinking time, I want you to set that answer aside for just a minute as we do some more exploration together. Now I want you to answer the question for yourself what do I want? Imagine that if you're feeling I imagine that if you're feeling stuck, it's because what you want and what you currently have are at odds, right? So let's take a second to get really clear on what it is that you want.

Speaker 1: 6:40

I talk about this a lot. I talk about creating and becoming intimately familiar with your vision for your life. Now this is a bigger practice, right, I have a 15 minute recorded visualization practice to help you create a vision for your life. But I also realized that for some people, especially without the support of one-on-one coaching or someone who can really help you form and hold this vision, that answering the question what do I want? And thinking about it in terms of a large life vision can be very, very overwhelming. It's also true that some people, their strengths, do not lend toward the future visualization and the future dreaming piece.

Speaker 1: 7:24

So, whether you are great at visualizing and thinking about the future or not, I want us to just start small here and I want you to just think about what do you want right now? And it can be the simplest thing, right? You can just choose something really simple for the purpose of this activity to learn how to get yourself unstuck, or you can literally think about what it is you want right now. That is the thing that you're feeling stuck about. It's completely up to you. So, again, you can take this opportunity to pause the podcast and ask yourself the question what do you want right now, and how does that desire relate to your stuck feeling? Take a minute, think about it and come on back. Now some other things to think about. Why is it that you don't have what you want right now? What is it that you need to do in order to make that thing that you want a reality, to get that thing? What obstacles real or imagined are currently in your way? These are some questions I want you to think about as we're going through the rest of this podcast, the rest of this activity.

Speaker 1: 8:42

I often find that with clients, when I ask these questions, most of the time the answers revolve around things outside of the person's control or so far in the future that it's not really relevant and maybe even unlikely to ever happen. A lot of us are very good at coming up with scenarios of why our desires won't pan out or why this particular idea we have won't be successful. You know all of the potential reasons why something's not going to work. We're often very good at that. I think it's human nature, right. It helps us. It has helped us in the past to survive.

Speaker 1: 9:20

However, for you, in this moment, it's likely that that's the thing that's keeping you from moving forward. And look, it's not that those things are irrelevant or even that they will never happen. It's just that sometimes we let those things be the thing that keeps us from doing anything. It's the fear, right, it's the fear of the unknown. The fear of what might happen is a thing that we are allowing to kind of control our lives, and or the things that are completely out of our control that we use as a reason or an excuse to not even try.

Speaker 1: 9:54

So, with that in mind, I want you to go back to these questions that I just asked and I want you to answer them really with only the things that are within your control and that you are sure will happen. So, why don't you have that thing that you want? What do you have to do in order to get there and what obstacles real or imagined are in your way? But only answering those with the things you absolutely know to be true in this moment, the things that you absolutely know for a true in this moment, the things that you absolutely know for a fact, will happen if you do this, or if you achieve this goal and that's it. None of the fears, none of the curiosities, none of the well, maybe this will happen. Maybe this won't Just what you know to be absolutely true. Start there Now.

Speaker 1: 10:44

If you paused and you came back, I would imagine that this was a little bit harder to answer. Right, because this is a really great example of how hypothetical situations and factors outside of your fear of influence are dictating your actions or lack of actions. If most of the things that you had originally answered those questions to are either outside of your control or so far in the future that we don't know if they'll ever actually happen, you realize how much power you're giving those things by not taking action because of them. So, now that we've gotten rid of those and we've created a list of maybe realistic things that could get in your way, right, because there are barriers, there are obstacles, there are challenges, but let's make sure that they're real and not perceived. Let's make sure that they are the things that are within your control, not the things that are outside of your control. Okay, now going back to that thing that you said that you wanted. Let's remember that. Let's bring that back to the forefront here.

Speaker 1: 11:43

I want you to think about what are all of the things that you could do to move you closer to having that thing that you want right now. It could be small things, big things, fun things, not fun things, everything. Now, again, it is my strength to ideate, to brainstorm, to create strategies. So this is an easy thing for me to do. It may be a little bit more challenging for you and I do find that it often is challenging for my clients, especially if you are stuck right, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're feeling uncertain. Sometimes it's really hard to get into the like what is the next little thing that I can do? What are all of the potential steps to move me toward this thing? That already feels overwhelming. So I'm going to give you an example. I'm going to walk you through a little brainstorming activity to help maybe spark some things for you, to help you understand what I mean by looking at things outside your control, looking at things inside your control and then thinking about what are all of the steps that you can take. All of them.

Speaker 1: 12:45

And now I also want to asterisk, because this is something I learned when I was a team leader when you come up with all of these ideas of things that you could do. It does not mean you have to do them all right now. I used to have, you know, direct reports come to me say that they were having challenges with something and I would spout off a hundred different ideas of ways they could solve that problem or ways they could get themselves out of that funk or whatever it was. I was just brainstorming. I was uncommitted to and uninterested in the outcome of those ideas necessarily. It was more just like hey, here are some options, take them, leave them, do what you want to do. My team members often took that as here is a list of a hundred things that you now have to do on top of everything else. So I just want to be very clear that I'm about to list off a long list of things that you could do in relation to this particular example that I'm going to give. If this example is similar to what you are going through right now, it does not mean you have to do all of those things today. It does not mean you even have to do all of those things period.

Speaker 1: 13:50

These are just examples of action items that you can take to start to get yourself moving, to start to build momentum, to start to get yourself unstuck Okay, cool. So, example you want a new job. This is one that comes up all the time. This is something that comes up in most of my coaching sessions, discovery calls, etc. Etc. If somebody comes to me saying they want a new job and they just feel stuck, they don't know what to do, they don't know what actions to take, they don't know where to start right, that where to start piece is also a really key thing, because a lot of the times, we have created this idea for ourselves that there is a perfect way to start and there is a perfect strategy that we have to follow in order to get the perfect outcome of the perfect new job. Well, we are not about perfect here. We are actually about imperfect. We're going to talk about this in some future episodes, but one of my purpose statement that I have created with the help of my friend and colleague Charlie and our work at Human Work is that I help imperfect people change their worlds. So we're going to embrace that idea of imperfection here in this example you want a new job.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Some of the things that people come to me with that I'm going to put under the category of outside of your control are the economy, the job market, what companies are looking for specifically in certain roles. Salary, um, uh, options, yes, there's negotiation, but, like, for the most part, if someone is putting a salary out there, that's not really within your control. Um, different requirements on job descriptions right, those things are not within your control. But those often tend to be the things that people put out there as reasons why they have not applied, why they haven't started the job search, why they're just going to stay in the role that they're in. And, yeah, those things aren't in your control and they may affect your job search. But to just like, wash your hands of the whole process and be like, well, those things are outside my control, so I guess I'm just not going to do it, it doesn't really sit well with me.

Speaker 1: 16:00

I have strong activator energy, I want you to take action. So, with me, I have strong activator energy, I want you to take action. So let's do a little brainstorm of all the things that are inside of your control when it comes to wanting a new job but feeling stuck, feeling unsure where to go, what kinds of actions to take. So something that's within your control is outlining what exactly you want in this next role. I find that a lot of people skip this step because they have their job title, they have their job description and they're like, okay, the next possible step for me is this promotion, this job title with this job description. So that's the only thing they're looking at.

Speaker 1: 16:37

But really, what's in your control is getting really clear on what are the things that I liked doing in this role that I have right now. What are the things I never want to do again, what are all the things I've loved to do throughout my career. Really getting clear on all of those things so that you kind of have this list for yourself of you know, if it was ideal if I had my say, these are all the things that I would be doing, this is exactly what I'm looking for in terms of pay, benefits, et cetera. Now, it does not mean you're going to get all of those things. It just means at least now you have something to kind of compare these potential opportunities to a rubric, if you will, to say, okay, cool, I know what I want, I know what they're offering, do those things match, or do they at least match enough that I'm willing to take the next step. So that's one thing outlining what exactly you want, which is what we did a little bit at the beginning of this episode. See, there's a reason for it.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Another thing that's in your control is telling people that you're looking for a job, sharing with key people exactly what it is you're looking for. Once you've mapped that out, I often find that people have decided they're going to look for a new role and they haven't told anyone. Now, I understand there are company politics situations. You don't necessarily want people at your work to know that you're looking potentially, but those people are not the only people in your network. Those people are not the only people who can help you.

Speaker 1: 17:59

And if even if it's not about helping you find a new job there is such power to voicing the fact that you are looking for a new role, to just putting it out there right, that's an example of one of those very small first steps to get you unstuck is just actually stating the thing. Because if you're just sitting here being like, oh, I need a new job, I want a new job, I don't want to work here anymore, I don't want to do this anymore, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do something else, but no one else around you knows. Then no one else can hold you accountable, no one else can cheer you on, no one else can send you potential opportunities right? You're literally keeping yourself stuck by just sitting in this little bubble of I think I want to do something different.

Speaker 1: 18:42

So, whether it's your best friend who has nothing to do with your work environment, a mentor, a coach, a family member, like tell somebody, tell someone that's something that's in your control, a couple of technical things in your control, updating your resume, updating your LinkedIn, these are just things that you can do, regardless of whether you have a job to apply to, regardless of whether you even really know what you want, although I still would recommend starting with that step. But if you just need to do something and updating your resume or updating your LinkedIn, even in the slightest manner, feels like something to check off, a list and something that will make you feel productive, then by all means do that. Get started on it. Right? I will say I do recommend not spending too much time and energy on your resume until you have roles that you're actually applying to, because I believe that applying to less roles and being more intentional about that application is the better approach. But that's just me personally, and that is, you know, something I talk about individually with people and not so much here, because obviously there's a lot of different kinds of people listening here and a lot of different kinds of situations.

Speaker 1: 19:49

So, while I wouldn't recommend spending hours and hours and lots of money updating your resume when you don't exactly know what you want, you can go in and be like, oh, I need to update this language, or I got some new responsibilities in this role, or I don't need to have this role so prominently on my resume anymore. It's been too long. Whatever it is, it can be small. Same thing with LinkedIn. Some things, some action like outward that you could do would be like joining networking opportunities, and this might not be like specific job searching opportunities, but it could be local leadership groups, it could be civic engagement groups. Right, even if that's not the career that you're in, it's still a place where people are, and sometimes going to these like speed dating, actual job search networking events, can feel very, very overwhelming for people. Just get out in your community, just be around people, talk to people.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Again, stating that you're looking for something around anyone is probably going to be helpful, if for no other reason, it's going to give you some momentum and some energy around this action that you need to be taking or you are taking the next step to find this new job. Seek out help, ask for help, ask for hiring help, resume help, linkedin help, interviewing help, help finding roles right and these can be from friends, family, former colleagues, current colleagues, if you feel comfortable with that. A coach, a mentor you know, someone who's been in the space and knows how to move up, or someone who can just really be an accountability partner for you to help you take the actions that you need to take. Whatever it is, I highly recommend getting help and support and enlisting people in this thing that you're doing, because that's the thing that's really going to keep you moving forward. Now again, everyone has different strengths, which means we are motivated by different things. So I have responsibility high, which means me telling people what I'm doing is very important to my productivity and me getting things done, because that's how I get things done. For you, it might be different, so you need to think about what motivates you and what do you need to help hold you accountable. It might not be a person, it might be something else, but for a lot of us, having people involved to hold us accountable is never not going to be helpful. Maybe you are still in kind of that determining what you want phase, and that's not just like an easy answer to a question. You know you need to change, but you're not really sure what that looks like. Something that you could start doing is researching companies, figuring out like what they do, and if you're interested in what, how they run their company or their culture or whatever it is, you could start identifying different jobs that you think sound interesting and then, looking at those jobs, determine what additional experience you need, what additional training you feel like you need, et cetera, et cetera, and then you can pursue some continued learning, some continuing education. Again, this is one of those areas that, depending on you and your strengths, I kind of recommend treading lightly, because it can be an area where you lean into it so hard in order to procrastinate the actual thing which is applying to a job, or you use it as kind of this evidence that you're not good enough to apply to jobs, and I don't want that to be the case. But if you genuinely are in this place of like, I don't really know what I want next, I just know it's something. Then doing some of that exploration and determining what kinds of additional growth and training and learning you can pursue while you're figuring it out can be really, really helpful. And then, finally, the action that is probably the most obvious, that is within your control, is that you can apply to jobs. You can actually apply to roles. Now, again, I personally believe there are a lot of steps that go into place before you're actually applying to roles to set yourself up for success, to make sure it's in alignment with the direction you want to be going, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 23:50

But maybe to some of you, just getting a job application out doesn't matter how perfect the job is or imperfect the job is. It doesn't matter if you're qualified or not so qualified, you just need to do the action of pressing submit in order to build that momentum that you need to really find that new job. Great, do it. Find a role that you don't feel very strongly about and go ahead and apply. Get that first interview out of the way. Maybe you get an offer and you're like no, thank you. That's not really what I wanted to do. It's fine. If that's what you feel like you need to do to get yourself moving, then by all means do that thing.

Speaker 1: 24:27

So these are a couple of examples of things that you could do If you were wanting to get a new job. These are things that are in your control, right? You cannot control the outcome of these things, but you can control the input, you can control the actions that you take. So you get the picture outline, the things that are outside of your control. Be very honest with yourself about that and let those things go. Do not let them be an excuse for why you are not taking action.

Speaker 1: 24:52

And then come up with a list of things that are in your control. They can be big, they can be small, they can be consequential, they can be inconsequential, they can be silly, they can be fun, it does not matter. Just create a list of things that you have control over and that you can do, and that's where I want you to start. That's the thing that I think is going to help get you out of this stuck feeling. So you've created this list. Now what I want you to do is I want you to just pick something. Pick something that you can do today, right now. It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be challenging, it doesn't have to bring about big change or, you know, even really get you to a specific result. It just needs to be something that allows you to take action and makes you feel like you've taken even the tiniest step forward. Because once you've done that, once you've taken that tiny thing, and you've done it guess what? You're not stuck anymore. Congratulations, you are no longer stuck because you have taken action.

Speaker 1: 25:53

However, unstuck does not necessarily mean that a dream has been realized or a goal has been accomplished, and I think that's really important to kind of put into your brain. A lot of times we're either stuck or we've achieved our goal, and we kind of ignore that whole messy, muddy trudge in the middle. So for you, when you're thinking about, I feel stuck and I want to be unstuck. Unstuck is simply taking action, putting one step, one foot in front of the other, taking one small action. Unstuck is not accomplishing your dream, achieving that goal, et cetera, et cetera. That is the result of becoming unstuck, hopefully, but it is not what unstuck itself is. So that's what we have for today.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I want you to take this practice and apply it to any time you're feeling unable to take action. Anytime you're feeling that quicksand experience of not being able to move, of not knowing how to or where to move or what to do, and just start taking some small actions. And if you want more support, if you're like this is great, but like I gave it a try and I still am not feeling like I'm moving in a purposeful direction, that's okay. If you want more support, guidance, accountability, et cetera, you know that I am here and that coaching can always be a great option. It's not always the solution, but it can be, and you'll never know if you don't have a conversation about it, right? So schedule a discovery call to see how I can support you. And, hey, maybe that is an example of an action that you can take to get unstuck.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Congrats, win-win for everyone. You get a free coaching session and you get to take an action that gets you closer to feeling unstuck. That's what we have for the episode today. I'm so glad that you all asked this question because it's an important one and, honestly, it's a little bit easier than everyone makes it out to be to get unstuck. I hope that you take some of these actions, that you experiment with this process and see what works for you. I would love to hear how it went, what questions came up for you, maybe even what the thing was that you were feeling stuck on and how you got out of it, to share for the audience to see, you know, so everyone else can see how to get unstuck as well. So feel free to share that in the comments.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Share this episode with someone you know who is maybe feeling a little bit stuck right now and could use a little nudge in the direction of action and movement.

Speaker 1: 28:26

A little nudge in the direction of action and movement. If you enjoyed the episode or you've been enjoying the podcast so far, please like, review, comment, share all the things. If you want occasional updates on what's happening at Whole Human Co, I really encourage you to join my email list at the link in the show notes. I do not send out frequent emails. I simply send out updates on the podcast and offerings that you can join in you might be interested in, et cetera. If you have a question that you'd like me to answer here on the podcast, which I would love to hear, hop over to my Instagram at JeanMadison underscore and share there, or click the link in the show notes that says send question here. If nothing else, I hope that you take some of these things with you today to help keep you from getting stuck and help keep you on the path of action and accountability, and I will see you back here next time, for so Glad you Asked.