Create and Build Momentum With a New Initiative to Get Unstuck.

Is there an area in your life where you feel completely stuck? First, you’re so uncomfortable in your comfort zone that you feel it every moment of your daily life. Second, as you look forward, you find yourself at a fork in the road and feel overwhelmed with both directions.

What to do? Create and build momentum with a new initiative.

Here’s how I got myself unstuck, and perhaps this will inspire you to do the same. In my early 30s, I found myself spinning in my comfort zone, recognizing that I was unhappy in my situation and struggling to make the next move.

Theodore Roethke’s quotation, “The directionless learns by moving” inspired me to take action. I considered my options.

The first option was to remain stuck in my uncomfortable comfort zone. I was working in management consulting, and though I learned much about the corporate world, I concluded that it was not my path. Something was missing in my life, and I didn’t know what that one thing was.

I was determined to get unstuck. I decided to create a new momentum, and this meant making a clean cut. I quit my job and took time off because as long as I stayed, I was stuck on that path. This was long before ‘taking time off’ was the norm. My friends and family were glad that I left an unsuitable environment, but they were also more nervous than excited for me because I hadn’t lined up another job.

The second option was to move forward toward a logical and practical path. After numerous informational interviews, haunting the library and local bookstores, reading, and taking notes for an entire summer, I got to know myself better. I also knew what I didn’t want, which was to remain in the corporate world.

But I needed to go back to work, so I decided to be practical. I applied to other corporate jobs that appeared more appealing, using my transferable skills. Friends and family supported me wholeheartedly; they could see that these new opportunities were logical based on what I had accomplished. While waiting for pending responses from various companies, I was feeling less and less excited as I scanned all the ‘logical’ positions out there.

The third option was to consider a path that’s neither logical nor practical—a path that was not based on what I had done but on what I have yet to accomplish. I wanted to do something more creative, something that feeds that missing ‘one thing.’ I took a leap of faith and contacted a family-owned business and offered my business skills to the owner. I landed a job with the title Director of Creative Projects. This was the start of my creative and entrepreneurial journey.

If you are stuck and have no idea what to do next, consider the following recommendations. You have three options:
1. Remain stuck. Sometimes, due to circumstances out of your control, you can’t change your current situation in the near future. But remember, you still have the power to adjust and create a small momentum to release some of that stuck energy.

Give yourself permission to get unstuck by creating and building a new momentum.

2. Pursue a logical and practical path that will get you out of your stuck mode as a stepping stone toward something more appealing in the future.

3. Open your mind and spirit to ideas that inspire you, that resonate deeply with you. Perhaps it’s a vision that you have not given yourself permission to consider and nurture. Research and take action. Wander onto a path not taken and surprise yourself.
 
If you’re not prepared to take a huge risk, start with a small one. Set a realistic goal and channel that stuck energy towards it. Allocate time in your daily planner, whether it’s 30 minutes or an hour. Commit to this goal and apply some of that self-discipline from other areas of your life to it.
By creating and building momentum with a new initiative, you will release yourself from your rut.

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© 2010-2024 My-Tien Vo – The-One-Thing (TOT) Insights.