A Gut-Check for When You're Stalled Out

I’m not always in the mood to make progress. Because overwhelm is real. Because the options for which direction to move are truly endless. Sure, “the entire world is your oyster” is a beautiful thing, but what if you don’t like oysters? 

Energy, time, attention…they’re precious resources. When you use them correctly, they create enormous results in your life. You’re able to leap frog what’s out there and move beyond what you believed was possible. When you waste those same resources, you spin around getting so dizzy that it’s hard to reorient yourself.

Your sense of direction in life – where you want to go, what you want to be doing, and why – gets scattered. 

It’s easy to get lost in this spin and spiral. When this goes on long enough, you’ll end up feeling like you’re completely stalled out. What you want feels out of reach, like it’s better suited to be someone else’s dream. Because they are smarter, better, luckier, prettier, more resourced, or whatever.

And not to say that is giving up, but that’s sorta giving up. Just because you’re stalled out now doesn’t mean you have to stay there. It doesn’t mean that you can’t win. You will however have to do a gut check.

Are the things you’re doing today getting you closer to where you want to be? Or are your actions keeping you at a standstill?

I’m going to use the example of a book, because well…books are my thing. And because I think they make for simple metaphors. 

In 2018 I attended a writing workshop with some of my besties about “story” and what ingredients result in great plots, evolving into even greater movies. It struck a chord with me not because I want to write movies (maybe one day) but because at the time I very much wanted to write fiction. 

Between 2018 and 2020, I started and stopped writing about 3 different novels. I signed up for a class about how to write a novel. I sent pages to my agent and got her feedback. Some months I’d be blazing to do this thing I’d, of late, “always wanted to do”. Other months I couldn’t find the time, energy, or attention I needed to write a single paragraph. 

I was stalled out. 

Whenever I’d see someone I knew or followed on instagram publish their novel, I’d get jealous first…then pissed off at myself for doing nothing… and I’d start writing again. THIS month I’ll write every day. I’d do that for a week or two, and then I’d go back to doing nothing for a while – unsure of myself, doubtful of my craft, and questioning the dream to begin with. 

I had gone through enough of these feast and famine productivity cycles to know that when I met a very, very good idea for a novel, I needed to do something different. I needed my actions to match up with where I wanted to eventually be: authoring novels.

So I hired a writing coach – to hold me accountable, to develop my craft, and to keep me engaged when obstacles threatened to be kerosene colliding with my tinder of doubt. 

I’m not the author of a published novel yet. But I will be. Not because I’ve written it in a million journals (I have. We love journals). And not because I’ve told people that I’ll do it one day (Oh, I have). But because I’ve spent time every week for almost 75+ weeks ACTUALLY WRITING A NOVEL. 

It’s been written and rewritten. Now I’m revising. Soon, some critique readers will be reading. And I’m here, giving myself this chance at one of my dreams, because finally…my actions lined up with who I said I wanted to be. 

You can rinse and repeat this gut-check for any area of life.

Do you want a partner, but aren’t going on dates?

Do you want to build wealth, but aren’t making more than you spend?

Do you want to be in better health, but haven’t made any changes?

Figure out where you might be lying to yourself. Decide when enough is enough. If you’re fed up with wanting the same old dream, either the dream needs to change or you do. 

The latter is much harder, but worth it. So worth it.

Woman on xx

PS.

>> If you’ve been feeling lost and don’t even know what it is you want to be working towards, hit reply to this email with LOST in the subject line. I’ve got ideas (and special offers) for you.

>> If you’ve had an “I want to write a book” dream for as long as you remember, hit reply to this email with BOOK in the subject line. I might be able to help!