How to Get Unstuck By Getting Out of Your Head

Many of us get stuck in our heads, falling into circular thought patterns that get us nowhere. So how do we stop this cycle and start solving for the life we want to be living?

So Many Of Us Feel Stuck In Our Own Lives 

Some time ago, I decided to take a plunge and do something that made me feel uncomfortable. I decided to finally, and officially, begin my career as a Leadership & Performance Coach.

I had a lot of fears: a fear of putting myself out there, a fear of asking for what I wanted, and – I know this sounds strange – a fear of succeeding. Because once you succeed, you can't hide anymore. You have to show up and do the work.

To overcome these fears, I designed a challenge for myself: coach 30 people for a 30-minute session during the span of 30 days. I posted about it on LinkedIn. First, there was a trickle of responses. Then…a flood.

Across the board, the 30+ people I spoke with expressed a longing to make a change, but were uncertain of themselves and what to do next. All of them were caught up thinking, but very few were taking action. They were spinning in circles in their heads, looking over the fence and imagining greener pastures. As if some magical fairy was bound to come through the window, sprinkle some dust and poof, all would be changed, all would be good.

Consider What Is Available To You Right Now

Unlike fairy tales, real life requires wading through some shit to get what you want Waiting, wondering, and wishing upon a star? Not so much.

For folks stuck in this way, my favorite question to ask is: “What is available to you right now?"  Many of us get caught up at gazing longingly in the distance, when the fact is there are a handful of exciting opportunities available to us right now. At our current employer. In our current city. Right now! 

Assessing whether there are opportunities to learn and grow at your current employer is a great place to start. Many people I spoke with said there were opportunities that interested them at their current job, it's just that…they weren't going for them. To put it bluntly, it was all talk and no action. And a good friend of mine likes to say, “Bitching ain’t switching.” 

Don't get me wrong: thinking, planning, and strategizing are important. And setting a direction and investigating the merits and pitfalls of a choice are worthwhile exercises. But this behavior becomes a problem when we spend countless hours in our heads ruminating, thinking through outcomes, and considering changes without making a single move. 

How to Get Out of Your Head And Start Taking Action

In order to encourage my clients to get out of their heads and get into action mode, I first challenge each person to empty their heads by getting all of their thoughts down on paper.

The simple act of writing down our thoughts forces us to slow down. Our heads move really fast and can cover an insane amount of ground in a short period of time. When we take the time to actually write it out by hand, we are forced to consolidate that thinking. To convert that mess of thoughts and images into words.

The best way to do this is to carve out some time either first thing in the morning or on the weekend, when your mind is rested. (Pro tip: if you try to do this at night, you may just end up staring at the ceiling as your brain continues cycling through all of your anxieties and worries - real or imagined).

Start by focusing on the issue that is currently top of mind or generating the most anxiety. Describe it. Describe how it is making you feel. Don’t judge, just write. From there, keep emptying your head by writing down the subsequent topics that enter your mind, whether they are related to the first one or not. Be sure to include items from both your professional and personal lives.

Once we have some thoughts down on paper, several things begin to happen. First, we begin to see what’s feasible or available to us and what’s not. We have a tendency to magnify worst case scenarios and all of the things that could go wrong, many of which are highly unlikely to occur. Moreover, we often have little to no control over those outcomes so it’s best to let them go. Besides, when we focus on the negative, we lose sight of potential positive outcomes - ones over which we likely do have some control.

As we shift our focus to where we can influence the outcome,we begin to see the little things that we can solve right now, the small tasks we can do today to move us towards our dreams. We can send that email. Make that call. Make that one-time purchase. Talk to our spouse, partner, friend, or coworker to enlist their help and support. But we can’t do any of that if we are stuck in our heads. In order to get where we want to go, we have to put what we want into words.

Get Explicit About the Life You Want

Exercise: How do I want to BE? What do I want to DO?

1. Take out a piece of paper. On the left-hand side, write down how you want your life to be. What is the career you crave? What is the lifestyle you dream of? Do you want to be able to work from home, anywhere in the world, or to commute to an office? Do you desire flexible hours or fixed? To work on a team or more of a solo venture? Long hours for high pay or fewer hours to spend more time with family or friends?
2. On the right side, write down what you want to be doing with your days. Are you sitting in meetings or wired in coding? Are you traveling to clients or conferences or jumping between Zoom calls or in-person meetings? Are you able to take breaks to exercise or be with family or do you need to bang out 80 hours a week to make partner? Are you developing skills or teaching others? Are you immersed in the details and building processes or thinking creatively and developing strategies to implement?
3. Next, review both columns. What patterns do you see? What themes begin to emerge? Perhaps you see that you want more autonomy in order to acquire deeper technical skills. To get there, you need the flexibility of working from home where you can work with minimal distractions, but still be part of a team where you can contribute. Or maybe you desire the type of work that entails minimal travel and you don’t mind commuting to the office two or three times a week to be around colleagues and to brainstorm ideas.
4. Next, ask yourself this key question: “What’s available to me now?” Does the type of role you dream of exist at your current company? If so, what do you need to do in order to fill that role? If you still have the opportunity to learn and grow in your current role, or by switching roles in your company, then figure out the next action to make it happen. It likely requires doing some investigation, talking with others in the company, and asking to have a conversation with your manager. 

The danger zone for us all is when we reach a plateau. This is natural in any career path. We learn and grow during the early stage of our working lives and then stagnate. Our work shifts from building to maintenance. Maintenance work is important, but many of us become uninspired when this becomes the sole type of work we're involved in. 

But remember: It’s your responsibility to take ownership of your career trajectory. 

Far too often, I see a pattern where people make a longed-for change. Say it's a new job. Everything is great in the beginning–exciting, fresh, challenging. And then the magic wears off. It  becomes just another job. And, even worse, the stuck feeling returns. Why does this happen? Because many of us shunt the responsibility of solving for our needs onto our employers. When in reality, it's OUR job to solve for the company's needs–and our own.

It may be the case that you have truly topped out at your current employer, and there is nowhere more advanced or more interesting to go. Or sometimes the company culture has become so toxic that leaving is the healthiest choice for you no matter what. In those cases, I do recommend seeking out new opportunities. It's just that for the majority of us, there is a lot we can do where we currently are to improve our circumstances.

Bringing It Home

The first step towards solving a problem is admitting you have one. It’s easy to get swept up in our heads, incessantly worrying or imagining all sorts of scenarios of what may or may not happen. Yet, like Tony Robbins says, "When you get in your head, you’re dead.” 

“When we're in our heads, we often fall into circular thought patterns, which make us feel like we're making progress, when in reality, we've made no movement at all.

However, when we begin to write our thoughts down on paper, the amorphous worries that keep us up at night become either 1) situations beyond our control that we can let go of, or 2) concrete problems that we can begin to solve. This reduces anxiety and frees up valuable space in our heads. Once that space has been cleared, our natural inclinations for creativity and problem solving will come alive again, allowing us to craft solutions to move us forward.

With an empty head and your list of how you want to be and what you want to be doing, you’re making real progress. You will begin to feel the excitement and momentum build as new possibilities are unearthed in your head. Boosted by this creative energy, you’ll feel ready to begin converting these abstractions into actionable steps and goals. 

The calendar has flipped. It's go time. Good luck and godspeed!