Feeling Stuck

Hello Dear Reader, it's been a bit longer than planned since I last wrote a blog post! In fairness, it's been a busy few weeks. I've had a week in Stratford at an intensive training course for my coaching qualification. Straight afterwards was a week working in Germany - this actually went really well and I was able to use my coaching skills to move some things forwards! Then it's been a week back at normal work, feeling a little bit under the weather with a cold, getting ready for the practical phase of my coaching qualification and confirming start dates with my clients - all go!

In that time, as you will have noticed if you've followed my blog for a while, I stopped posting. What you won't have noticed (unless you live with me) is that I also stopped taking a walk each day... and remembering to do yoga in the mornings... and various other bits that were an easy routine up until about a month ago... Add to that some guilt about not running further than parkrun for a few weeks and we end up feeling pretty bogged down and sorry for ourselves and generally just a bit stuck!

It is very very easy to make excuses when you feel stuck. "I'll do it tomorrow", "It's too hard", "The weather is bad". The thing is, the more you listen to those things, the longer the situation continues for and the more stuck you feel. Then because you're not doing things for several days, you feel more stuck because "Oh, I should have done it yesterday", "I'm running out of time". Guilt sets in and we beat ourselves up for not doing things... and ironically continue not to do the things we feel guilty about!

So, what to do when you're feeling stuck? In short... anything! Just do SOMETHING! Pair some socks, go for a walk, dance around your kitchen, do something you love!

The trick to unsticking is to start moving with something small. When you start moving, you build momentum for other things and doing things suddenly becomes much easier again! You rebuild your energy for doing things, which then gives you energy to do other things as well!

This weekend, I made myself do parkrun. That then gave me the energy to various things I'd been putting off for a while. The house was given a cleaning blitz, things came out of cupboards and into a bag for the charity shop, the dog got a good walk and we even ended up going for another run on Sunday morning! The best thing, is that although I am a bit tired after doing lots of things this weekend, I know I can rest tonight and still have a good level of energy for things tomorrow. I have built momentum and become unstuck.

Was parkrun the very first thing I did to become unstuck?

No. That would have been way too big to start with, even if I know I can run 5km comfortably when I'm feeling well.

Instead to get started, I set myself a timer for 10 minutes and cleared the desk in my office, which I'd been meaning to do all week.

It took 3 minutes. So I congratulated myself and moved on to clearing the top of the bookshelf next to my desk!

It took 2 minutes. So again, I congratulated myself and moved on to the next thing that could take 10 minutes.

In the 10 minutes I thought I would need to clear my desk, I also cleared my bookshelf, filed some papers which had been waiting for 3 months, moved some bits back to where they actually live and wiped the whiteboard on my wall - the writing had been there so long that it had to be done with a damp cloth rather than a board rubber... eek!

The end product was a tidy and decluttered office, ready for work on Monday. The best bit was, it took no time at all and ticked something off the weekend to do list before the weekend had even begun! Result!

So my challenge to you this week, is to look at the things you've been putting off. Think "is there anything I could do in 10 minutes?" and if there is, set yourself a timer and DO IT and only it until it or 10 minutes is finished! You'll be amazed at how much you actually get done.

And when you have done it, congratulate yourself! Celebrate the small stuff, it's important. It helps you build that momentum by giving you a positive buzz you can take forward to the next thing you want to do.

Have a great week Dear Reader, my aim is to write something in 10 minutes this week, we shall see how it goes...

Until next time :)