Stuck in the mud was a fun concept as a kid. Do you remember this primary school playground
favourite? For those of you who need a reminder – the concept of stuck in the mud (as we played it) was that you had one person who was “It” and the rest of the participants aimed to escape being caught. Once caught however, the player was stuck in the mud and was unable to move. Stuck. No movement. No going forward. No falling backwards. Stuck. They needed to stay put – legs slightly apart (second position distance for the childhood ballerinas among you) and you stayed there – stuck in the mud – until another player rescued you by tagging you and crawling through the gap between your feet. This game gave us hours of fun through my young childhood and it may have been the same for you. 
Fast forward to adult hood and the concept of being stuck isn’t so much fun. It certainly doesn’t feel like a game… And unfortunately, especially for mid career professionals and even sometimes for those quite early in their career but a few years into a job – this feeling of being stuck (and too still for comfort) is quite common.
So what do you do? Are you content to stay stuck or do you crave movement of some kind?
For those of you ready to move, here are 3 tips for becoming “unstuck”:
1. Do something different
Often feeling stuck can relate to monotony. Your routine may look like any of these. You go to work, you go home. You go to work, you go to a fitness class, you go home. You wake up the kids, make breakfast, rush out the door and do the school run, go into work, come home and make dinner, go to bed. These are all different scenarios and whether you are following one which looks like this or one which doesn’t – if you can describe the vast majority of your day to day and week to week process as a ‘routine’, you may need to do something different in order to get getting unstuck. Go to a (different) dance class, start training for a charity run, meet up with your university buddies, babysit for a friend, have lunch with a mentor, do something touristy in your city… It really doesn’t matter exactly what you do but you just need to commit to doing something different to avoid monotony.
2. Take a break
Related to the first tip -taking a break is one of the best ways to do work towards becoming unstuck. This doesn’t have to be a 2 week vacation on a beach (though that would be great if you could swing it!) but it can be a one night spa break with some friends or even just a one-day out of town trip. Get out of town, take in some different air, and enjoy the break in routine. Sit on a pier and watch the world go by. Have a picnic in a park. Whatever you do… Do also make sure this is a break from technology too where you’re fully enjoying your own company or the company of the people you’re with. No emails. No facebook and twitter. Just you and the break you deserve. With the break will come some clarity and with clarity – informed, more intuitive decision making can follow.
3. Enlist support
First, a disclaimer: Enlisting support is not a free pass to moan and complain to whoever will listen (i.e. Just bi***ing to your friends does it count)… But a well thought out, constructive support system is often a crucial step in becoming unstuck. Why? Well… Have you ever had an experience where a someone has shared a challenge and you felt confident to share useful insight? I bet you have… And you may even have received a response like “I never thought of that.” Adversely, ever noticed though that if you had a similar challenge you were less likely to have the same useful insight about yourself? It’s true (and common).
With that in mind, if you need to get unstuck, get support. Do not keep banging your head against a brick wall. Meet up with supportive girlfriends, talk to a parent or sibling, tap into the experience of a mentor (I did that years ago when I asked an ex-boss of mine to review my CV as I truly felt like I couldn’t improve it further / didn’t know where to go with it – and he was instrumental in helping me get unstuck) hire a coach to stretch and challenge you – and more.
I hope these three tips connect with you… And even if they feel scary – that’s quite a good sign as to get unstuck and move forward you need to stretch out of your comfort zone.
To sum up, a notion that one of my mentors, Lisa Sasevich, shared is great encouragement to do something to get unstuck. She quoted:
“A step in the wrong direction is better than staying on the spot all of our life. Once you’re moving forward you can correct your course as you go. Your automatic guidance system cannot guide you when you are standing still… action is the secret sauce.”
So – remembering that imperfect action is better than no action at all, I wish you luck in getting unstuck. Try some of the above… you’ll be amazed how far you’ll go!
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Gina Visram is a career coach, speaker, mentor and author who works with ambitious, multi-tasking women (and men!) who are ready to work hard at being successful in their careers and personal lives – on their own terms. She has recently published Happily Ever After for Grown Ups: A Post-Wedding, Blues-Busting Guide for Newlyweds” and is committed to helping people get over overwhelm and achieve the career success/life balance they seek. For more information and to sign up to her free newsletter visit www.limitlesscoaching.com.
