3 Questions To Ask Yourself When You Feel Stuck

Confession time. I’ve been slowly working on a book off and on for nearly 2 years. While I’ve had seasons of progress, I’ve also experienced what seems like forever seasons of little to no progress.

So during this down time of recovering of surgery, I’ve been asking myself what are some of the reasons “getting stuck” happens, especially with projects and initiatives that we say we care the most about?

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

• Refusing to start.

• Unwillingness to share.

• Lack of discipline to finish.

The internet is full of advice for handling each of these common reasons why we get stuck in out seemingly most important work.

So I am not going to do that.

Instead, I want to propose 3 questions:

1. What fear is preventing me from starting?

2. Who can I share this with?

3. Do I really care?

What fear is preventing me from starting?

It’s been my experience that starting is usually the hardest step to accomplish anything. Avoidance to start is simply letting procrastination win. Once I take that first step, I often find myself in a groove, all while wishing I had gotten started long earlier.

More often than not, when I reflect later, I realize that procrastination wasn’t the reason I didn’t start; fear was. Procrastination just happened to be the vehicle I chose to go down as a result of that fear.

So how do we handle the fear?

There are a lot of methods are dealing with fear. I won’t go into all of those methods here. But, a good first step is to name what that fear is and what else you might be feeling in addition to that fear.

A solid second step is to then find a safe person or group of people who you can share about that thing you are wanting to build or accomplish and how you’re feeling about it.

That leads me to the next question you should be asking if you feel stuck.

Who in my circle can I share it with?

The worst thing you can do when it comes to a project or work you truly care about is to do it in isolation. Yes, there are times when great work calls for deep focus and attention.

This is not what I referring to.

I am referring to that feeling that you have to have that thing perfectly “done” or the most thought out strategy in place before you can speak a word about it. That might sound safe, but it comes with a few big risks:

• You’re more likely to let perfectionism keep you from making progress.

• You’ll miss out on potentially valuable feedback that would have made your project or idea 100% times better.

You have to speak up to show up. Seek feedback early and often.

Do I care enough to finish?

This might be the most important question you can ask.

Maybe you started that project or big idea and realized that it wasn’t what you thought it would be or as fun to work on as you had hoped. This is actually a great thing. It’s better to discover that as early on as possible.

But you have to own that. Say it out loud, “This is not what I thought it was and I no longer want to pursue.” The worst thing you could do is to continue to lie t yourself and feel the shame that comes with not following through.

So if you still really do care, go ALL IN.

If not, don’t.

So there are the 3 questions I find super helpful to challenge myself with when I feel stuck.

If these questions help you out, please drop me a line and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.