Once in a while, I get stuck. I get stuck between my thoughts and my beliefs about how I want my next steps to look like.
Although I crave to move forward, something is holding me back and I just can’t, I am stuck.
What makes us get stuck? What is that THING?
For me being stuck is about trying to fight the “not moving”, fighting my thoughts, the thoughts that are trying to convince me that I must do. I hear voices in my head saying: “you need to do this” and “you should do that” and “you cannot procrastinate and not do anything!!!”.
So, I sit, do nothing and feel even worse about myself.
But, what if I would just give in? What if I would just allow myself not to DO anything without feeling guilty about it? What if I would just allow myself to process where I am and let my thoughts and feelings move me forward to the next step? What will happen then?
Anyway trying is just pretending to be working….
So last week I just gave in, my husband and I came back from our first no kids’ vacation. It was one of our top 10 vacations together. We needed time to connect with no interruptions and just be with each other. But when we returned back from our vacation I was able to see things about my business that I couldn’t see or think about before, when I was focused on the DOING.
One of the thoughts that came kept nudging me, or pulling my attention during our vacation was that I need to change few concepts and let go of others, which required from me to redesign my business. I could see bits and bytes but the hardest part was to sit down and write the new plan. I tried to pretend, but after few days I gave in. I gave in and dived into the deep sea.
In my deep sea of giving in, there were groups of fish with thoughts and feelings, a big octopus which likes to hug me with stories about "how I can't". But then when I saw the dolphins skipping and flipping, I knew this is my sign, the sign that I am ready. I pulled myself out of the deep water and took a little breath and then I pulled my sticky note and started writing everything I saw during my diving experience. Suddenly all the quiet thoughts and even emotions made sense to me.
You will never catch me out without my sticky notes, I use them to capture interesting thoughts from books, from blogs, capture a new thought or idea about a project, or just mark my next 3 important things to focus on my day. They allow me to give a voice to my thoughts, fears, and emotions and create a structure out of it. From words that are floating around me, I create relationships and meaningful connections that can move me forward.
Some people call my system a workflow, some call it mind mapping, it can be either or neither, it doesn’t matter to me. What really matters to me is that it works for the way I think.
Now I want to share something with you, I believe that there are too many people out there who think their recipe is the one that will save your life, your business, your career. But, we are all different, even being stuck can mean to you something totally different than my own experience that I just have shared with you. Don’t get attached.
So next time, when you get stuck take a moment to pause and observe where you are, notice how you behave, notice what you think, what are the fears, the dreams, and expectations you have in the experience. Observe who you are when you get stuck, maybe it is time to just BE with it rather than resisting it. We run too many times to the doing of things before we are ready for it then we feel like big procrastinators. Maybe we just need to BE?
I do believe that from the nothing something will show up.