Saturday, November 19, 2016

Somewhere to Go

One of the hardest feelings I think most of us wrestle with involves feeling stuck, It could be a living situation, job, relationship or something else -- but whatever it is, being stuck means you can't figure out how to get rid of it.

Sometimes it just feels like you're swimming upstream, and it knocks out all your creativity and joy. Sometimes it even knocks out your ability to be creative altogether (at least, it does for me).

When I'm feeling this way, I try to remember what I heard once when I was in line at a theater, trying to get tickets for a play I hoped would not be sold out. Someone was talking to a friend ahead of me who remarked on being stuck in this line. The response he received has stayed with me:

"You're only stuck if you have somewhere to go."

Something clicked for me as soon as I heard it.

Because if you have somewhere to go, you at least have the possibility of getting there. If you have nowhere to go, life would be pretty awful.

If you're feeling stuck, or your kids say they're feeling stuck, you might want to remind them (and yourself) of this.

If you're trying to get somewhere, there is more than one way to do it. And you don't have to do it all at once, either.

It could mean you have to plan something out and it may take months, or years. It could mean working more than you want to right now or gathering the courage to leave a job and go out on your own. It also means you will need the strength of will to get there and that's not easy--I know.

Being stuck may drive you crazy. But at least it means there is somewhere you want to go, and once you know that, you can start mapping out a couple of ways to get there. Another thing I do when I feel stuck is ask friends what they would do. And a lot of times, their perspectives help me turn things around.

That doesn't mean every problem has an answer. Sometimes you really are stuck, but I don't believe that means forever. It just may be for longer than you'd like.

For advice on getting unstuck (as parents and kids) I found some articles:

Helping Your Kids Get Learn How to Less Stressed and Unstuck

Helping Your Kids Get "Unstuck"

4 Tips to Get Unstuck from Parenting Struggles

Trap photo: royalty free





No comments:

Post a Comment

Please be courteous and please do not post ads for your business on this blog.