If I had to choose one word to describe how I’ve been feeling over the past few months it would be stuck.
Maybe it’s the lack of sunlight, maybe it’s an excessive amount of chocolate (looking at you post Valentine’s Day sales), or maybe it’s just a life phase. Who cares. It doesn’t matter why, it just matters that feeling stuck is the worst.
Here are a few of the things that popped up when I asked the internet for a definition of stuck:
- be or remain in a specified place or situation, typically one perceived as tedious or unpleasant.
- be unable to progress with a task or find the answer or solution to something.
- be unable to get rid of or escape from.
The thing with my particular flavor of stuck-ness is that nothing’s wrong. My job is great. I love my apartment. There’s no external reason for me to feel this way (besides Winter, but I have no control over the weather so I’m going to ignore that factor). It’s just me. I’m the problem.
Someone emailed me about this recently. They have young children and a busy life and want to devote more time to writing, but find that when they have time at night they are often so exhausted they just scroll through Facebook because it’s mindless.
I can so relate (not to the children part obviously but to the exhausted, lacking energy, defaulting to lazy habits part). I want to end my days feeling worn out by the things I’ve done and rich conversations I participated in—not bleary-eyed and sluggish from wasting hours staring at my phone.
Turns out, there’s actually a scientific basis for this exhaustion. Researchers have found that procrastinating leads to significant health issues and higher stress level. This specific study was on college students who procrastinated.
The stress of procrastinating in work or school or even on necessary life tasks (ex: that doctor’s appointment I’ve been putting off making for two years because I’m a lazy coward) is one thing. But what if we spend our entire lives procrastinating on our greatest aspirations? What if we delay living itself? That’s more than stressful. That’s soul sucking. It’s debilitating. That’s the kind of procrastination that leaves us with no energy at the end of the day.
I’ve written before about how to make yourself do something, but this week I want to explore what it means when we feel stuck and how we can get out of a Life Rut even when we feel trapped. I’ll be posting solutions that have helped me in the past and reporting on things other people have said helped them unstick their life.
Come back tomorrow for Part 1 where I’ll share my best tips and tricks for beating bad habits.
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Alikay Wood 
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