Do you ever feel stuck? Have you noticed that some days things just feel harder than others?
During “good times” you may feel inspired, motivated, energized, excited or even joyful and enthusiastic about the day ahead. But sometimes, for any number of reasons, life can feel overwhelming and just plain hard to manage. Whether it’s a sad personal experience, fear of an unknown future, current world events, health problems, anxiety, grief or unclear reasons, sometimes moving forward can just feel like a struggle.
When you find yourself in one of these times, taking action can help! Although, it can be challenging to motivate during times of duress, taking action is often one of the best things we can do.
Sometimes that action may be taking a break. At other times it may be hard to determine if we’re taking a healthy pause or if we’ve become paralyzed in a place that is not serving our best interests. Consciously choosing to take a bit of action, even a small one, can help determine what we’re ready for. If movement feels good, then we can continue in that direction, moving ourselves out of a less than ideal place and into something new. If movement doesn’f feel right we can choose to take another pause. Either way, we experience more clarity when we use taking action as a tool.
Taking conscious action has a number of benefits: it opens us up new opportunities, gives us renewed energy, can shift our mental state, show us new perspectives, create greater self confidence, and move us into a better relationship with life. When you’re feeling stuck, the key is to get yourself moving again and to re-engage with life. If taking action seems like an impossible feat or you’d just like a little bit more motivation to get going below are a few suggestions to help get the ball rolling!
12 Tips for Moving Forward and Taking Action
#1 – Take it one step at a time. You don’t have to climb the whole mountain on your first day. Nothing gets done all at once. Sometimes when we try to tackle too much of a goal or a problem all at once it’s more than our brains can handle and it becomes totally overwhelming. Just do ONE thing. Focus on one idea and try that. Don’t worry so much about everything and simply focus on the one thing. When things get overwhelming or it feels like there is no clear path forward, just find one doable thing and do it. Then find another, and do that. And another. And another. Pretty soon you will find that you are moving forward. Step by step is the only way to walk.
#2 – Let go of perfect. Striving or waiting for perfect can hold us back, especially when it comes to taking concrete action. When it comes to moving forward in life, the next action you take doesn’t have to be a grand, perfect action, any action will do. It matters less what you do and more that you do. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be something, anything to get you started. The truth is, any action you make will get you moving forward and you can concentrate improving and perfecting your movements as you go, but if you don’t go at all, then you don’t just have a result that is possibly imperfect, you have nothing at all.
#3 – Engage with Life. Take a look around you. What do you see? There is so much richness and fullness in the world, even in our usual day to day life. We humans have a habit of becoming desensitized to the world around us and can begin to take things for granted. We get used to the things we label as “normal” or “basic” and then it’s almost as if they aren’t even there anymore. There is SO much to observe and consider in every single moment – the endless nature of the sky, the softness of your clothes, the billions of stitches making up your shirt and everything that’s had to happen for it to make its way to you, including the number of people who’ve had some part in that. Or consider the incredible power and capabilities of the electronic rectangle in your hand that you call a phone, the miracle of your breath, or your heart beating, giving you life.
Make a significant effort to be present in this moment, with all of this, with everything that is, as much as you can. To really see and hear and feel what is happening right here and right now in this moment. Engaging with life this way can help to wake you up! To be moved. To be inspired. To feel connection. To feel joy or gratitude or wonder. Open yourself up to the world around you and see what happens－allow it to move you.
#4 – Use your imagination. Thinking can be a starting point to action and a wonderful way to get started. Allow yourself to visualize, to be creative, to imagine and to be inspired. Daydream. As you use your imagination, pay attention and see if there is anything in there that can be translated into right now. When you feel a flash of inspiration, follow it! The imagination is a powerful tool and thoughts can very easily become actions. All it takes is to shift gears from dreaming and thinking to doing. You have the power to do this at any time.
#5 – Reach out to others. You don’t have to do it all alone! Connecting with others is a wonderful way to get un-stuck. When we relate with other people or other animals we are sharing and exchanging energy. Not only are we receiving new energy and input from connections with others we are also giving our energy, which is active. Engaging with others can sometimes be all we need to get a little jump start towards action. We are constantly being influenced and inspired by each other. We can also ask for help when we need it. When we’re feeling a lack of motivation or direction it can help to be accountable to someone. Just to be able to check in and say “I went for a walk” or “I did the dishes” or “I wrote 5 paragraphs in my novel” can sometimes help us feel more encouraged and inspired to take action.
#6 – Give yourself a pep talk, even if you don’t believe it yet. “I can do this. I have good ideas. I am smart. I am kind. I am compassionate. I am an incredible being. I don’t give up. I am enough.” It may seem simple or silly but giving yourself a little bit of love can do wonders for motivation. If you don’t have someone else around to help give you a boost, give it to yourself. Be your own cheerleader. Tell yourself whatever you feel like you might need to hear to feel supported and encouraged. If you can’t think of anything, tell yourself what you would tell a dear friend. You might be surprised at how you feel when you do. Encouragement is powerful whether it comes from others outside or from within. You can give it to yourself. Once you have yourself in your corner, you will always have an ally. Tell yourself whatever you need to hear to get moving and when you do take action you can tell yourself “I’m proud of you” and mean it.
#7 – Open to possibility. Life is full of possibilities but sometimes we forget this and get caught in limiting beliefs and ideas. We start thinking that things have to be a certain way or get stuck in a narrow view, like tunnel vision, making it hard for us to see a way forward. However, as soon as we start to open our minds and consider the possibilities, the more options we notice and the more the world opens up for us. Moving forward becomes much easier when we recognize that there are infinite possibilities and allow ourselves to be motivated and inspired by them. We don’t know what the future will hold so why limit the possibilities? Be open and let the possibilities unfold before you.
#8 – Say “YES”. This is a simple practice, but it really works. When you find yourself presented with an opportunity, just say “yes” or at the very least consider it and notice how often you are saying “no”. If you find yourself saying a lot of really fast “no”s you might also be finding yourself missing a lot of opportunities or feeling limited or trapped. It can be easy to get stuck in the habit of constantly declining possibilities when they come your way. And once something is a habit, it can take some attention and effort to break it. Notice if some of your stuck-ness might be related to immediately shutting down invitations with a list of reasons to say no, rather than open consideration. Before deciding, take a beat and try looking for some reasons to say yes or experiment with just saying “yes” instead of “no” and once you do you might begin to notice a lot of reasons why saying “yes” was a good idea that you had never even considered before.
#9 – Make the choice to do nothing. Making a conscious choice not to take action, is actually in itself taking action. The action of pausing. The action of waiting. The action of patience. The action of rest. The difference is the choice. For it to be a conscious choice, a decision has to be made to do whatever you are going to do and sometimes the action to take might be no action. It is important that whatever it is you end up doing you own that you are choosing it. Even if it’s to “do nothing.” Recognizing and owning your choices gives you power. It helps you to realize that you do have a choice and that you can always choose again. You are in control. Surprisingly, making the clear decision for “no action” can be empowering and in turn help motivate you. Often, it is in the stillness that you can find more clarity in what direction you’d like to move next.
#10 – Seize the day. This moment is the only moment we will ever have for sure. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next one. We can plan, we can hope, we can expect, but the future is not determined. This moment only happens right NOW and then it is gone. Life is not permanent. Even the things that last a long time don’t last forever and we never really know when something is going to end or change. So, the best we can do is take advantage of the time that we have now. To truly live and appreciate this time that we are given, right now. Remind yourself of this and let it help you remember that right now is a special time like no other time, so do your best to engage with it and do whatever you can as if you may not get another chance. Accept this time as a gift and do not waste it.
#11 – Celebrate and Set Yourself up for Success! Celebrate yourself and your “successes.” When we feel good and celebrate the actions that we do take, it makes life more fun and us happier and more grateful. It gives us reason to keep going if we know that we’ll be celebrating and acknowledging the efforts that we do. Set yourself up for this celebration of your success by giving yourself achievable goals, going after them and celebrating yourself when you do them. Give yourself things to do so that you can celebrate yourself! They don’t have to be big goals, in fact, they shouldn’t be. They should be easy, every day things. Celebrate everything that you do. You deserve the praise, just for being here and just for being you.
#12 – KEEP GOING. The road may get bumpy. Things might not go according to plan – not perfect, mistakes made, problems, set backs. Don’t give up. Don’t let the mishaps and the misfortunes beat you or stop you. Keep going. Sometimes the only way forward is through and it may not be pleasant but usually there are better times on the other side, but not if you stop, not if you give up. Take a break, regroup, take some time, but keep going. Slowly but surely, inch by inch, step by step, you can do it.
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