DO YOU HAVE A CASE OF “THE STUCKS”?

The Four Things You Need to Do To Get Unstuck

Are you stuck? It happens to most of us at various times in our lives. And the thing about being stuck is that it feels like you’ll never get unstuck.

Before we can figure out how to get unstuck let’s look at what being stuck means. To do that I want to give you some examples from my clients.
One of my previous clients came to me and was very stuck around the area of her career. She had a classic case of “the golden handcuffs.” She didn’t like what she was doing anymore, but she was very well paid for it.

She didn’t want to decrease her income and she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. She didn’t know her life purpose, what work would give her life meaning.

So we went to work on “life purpose” first.

We helped her discover her values and honor them. It’s one thing to know your values it’s another to truly live your life by them. And by the way, values aren’t morals, they are intrinsic to you – you are born with them. And when you aren’t living your life according to your values – your life feels awful and you get stuck.

As my client and I worked together she finally got clear on her life purpose and realized what her next steps were going to be. She quit her job as a CPA, got a part time job making in the high five figures, and went back to school to become to get her masters in psychology. She moved to another city, made new friends, and is doing great in grad school.

She went from stuck to moving forward in her career.

Let’s look at another example. I had a client who was highly successful and highly stuck in the areas of balance and relationships. They were interconnected because she worked all the time and had “no life.” You can’t have a life if you work 15-hour days, six or seven days a week. You are exhausted, you can’t exercise, probably don’t eat right, can’t meet new people and your health is probably suffering. And that was the case with this client. She was stuck – working all the time and hated her life. And, of course, she physically felt awful and she didn’t have the energy to date and hadn’t for quite a while.

The first thing we did was to have her draw some boundaries and take four days off from work. You might think that sounds easy, but to someone who is stuck, this is difficult to do. She was scared to death that she would lose her job, and she didn’t have any friends so she didn’t know what to with four days of vacation.

As it turned out, she slept for four days. Over about a three-month period, we worked to have her increase her boundaries to not only cut back her work hours – shorter days, no weekends – start an exercise program and schedule a real vacation. As she honored her boundaries – no small feat – she began to feel healthy again, started making friends, and joined a gym. She also took a three-week vacation to Italy that included one week of biking.

She went from stuck and out of balance with no friends or dates, to dating, vacationing, exercising and doing fun things with friends. And guess what? She got a huge raise.

This client went from stuck and out of balance to happy and richer!

You can see by now that with the guidance of a trained professional there are specific steps or actions you can take to get unstuck.

Let’s look at one more example. I had a client who was stuck in his love life. To quote him: “his love life sucked.” And he was miserable because of it.

He couldn’t move out of feeling badly about himself and thought he would never meet anyone. And here’s the thing – he was successful, handsome, fit, healthy, really smart, dressed beautifully and was a great guy. Only he didn’t know it.

So what do you do with a guy who is stuck in the area of love. You teach him about love. And have him look at why he was afraid of love and, in his case, kept pushing it away. I think most of us can agree that being stuck without any love or hope of love in your life, feels awful.

So we had him look at why he protected himself, had him start to draw boundaries, did a lot of work in the spiritual realm around quieting his ego. You know that critical voice that says the most unbelievable things to you. “You idiot how could you have said anything so stupid, she’ll probably never want to go out with you now.” Or, ‘Are you out of your mind, you can’t ask that beautiful woman out, she’d never say yes to you.” These are the thoughts that stop you before you really get going.

As he worked to quiet that critical voice, he began to see the good qualities he had, that he had a lot of friends, and that his past behavior and choices had just been a protective mechanism.

He worked hard to be vulnerable, to admit his good qualities, and when he made a mistake he learned to course correct and keep moving.

And now he’s repaired an old relationship and is dating a gorgeous woman.

He went from stuck and a love-life that sucked to love with a loving relationship and a quieter mind.

These three people all suffered from a chronic case of “the stucks” and they all did very specific things to get unstuck.

Let’s look at what they did. In the first case the client discovered and honored her values and quieted her critical voice that said she didn’t know what she wanted to do and would never know. She began to trust that she had a purpose. And guess what? It showed up.

With the second client who was stuck in balance and friendships, she really worked on developing and honoring her boundaries, got clear on and honored her values, and began to believe in her own personal value. She began to trust herself and developed a great life and made more money.

The third client learned to quiet that critical voice, discovered his values, developed good boundaries, and started trusting that he was a really good guy.

So what’s the answer to getting unstuck?

You’ll need to know and do the following things:

Boundaries – strong, firm; you stick to your boundaries once you draw them.

Values – not morals – things like integrity, freedom, full self-expression, romance, accomplishment and many, many more. Each individual has their own. You need to honor your values once you are clear about them.

Quieting the Critical Voice – the ego will try to protect you and keep you from changing, i.e. getting unstuck. Your job is to notice that voice and choose another perspective. So when you hear the criticism, you replace it with a new, positive perspective that you can truly believe. “You’ll never have the relationship you want” to “I am dating and meeting wonderful people.” “I am safe to love and have a committed relationship.” “I am in an exciting, loving, fun, committed relationship.” Whatever works for what you can believe at each stage.

The knowing here is knowing what the critical voice is saying and the doing is to replace it with a positive perspective.

The fourth and most crucial thing that everyone must have to get unstuck is TRUST. You have to believe that you can do it, trust yourself, trust the universe and trust those helping you to get unstuck. You have learn to TRUST and have FAITH.

Trying to get unstuck by yourself isn’t easy. I know. I was stuck trying to market my business and needed to find the perfect person to help me. I knew my values and so I knew I needed to listen to what was true for me, draw my boundaries around what I was willing to change and quiet the voice that said I didn’t know how to market. Then I had to trust the man I hired – trust that he was a brilliant marketing person who could help me. And he did just that. And I am no longer stuck in the area of marketing my business and, in fact, now it’s fun!!

I wish you a fun and enjoyable adventure as you begin to get unstuck. One last and very important piece of advice – it takes time. It’s a process. Be patient and compassionate with yourself. Once you set your mind to it, you’ll look back three to six months from now and say – “Wow, I am unstuck. Hurray!!!”

Happy getting unstuck!!
Carol Chanel
Certified Life Coach
C.P.C.C.

About the author: Carol Chanel is a certified life coach who works on the phone to help her clients get unstuck in order to have healthy relationships, improve their love life, and find what’s missing in their lives.