It’s so easy right now to feel like giving up and resign yourself to the fact that life is out of your control. As a result there’s a lot of women right now feeling stuck. Stuck at home. Stuck doing homeschooling. Stuck in a situation they frankly don’t want to be in. And it’s not surprising really given what’s going on.
So when you’re feeling stuck and powerless to make a change that you really want to make, what do you do?
First thing – do something.
When you start taking action, even in the tiniest of ways, it enables you to start moving forward. Once you start to move forward even with the smallest step, then you can start to unfold and develop the thing that you actually really want to focus on when you have the space and capacity to deal with it. So while we’re in this weird, spatially-challenging situation, maybe feeling like focusing on ourselves and on our personal ambitions is the last thing we’re able to do, I wanted to give some tips about how you can start to take action and do something so that you are working on your own stuff and not feeling frustrated and thwarted by all the stuff going on around you that seems out of your control.
Quite often it starts with the root cause. The root cause is usually a feeling of not being in control of something, when you’re feeling stuck. When that happens it’s easy to go into yourself and start to tell yourself you can’t change anything because what’s happening externally feels too overwhelming, or bigger than you.
Often the easiest thing that you can do and usually the only thing that you can do, is get control of you. That’s why this time round in lockdown so many more of us are focusing on our own well-being, staying physically and mentally strong as a primary focus.
When things aren’t quite right in one aspect of our life it can often have quite a big impact on other aspects such as our relationships or our careers which is why I always take a holistic approach to the careers work I do with my clients to make sure that they have the solid well-being foundations in place first before they begin to tackle the bigger life change stuff. If you can’t even think clearly about what to make for dinner, how are you going to even begin to deal with anything that’s going to have much more impact on you and your family’s life?
So where do you start? Well, start with what feels easy. One way to look at it is to ask yourself , what do I need more of, right now, to help me get through the day? If you’re generally lacking in energy and motivation, what can you do to change that up? It could be jumping up and down, shoving on some music, doing some exercise, making an effort to get to bed an hour earlier or to eat one biscuit less tomorrow. So rather than telling yourself that you’re going to run 10K tomorrow after not putting your trainers on for a year, you’re just telling yourself that you’re starting somewhere and you’re ready to see where it takes you. It will put you into a “doing something” mindset and help you focus on the target you’ve given yourself and releases the pressure of feeling stuck.
Once you’ve taken that first action step, you are bringing new energy to your surroundings that you can begin to build on, at your own pace and gradually. By taking action in one area of your life it tends to have a knock on effect and you may find yourself more inclined to begin to focus on you again and all that you need. So it’s really about starting that chain reaction of events that lead you to a place where you start to feel better in yourself, happier and more in control of your day to day.
That’s when you can start to look at the bigger picture.
So stop and ask yourself. What’s making me feel stuck? What can I do to start to break free?
Do something.
Jo Oogarah
Career and Life Vision Coach
Helping career-focused women aim high, build a fulfilling career and lead a balanced life.
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