Collective Genius!

Getting real

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Sometimes you need a bit of reality therapy in the grey days of early January. I believe you can do/be pretty much whatever you want (with some common-sense caveats), but you have to know where you're starting from.

So first, don't make assumptions about the changes you think you want to make. Spend a few weeks finding out what you really want to do and be. Use a journal, sketch, write, think, feel. Listen to your instincts, and spare an ear for voices that are overly negative: being fearful of something can mean it's the wrong thing for you, or it may be the very thing you need to face up to in order to grow. At this point avoid asking other people what they think. (Of course you need to take others into account to whatever extent your circumstances dictate, but plan that side after you've found out what YOU want.)

Don't spend too long on this dreaming part. Set yourself a deadline otherwise drift is a big danger.

Once you know what you want, establish where you are now. Make an inventory of whatever part of your life you want to change. Finances, health, education, love life, career, whatever. (All of these? Yeah, me too, but let's just pick a couple to be getting on with, otherwise we'll get discouraged!)

Be specific and detailed in your inventory. Say you're lonely and you want to share your life with someone special, so that's your goal. You haven't had a romantic relationship for several years, your social life revolves around the same group of friends, and you never meet anyone new because you've been concentrating on your career. Plus a big part of you is really scared of commitment and you're self-conscious about your weight so the thought of using the bedroom for anything other than sleep embarrasses you, and anyway maybe no-one will want you because now you're too old. That's your detailed starting point.

Next step is to make a plan. Using this example, if you really want intimacy back in your life, then unravelling some of your negative feelings may need a bit of therapy. You obviously need to widen your social circle, and maybe one way of doing that would be to join a gym or dance class where you could start to feel more confident physically. You need to find a way to work fewer hours. Maybe your friends don't have any idea you're looking, and have someone they could introduce you to. You could join classes, a dating agency, do some voluntary work.

That's the easy part, next bit is to put your plan into action!

You get the picture: dream, detail, design, do.

And by the way, that example above? Yes, that's me, so wish me all the best, because it's scary stuff!

Happy 2007 everyone.

Teresa
www.teresamarshall.com

Getting the Job You Want

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Q: How do you get the job you want? A: Send off your CV. Right? Well.....

I'm going to be suggesting that the traditional way of sending off a CV (1) speculatively to organisations (2) in response to advertisements, is not always effective. A more proactive approach is in either of those cases to send the CV but attach a value proposition letter. Be clear that this is a lot more than just a ‘covering letter’. And the most proactive approach is to actually write (value proposition letter + CV) to the organisations you would like to work for even before they start advertising.

Choose your organisation. Choose the organisation you want to work for. How do you know about them; by reading. Read your main business press, your vertical market press and begin to note the organisations at which you would like to be employed.

Once you have a target, think what they want from you? If you are HR, how can you help reduce the number of good people leaving? If you are Marketing Director, try and put a number on the improved return you will bring to the marketing budget. Write a concise letter. Good help with these skills is available from Jeffrey Fox and also my book. Now send those letters and leave a couple of weeks then follow-up. Be polite, be persistent.

As with so much of the good advice Curt offers: think differently and you can get some different results.

Good luck. I'm Nicholas Bate. Visit my blog sometime. Nicholasbate.typepad.com

Actions over wishing

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Last New Year's, a friend and I sat together at her kitchen table discussing plans for the new year. She was listing her resolutions in her journal. I was staring at my own blank journal feeling as empty as the pages.

While she made decisions about her wishes for her life, I realized I didn't care about resolutions. I started writing out goals for myself. I broke them up into smaller steps, and transferred them to my note organizer on my computer when I got home.

This year, I'm amused to see so many people feel the same way I do. I think it has a lot to do with the mindset behind a resolution. I can resolve to do yoga every day all I want, but if I don't put a plan behind it, the chances are good that i will never actually do it. I wish to do this, but nothing is compelling me.

On the other hand, a well-written goal demands action. Consider my goal to do yoga daily. By starting off doing yoga three times a week, I will add a day every two weeks until I am doing yoga daily.
I've set small, attainable steps for myself to help myself grow into the habit of doing yoga on a daily basis. I feel pushed to do it for fear of letting myself down.

Maybe it's just me, but if I had to offer one piece of advice, it would be to set goals instead of resolutions for yourself. Set clearly defined goals and break them into baby steps to make them more achievable. It makes accomplishing change so much easier.

Year of the

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What will punctuate this year for you?

For many, 2006 meant working harder and resting less. Let's make 2007 the year of working less with greater results. Plan that amazing vacation NOW. Book several three day weekends NOW even if you don't know exactly what you will do. Send your boss a note with the vacation dates so you stick to the plan. If you have 2 weeks vacation coming, put all 14 days on the calendar now - if you have more time, take that too. Enjoy!

For many, 2006 was a tough year financially and many went into greater debt. Let's make 2007 the year to create more stability and save more money. Cars and fancy DVDs don't make us happy, so get rid of all those worldly belongings stacked in the corner of the garage or eating a hole through your checking account. As soon as it gets just a bit warmer he in Seattle, I am putting my Saab convertible up for sale. Not because I have to (I love that car) but because we don't need it. I don't have a car payment, but maintenance and insurance is certainly at least a couple grand per year. I should be saving these funds, investing them. We all have stuff we don't use enough to justify keeping it - let's declutter and save more. My husband and I would like to add to savings in the amount of 2-3 more months worth of bills and also top out on IRA and health savings account contributions. Having the cushion and having less stuff around feel great.

For many, 2006 did not feel very connecting - the world seemed to pull apart more than come together. Let's make 2007 a year for coming together. Experience other cultures, volunteer your time and energy, and reach out to those in need. I want to learn more about eastern Europe and Asia - people and places. And I will continue to dig deep into learning more about some of my favorite places like the very diverse New Mexico. I also want to pick back up on my Spanish language abilities (I have picked it up and dropped it many times).

Think back to 2006. If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently? Create positive momentum by starting 2007 off with these goals in mind.

Happy new year!

Lisa Haneberg
Here's my breakthrough blog.

January 2007 Collective Genius: New Year's advice

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It's time of year where people naturally look forward at the year ahead. In recognition of that, this month's Collective Genius! topic is New Year's advice. It's a free-for-all, anything goes smorgasbord of insights and ideas. The topic? New Year's advice.

Some questions to prime the pump:

• What advice do you have for people as they look at the new year?
• What ideas would you like to share?
• What tools and techniques have you incorporated into looking forward in your own journey?
• How do you turn this season into a catalyst to launch you into an amazing year?
• What mistakes have you made in new year's past? What have you learned from that?
• What mistakes do you see people making in their new year's planning?
• What ideas do you have for effective goal setting?

As always, if you have insights to share that are relevant to the topic but not listed in the questions here, by all means write a post about them! The questions are just there to give your brain something to chew on.

For those of you who are new, you can find out what Collective Genius! is here, and find out how you can participate here.

Stretch Marks!

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People sometimes talk glibly about being outside the comfort zone, and if you google it you'll find lots of hits, many about getting back into it (or staying there). However, it's often where growth and significant change happens. But (like childbirth) being significantly outside your zone (and it's different for each of us) will leave you changed, possibly permanently. I.e., you may not look the same coming at as you did going in. (Just ask my wife after having delivered our daughter.)

This leads us to a way of measuring where we are - Ask yourself:

Does this [process | change | new direction | new relationship] have the potential to alter who I am, or how I see the world?

In other words, any significant personal undertaking must involve a change in you, the doer.

There are two related questions:

First, if you acknowledge that moving outside your comfort zone will change you, consider whether it's changing you in ways you like. I find it useful to periodically ask myself: "Do I like the person I'm turning into by doing this?" The "this" can range from big changes (like work and relationships), down to the daily inputs you let into your life, including how much bad news you take in, and how many acts of violence you watch. I'd argue that each one is changing us.

The second question is: How often are you asking:

What in the world do I think I'm DOING!?

In other words, moving out side your comfort zone can leave you feeling out of control, at least temporarily. Why is this important? I think it has to do with how humans evolved. As children we reveled being outside the comfort zone (in fact we are built to be outside it - it's called learning). However, when mature and reach child-bearing age, nature turns it off - makes us less comfortable outside the zone - in favor of safety. This is because as parents we need to provide a stable framework for our offspring to do the same thing - to get safely outside their comfort zones.

This means that, as adults, we have to work to get outside the zone, and that it's easy to stay in it. Hence, having manageable amount of periodic chaos is a good thing. The good news is that we can train ourselves to get outside the zone by doing it regularly. Yes, the first time it's painful (just ask me about the first workshop I put on), but it gets easier over time, and you get more resilient in the process. Plus, you're making yourself into someone you like!

So how about you? For the year passing:

• Were you out of your comfort zone enough?
• How did each move out event change you?
• Do you like who you are turning into?

Matthew Cornell, Matt's Idea Blog

Resources

• Two books I've found helpful around this are Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, and Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up by Patricia Ryan Madson.
• You may also enjoy Alvin Soon's article The Most Important Thing to Do: Stretch.
• Steve Leveen of Levenger says in an interview with David Allen: "begin before you're ready" (but do prepare) - there is power in acting "as if" (AKA "fake it 'till you make it"). Also, "take the plunge!" - that's where the learning really kicks in. Don't be "too smart to start."
• In the anime movie Ghost in the Shell, we have this dialog at the end:
  • Major Motoko Kusanagi: I wonder where I'll go now. The net is vast and infinite.
  • Puppet Master: Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.
  • Major Motoko Kusanagi: You talk about redefining my identity. I want a guarantee that I can still be myself.
  • Puppet Master: There isn't one. Why would you wish to? All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you.
• From Pema Chodron's book Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings:

  A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure. It's also what makes us afraid.

When discomfort becomes comfortable

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A few months ago, I decided to take back control of my health after a year spent indulging in comfort eating. I have to admit that I enjoyed my year of eating whatever I wanted, mostly cookies; it truly comforted me during the months of anxiety preceding my son's deployment to Iraq.

It had taken quite a while for my pants to get tight, then too tight, then very tight, ultimately uncomfortably tight. I tried buying new pants in a larger size and although they fit, I discovered that it was my skin, my own body that I felt uncomfortable in. The comfort foods that had placated me emotionally for so many months had now put me in a state of physical discomfort. I was forced to admit that the cookie therapy wasn't really working. I thought I had been making myself feel comfortable but I still felt anxious on the inside and it showed on the outside.

The month my son deployed, I decided to step out of the comfort patterns I had used for the previous year. I would turn my discomfort over my baby being in harm's way to a new way of comforting myself, regardless of how uncomfortable the interim was. I had to find a better way.

I knew there was no quick fix, either to the anxiety I felt or to the loosening of my skintight pants. I set goals for myself: an ultimate goal but also intermediate goals. I started keeping a food and exercise journal so I could track my progress. It helped to have definitive proof of effort, regardless of results, as I took back control over a portion of my life that I had let go of. And it helped alleviate the anxiety too: I couldn't control what was happening to my son but I could control these aspects of my life. It made me feel better. You could even say that I grew to feel comfortable in this new way.

I imagine there will come a time when this new comfort zone will start to feel uncomfortable too, just as my previous comfort zone had worked for a time. It's like jumping into the pool and the water feels so cold, but after awhile, it feels all right, then you shiver when you get out because the air doesn't feel the same as it did before you got into the pool. Being in the discomfort zone is temporary, a transitional phase as you move from an old comfort zone to a new one, one that is often better, especially if you get to wear baggy pants that used to be tight.

Gretchen Stahlman: The Year in Red

December 2006 topic: Thriving in the discomfort zone

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I threw the November Collective Genius post out there at the last minute as I was getting ready to leave on three weeks vacation. The topic was "thriving in the discomfort zone." It was honestly a last minute after-thought, as I had been so focused on getting ready for my trip. As a result, I didn't put anything into spreading the word about it, and there were only two posts (thanks Rebecca and John!).

I think the topic is so important, and such a big part of achieving anything worth achieving in our lives, and so vital to staying fresh and vibrant, that I have decided to make it December's topic as well.

I've talked before about the necessity of venturing out beyond our comfort zones in our careers. Comfort for a short time is a good place to recuperate and rest. Comfort for too long leads to stagnation. Growth only comes from exploring the perimeter and dipping your toes (or hurling yourself headlong) beyond the boundaries.

Here are some questions to prime the pump. As always, you don't need to stick to answering these questions if you have something else to add to the mix.

• How do you thrive in the discomfort zone?
• How do you take those growth-inducing steps and still stay centered?
• How do you overcome the anxiety and fear that so often comes when we push ourselves beyond our known world?
• What tips and tricks do you have?
• What has worked for you in the past?
• What have you learned the hard way?
• What advice would you give to someone who finds themselves reluctant to dip into the discomfort zone?
• Looking back, how has stepping into the discomfort zone opened doors and facilitated growth for you? How has avoiding it gotten in your way?
• What have you learned from stepping into the discomfort zone?
• How do you deal with the fact that the discomfort zone often brings imperfection and even occasional failure?

Check here for more details on how to share your words o' wisdom on Collective Genius!

Moving Places

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Curt had asked his readers to contribute to his blog while away on the topic of thriving in your discomfort zone.  He wanted people to share tips on how to do that. 

Moving jobs or careers though difficult does not compare with moving cities.  I’ve moved several times in my life, from the UK to California, from California to Seattle, and lastly from Seattle to Boston.  Each move was difficult because I’d spent many years in each place, and it was difficult to leave familiar places and friends behind.

Leaving friends behind is difficult, but I have found that each move has brought me some of the other things I’ve sought as well.

To move to another place, I had to focus on where I wanted to go next and make that the center of things.  Otherwise I found I got too distracted with daily living.  In my last move before coming to Boston, I’d never been to the city before.  But I did conduct a lot of research before coming out to the city.  I used many of the web sites that are now available to build some connections with people before I arrived.  I even had a racquetball partner and a game lined up before setting out from Seattle.

Once you move to another place, you will always feel homesick, but one thing I did in my last move from Seattle to Boston was to make sure I returned to the city on a regular basis for several months.  The frequent trips let me maintain my connection with friends and the place I had left, while I was just embarking on the task of building a new life in Boston.

John Cass

PR Communications

Comfort in discomfort

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(We don't appear to have our category set up for this month's topic yet, but I'll forget this if I don't write it down.)

I've been told that I'm resistant to change, that I never move beyond my comfort zone. But I'd argue that I find my comfort is stepping outside my comfort zone.

Take, for example, my most recent move. Two years ago, I moved to Seattle. I had no job lined up. I knew a grand total of two people in the city. I made this decision to move, and a month later was in Seattle. I knew nothing about Seattle when I moved, except that it was very green, and Microsoft was somewhere in the area.

It wasn't my first move to a new state, but it was my first solo move across the country to a place not much like home. It's been a great chance to enjoy a new culture, to meet people I wouldn't have met otherwise. It's been a chance to explore who I am, to reconnect with myself.

I think it's actually more comfortable for me to seek out things outside what I know because I love to learn. It's more likely that staying inside a comfort zone would be far more uncomfortable for me. But I've never been content staying in any one place for very long, be it physically or mentally. I always want to explore, to experience, to learn.

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Rebecca Thomas

Thoughts from the fly paper

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I've been intently sitting and reading what everyone has to say on the topic of getting unstuck because I'm am currently stuck. The ditch is muddy and all I do is spin my wheels. My stuck isn't the small kind of stuck.  I've got things to do,  and my day job goes fairly well ( notice "fairly" ).  My stuck is a global stuck; a big picture stuck; a no-master-plan-and-no-vision-or-end-game kind of stuck.  I'm starting to go a little crazy from it.

My hopes of writing this is to maybe come up with a game plan, or some new ways of looking at the problem.  I've jotted down some ideas,  maybe something will stick.

Chaos

A little chaos is a great thing.  and chaos theory is even better.  In an extremely simplified version of the theory,  every option is whittled down to the smallest of choice: yes or no, left or right, up or down. And chaos is derived from the randomness in these answers.  So,  I try to ask myself the simplest of questions that only result in "yes" or "no".  Unlike leadership,  these questions aren't intended to tickle to new discussions.  After-all,  when your stuck,  perhaps new questions and thoughts isn't what is needed.  For me,  a "yes" or "no" on these day will suffice. No "why" or "where do I see myself in 5 years", the questions I focus on is "Do I check my email now?", "Can I read that quality report now?", etc..  These questions don't have to be just from you.  Others around can be involved: "Nick,  do you want to go to the mall for lunch?".  Sometimes,  just for fun, I wake and tell myself that I will always answer "yes" today, no matter what ( note: this can send you on an interesting adventure. Be Prepared )

Ebb and Flow

Like others have noted, perhaps you aren't actually stuck. Life has an ebb and flow that is like wind or water - outside forces acting on you and your life.  It happens. If you aren't stuck then what are you doing?  Well,  one of 2 things: resting or balancing.

Resting - We all need a break,  and sometimes a good nap.  These moments is our minds way of saying "whoa". 

Balancing - It could be that the amount of effort or the work being done is equal.  If you see a bird stationary in the sky - it is moving forward,  you just can't see it.  To really notice,  we need to change our perspective.

Perspective

Accomplishment and movement is in the eye of the beholder.  If you are walking in the prairies,  sometimes It might not seem like you're walking at all.  You need to change your markers for progress.  Perhaps you simply count steps.  But if you forget,  then it might seem like you haven't gone anywhere and are "stuck".  Another example is if you are swimming in a river against the flow.  The scenery hasn't changed,  but your swimming like mad.  How long have you been swimming?

I have a issues with this all the time.  I'm a big thinker.  I sometimes have difficulties watching and noticing the smaller hurtles.  I don't see all the little steps I do.  For me I want to see the whole website, so when I complete a module,  all I see is an incomplete site,  not a completed module. Perhaps I'm not the only one.  Maybe if you're stuck,  or think you're stuck, perhaps if you look closer,  you are a champion that is jumping hurtles all the time. 

"Not" Accomplishments

I'm thinking this is my current situation.  In all my work for career development I'm am finding all the "not"s - what I'm not going to do,  and what aren't priorities.  I've taken off a lot of the goals based on my personal revelations.  However,  we can hit patches,  and this might feel like failure. It's a part of the scientific process. All experiments go through this process.  Inventors learn soon,  that every time you try,  you are learning what "not" to do.  It's like carving or sculpting,  the shavings discarded,  will ultimately leave you with what you do what.  The challenge is celebrating and recognizing.

In the end did I answer my question?  Maybe.  Am I still stuck? Maybe not as stuck as I thought.

Still Looking,
Nick Kempinski

unstuck = happiness

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There's a lot of irony to this. I'm sitting here typing up this post instead of doing the thing I'm stuck on. I've got to make new labels for my tea tins. I've had it on my to-do list for over a week and a half now. I've done everything but. The good news? I've got a ton of other things I've been putting off done. The labels weren't exactly high priority, and I will get them done tonight or tomorrow. Avoiding them has gotten me to cross off over 30 things on my to-do list.

I've been stuck for a while on my business. I love what I do, I have a passion for it that sometimes stuns me. But sometimes getting up and doing the work is a struggle. I had my reasons, a long list of them: we were still settling in, it was still summer, my health was still sketchy, I was busy with other things, my husband was already complaining about my lack of free time, etc. I was stuck and I was finding excuses to stay that way.

Mainly because I was comfortable. Comfortable is easy. Comfortable is reliable. Comfortable is safe. Comfortable is also boring, unchallenging and stuck.

I'm a strong believer that the place to be is just outside your own comfort zone; always pushing, trying, daring, risking.

And yet, I wasn't doing it. I was sitting safely still. I was scared.

One day I looked at my friend who was telling me about his plans for September to try and pull himself out of the rut he'd found himself in and realized, "me too." So I decided to buckle down too. September was a total refocus: on my business, on my future plans, on this thing that makes me feel like I'm making the world a better place.

I just forced myself to sit down and do the work. I talked about it to everyone who would sit still long enough. I babbled business ideas to friends. I handed out at least a couple business cards a day. I started pushing advertising on-line. I sent out samples. I looked myself in the mirror in the morning and said, "I am not 'comfortable.' I am working. My business is succeeding. I am doing this."

You know what happened? I got three orders in the first week. I connected with a dozen potential clients. I started a new play. I made up at least a dozen new words. I gave a handful of massages. My brain runs at full-tilt and my notepad has new scribbles every day.

September first, I decided to stop waiting for the time to be right. I stopped thinking that my business would just sell itself. I just took the first tentative steps of forcing the work, pushing the muse and making it happen. And it has.

What I know is that we have a choice. We can let life sweep us along, or we can make our own path. The path I want to create for my life means a lot of hard work and boring paperwork and hours of rubbing other peoples backs. I haven't been happy the past year or so where I wasn't really able to focus on my business, on my dream, because of so many other things. Something I need is a long to-do list, a busy calendar, and a big healthy challenge.

And now? Now that I'm working a dozen hours a day, and being told to occasionally sit still and stop working? Now that I forced myself slowly, and, at times, painfully away from where I was stuck?

I'm happy.

Oh, yeah, I'm still a bit scared. Busting my butt for 10-12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week... what if it doesn't work out? Yeah, it's scary. The good news is I'm too busy to worry about that. I've got these labels to worry about, and samples to send out, and gift baskets to make up, and clients to schedule for massages. Somewhere inside I'm sure I'm still scared, still nervous. I don't really have time to talk about it though - you see I'm too busy.

Busy and deliriously happy.

What aren't you doing that will make you happy?

Autumn

Cutting Things Down To Size

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The hardest part of getting unstuck is noticing that you were stuck in the first place.  I've just spent all afternoon stuck on doing my company accounts, only I didn't notice.  I checked my email.  Caught up with a friend or two via instant messenger.  Made, and drank, a few cups of tea.  Posted a new entry to my blog  Sent a few emails that were overdue.  And filled in half-a-dozen lines of an expenses spreadsheet.

Now some of those things were tasks on my to-do list, so I don't feel too bad that I've completed them as part of my procrastination (using hard tasks as a tool to combat procrastination of slightly-less tasks is a whole other post...); but the expenses form is the only thing that's taken my accounts task any further.

It's not like doing the accounts is going to be that onerous a task - it's probably not more than a couple of hours of work.  It's just that I don't do it often, so always have to re-acquaint myself with the accounts software, and there's a couple of things that I haven't entered before which will take a little bit of thinking about to get right.

Whatever the reason was, I was stuck.  And I hadn't noticed.

Divide and Conquer

It was only after I'd had a break for an hour or so to get some dinner, and my brain had the time to mull things over, that I realised.  I was talking to my girlfriend about my day, and explaining what doing my accounts would entail when it hit me.

I'd been stuck, but I knew how to fix things.

Divide and conquer.  It's my favourite tool for getting unstuck.  Take whatever it is that you're trying to do, and break it into smaller tasks.  Repeat as necessary until you have something manageable, then do the first one that needs to be done.

Even just breaking it down into smaller tasks feels like you've accomplished something towards your goal.  Plus smaller tasks are inherently easier to complete, and you get to multiply the satisfaction of crossing a task off your todo list by the new number of tasks!

---

Adrian McEwen blogs over at McFilter, and his company has just launched tedium - a way to keep track of, and organize, all those things you have to do.

You Can't Make Me!

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Routine of any sort gets me stuck. I hate doing the same thing over and over. I like new things and I get bored really quickly. When that happens, I procrastinate. I download and watch whole seasons of TV shows. I read. I go visit people or I surf randomly on the web.

I've tried many ways to get myself unstuck, such as having a rotation of things that I can do or ways of doing things so that when I get bored of one approach, I use another. But that doesn't last much either.

Instead I just let the stuckness happen – I'll quickly get bored with it and will go back to being productive soon enough.

When I don't have time to let the procrastination happen, I talk sternly to myself, laughing at my own reticence. And then I just do it. I pick up the pen, call the client, clean the bathroom – whatever it is that I'm avoiding I just start doing it.

Once I've started, it's very easy to stop again at this point, so I just keep pushing through until either I've completed the task or I've started to enjoy the task again.

Of course, when I'm stuck, the main thing that keeps me stuck is guilt. I judge myself and when I do that the rebellious teenager appears and tells the judge to shut his yap and let me on with doing nothing. It's not that I want to rebel and deny – I just do it. Which is why when I just push myself through it, I end up enjoying myself and the rebellious teen retreats.

Alex Fayle
House Therapy
The Easy Life Evangelist

Unstuck in Stages

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I'll admit I don't get stuck often. But when I do.  .  .  well, it's Rube Goldberg meets Catch-22. I can't do This because of That. I can't do That because of This. And in between This and That, there are a whole lot of gyrations that lead nowhere useful and don't enhance the process --  twists and turns and ups and downs and around the bends -- the boot kicks the chicken which lays the egg into the frying pan heated by the toaster started by a glass on its lever being filled with orange juice . . . you get the picture. And yet, the gyrations and the catch seem as real and viable and impassable to me as true realities of my life. It's hard to tell the sticking points I've manufactured from the ones that are really there. I'm that good at it.

Getting stuck is easy. Getting unstuck is the hard part.

Most of the time when I'm stuck, it's time related. I can't do The Important Thing until something else has happened or a certain time has arrived. For example, I'd love to have a job where I travel constantly. That's right, no home address, just me and the Holiday Inns of the world. But I can't do that yet. I still have a son at home who needs me and needs our school district so, for the past 17 years, my feet have been superglued to suburbia.

In the earlier stuck-at-home years, I felt real frustration at not being able to go as I pleased. I could have grown resentful and bitter (why won't that darn kid just grow up faster?), but instead, I took a good look at what I would need to do, to have in place, so that when the time came, I was ready. I could grease the skids to make things move not faster, but smoother. Making plans for the future kept me moving forward and not feeling so stuck at all.

And a funny thing happened along the way. I received an opportunity where I could be at home on the weeks my son is with me and work halfway across the country on the weeks he's with his Dad. I'm not completely untethered from my suburban post, but I'm not shackled to it either. And most of all, I don't think this opportunity would have presented itself if I had not spent so much of my stuck time preparing for to be unstuck some day.

I've got less than 2 years to go before I am completely free to be responsible only for myself. A major part of me is looking forward to being completely unstuck. But part of me is grateful for the stuck days I've had. I don't regret any of the time I've spent dreaming and planning for the future. It's given me time to really figure out what I want, what's important, what's not, what I must have, what I can do without. In all these years in the suburbs, I've learned to make the most of life's adhesive, to enjoy This while I plan for That, and to enjoy That because I always get to come home to This, my truly Important Thing.

Gretchen Stahlman: The Year in Red

Stick to your guns

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Writing this post has taken longer than I had planned. You see, I was on a roll. The words were flowing. The mood was glowing. The fan was blowing. And then I ran out of rhyming words. I was stuck.

Hmmm, stuck.

Stuck on you, stick in the mud, stick to it, this is a stick-up, sticks and stones, carry a big stick, sticky situation, stick together, stick it where the sun don’t shine, and who can forget the musical groups Styx. (Feel free to comment and add your own).

Ooops! Sorry. I got a little sidetracked there. But I guess this helps me make my point.

Everyone is different. Some folks have many projects going on at once so they can switch between them. Others follow that KFC commercial from years ago by doing one thing and doing one thing right. And as the above rambling points out, maybe just a change of thought or a break is all it may take to get us out of a given rut.

For me, it’s a bit of a merger between them all. I like being able to see various things or avenues I could be working on in order to get from here to wherever there is. But sometimes it becomes a distraction. With so many things calling for my attention, how is an indecisive Gemini like me supposed to pick what to focus on?

In the end, my way of getting unstuck has always been to get back to what got me started in this direction in the first place. For one reason or other, writing (despite really not liking English classes in school), has been what has kept me moving forward even when I could have sworn I was doing nothing but spinning my wheels.

I’ve got a question…

What works for you?  Do you go back to that one thing you started doing way back when (the thing you enjoyed so much you couldn’t stop doing it)?  Do you prefer bouncing from one activity to another? Or do you like to take a break by going to the neighborhood park and counting the rabbits and squirrels you may find in order to find out what your next steps should be?

David Stoddard
The Unmotivated Motivational Writer

Cycles of getting unstuck

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I could sit here and talk about becoming unstuck in the big picture of your life, but I'd feel a bit hypocritical since I'm currently stuck. Really, the big picture for me feels like a road coated in rubber cement. I move forward a little bit, get stuck for a while, manage to free my feet enough to move a few more feet forward, get stuck again. It's been an odd cycle.

On a day to day level, it's more a struggle with motivation and feeling lost than a fight with that rubber cement road. One argues that you can't move forward without a clear goal in mind, but I'm currently of the belief that naming a goal blinds you to potential opportunities that you should be following. This isn't to say I don't have smaller goals I'm constantly working toward. There just isn't an arrival point for my journey yet.

I think somewhere in that last paragraph is the real reason I'm feeling so stuck, so lost.

The day to day feelings of stuck are a bit easier for me to get around. When my motivation flags, when I just don't want to do anything anymore, I consider one of a handful of techniques to get myself moving again.

• I create an impossibly long to-do list, and then give myself one day to get it done.
• I take my normal to-do list and plan out the order tasks will be accomplished so that I end up bouncing between activities. The feeling of being ungrounded and disconnected forces me to straighten up and force myself forward out of the rut.
• I erase my to-do list and instead work toward a list of accomplishments. (It's amazing how a blank whiteboard can be just as motivating as an overwhelmingly long to-do list.)
• I put on music and dance or sing
• I light a scented candle (I was bouncing between vanilla and sandalwood for a while, but now I'm a die-hard jasmine or tangerine girl when it comes to pushing myself out of a rut.)
• I throw in a movie and let it serve as background noise while I force myself out of my rut (So far, my favorites for actually getting anything done are the first two Lord of the Rings movies. The music is subtle. but driving and it's nice to sit and stare at New Zealand when I need a break.)
• On very rare occasions, I give myself permission to completely ignore my to-do list and just play games online.

I feel like I spend more time stuck than unstuck these days, and I know a lot of that has to do with feeling generally stuck in my life. Working through the daily feeling of stuck makes it all bearable, though, becasue it feels like I'm one step closer to wherever it is that will make me feel unstuck and moving forward gracefully again.

Rebecca Thomas

Do you really want your goal?

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Being stuck is a bad feeling. I have known it a lot, and I am sure so have you. Naturally in this situation we want to get un-stuck.

What is "being stuck?"

In most definitions - mine included - it is a series of seemingly un conquerable obstacles on the path to achieving a goal. Being stuck is when these roadblocks seem to pile up and intensify the harder you push.

On any path there are obstacles, but when you are stuck they seem to grow with the energy you put into overcoming them.

I recently had a very clarifying experience in this regard. I was planning on having a dog and was researching all the things that need to happen to make that idea come true. Obviously there are a number of obstacles and hard parts about such a move. Things that that speak against taking on such a reponsibility, the financials involved, the "freedom" you loose in travel. In whole the dog just didn't happen. There was no single reason why it should not have worked out. Thinking about all those things logically none of them was a dealstopper. Going about it in a pro/con fashion didn't get me anywhere.

So at one point I simply decidedf it would be the right thing to go ahead. Everybody around me also thought it was a good idea.

Still, the cons seemed to overwhelm me in their totality. Everything was set to go, but still it didn't happen. There was always something.

Being totally frustrated with myself I went a number of steps back to the very basic question of "do I want a dog now?"

I employed muscle testing as a method to get a deeply felt answer. In that way I circumvented the logical mind. It was in a never ending logical spiral anyway and had proven to be of little use at this point.

Well guess what. The answer I got from myself was a simple "not yet."

From there out all the struggle started to make sense. Had I really wanted a dog, all those roadblocks would have been obstacles, challenges, but nothing more. But by not really wanting and supporting the idea in my core, they became dealstoppers.

And one more thing became clear to me: regardless of how many of the obstacles I would have conquered and overcome, I woould have met and found new ones just as fast as I could overcome them.

So here's a though for you when you are stuck: is the goal you are trying to achieve really something you want? And I am not talking about the "want" that you will express when asked in a conversation. I am talking about the want you feel deep in your core.

traumwind

Unsticking Yourself From Your Rut

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What a great topic. Like Scott, I too, remember being stuck. It was the early 90s, I was living outside of Philadelphia (which I loved), working a part time job at night, and runnning a small vending business at the same time. Divorced and barely paying my bills, things weren't so great. I wasn't what I'd call unhappy, but I was definitely stuck and recognized it. The unsettled feeling I had was myself becoming aware that I hadn't done anything to challenge myself in a long time and was in a rut. My life was ripe for  change.

Later that year, Philadelphia began getting ice storms. One after another they came, usually overnight, which meant that my normal routine of leaving the house at 6:00 a.m. to start my vending route became impossible many mornings. The roads were solid ice and completely impassable until about 10:00 a.m. and then at night they'd re-freeeze again. As the month wore on, the storms kept coming, at a rate of about two a week, building a thick layer of clear, beautiful ice on every surface. By the end of January, we had experienced our seventeenth ice storm of the winter and I was going broke. Then I had one of those "moments of clarity" that you hear about.

In an instant, the words, "I'm moving south" came into my head. I hadn't mulled it over, I hadn't considered it carefully, or even given it a passing thought before. It literally came out of nowhere as an "inspired thought", which The Secret refers to. I never questioned it, I just began planning my strategy and for the next twelve months, I worked my plan. I got out of debt, I sold off most of my stuff, I found living arrangements in Atlanta with the one person I knew there, and in February of the following year, debt-free, with a little cash in my bank account and no job to go to when I arrived, I loaded a U-Haul truck and moved south. This move began a whole new chapter in my life. I now know, from reading Jack Canfield's books listening to Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret, as well as The Secret, that I was indeed using The Secret back then, I just didn't realize it. I had an inspired thought, I acted on it, and the universe responded with exactly what I needed.

Within four months of moving to Atlanta, I met the man I would later marry. Within two years, I started the business that would become my career and help me discover my purpose. And in the past four years, I've become more self-aware and done more growing and improving than in the last fifteen years. It took a drastic physical change, followed by a mental change to get me unstuck, and it's one of the best things I ever did.

Monica Ricci
Your Life. Organized.

On getting unstuck

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I remember being stuck.

I was stressed.  I was frustrated.  And my company wasn’t making any money for the third year in a row.

Then I listened to Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret before going to bed one night.

In his program, he advises you to take the one thing you want more than anything in the world and focus all of you efforts on attaining it.

For me, it was to move into a new house and reach my target income goal within a year. 

So, I took Earl’s advice.  I wrote down my goal on a little nametag and kept it in my wallet.  I looked at it several times a day.  I told everyone in my mastermind group about it.  My friends even bet me $20 that I would be able to accomplish it.

And on January 1st, I set out to achieve my goal by December 31st.

Miraculously, I hit that goal mid-July.

I became unstuck.

It was truly amazing. 

So, thanks to the prompt from Curt's Collective Genius Blog, here are my three cents on getting unstuck:

What gets people stuck: running in place and not doing anything about it.  Not setting goals.  Not focusing on “that one thing.”

Why people stay stuck: because they’re part of the 90% of the world who doesn’t a) set goals, b) write them down, and c) look at them daily.

How people can get unstuck:

1) Tell people who are important to you that you’re stuck. 
2) Walk with the wise.  Surround yourself with those who aren’t stuck. 
3) Watch the movie The Secret. 
4) Focus 100% of your efforts on your one big thing.
5) Put a sticky note on your computer that reminds you, “Is what you're doing RIGHT NOW consistent with your #1 goal?"

Good luck.  May the Schwartz be with you. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS...
How did you get unstuck?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS...
On a small card, write down the one thing you want more than anything, and the date by which you'd like to have it.  Look at it several times a day.  Commense getting unstuck.

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
Author/Speaker/That Guy with the Nametag
www.hellomynameisscott.com