Restarting When You Feel Stuck

Image of a child at the bottom of a staircase. Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash

I’m writing this in November and I think this is a great time to think about restarting.

Why?

Because about a year ago you may have been thinking of all of those changes you wanted to make in the new year. And then the new year happened and perhaps you were successful but I’m guessing that some things fell apart or never got started. Perhaps as you review the year you feel good about where you’re at or maybe you don’t.

Change is hard

Making change happen is hard. In fact, when you consider making changes, it often becomes an opportunity to discover things you didn’t know about yourself - perhaps external barriers you hadn’t considered, or pushback from people in your life, or thoughts and feelings that you hadn’t expected to show up. All kinds of surprises can happen that keep you from acting on your well-intentioned goals.

So, if you haven’t made progress on something you had hoped for, consider this a great opportunity to learn more about what showed up for you and felt like a barrier to change.

Did the context change?

Sometimes when you plan things you consider the situation and the setting and the players involved and make a plan. And then things change. Or people show up that you weren’t expecting. Pandemics happen. Loved ones get sick. You look back and realize that you couldn’t have possibly known the context of your plans would change but they did.

If this is the case, what would you need to change about your goals, how do you adapt them, so that you can move forward? Are they still worth pursuing in your new context?

Are there barriers that you hadn’t planned for?

You can do some great planning and goal setting and still not anticipate barriers that might show up. Barriers are anything that put a challenge in front of you and make taking action difficult.

External barriers

Some external barriers are obvious - lack of resources like money and time can be barriers you weren’t expecting. However, I think it’s important to consider that you rarely make changes in your life in a vacuum. Often changes you want to make have an impact on others and while often people you care about will be supportive, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, when you create change in your life you often cause a disruption in the relationships around you - you change and some people (people you care about) can become upset. You’ve messed with the equilibrium. They will resist and you will back away from making change.

If this is the case, then consider this an opportunity for deeper exploration of what is happening here. If the change still matters to you, can you dialog with your loved one about what it means for them and for you? Perhaps you’ll gain new information and update your goals. And sometimes the only way forward is to hold an emotional boundary and ask for what you want, even if it is uncomfortable and not supported by the other person.

Internal barriers

Internal barriers are the ones inside of you - your feelings, thoughts, urges, memories, etc. While you can make great plans, when it comes to actually making change happen it feels too uncomfortable, brings up painful memories, or you have lots of challenging thoughts that are overwhelming. This is often the reason many of us don’t follow through on our plans.

Creating some mindfulness and acceptance around this can be really helpful. Start by noticing the hard stuff that comes up. When you consider change, what challenging things come up for you? Once you have some mindfulness around this, then consider what painful experiences would you be able to have to create change? What challenging thoughts and feelings and urges and memories would you be willing to have to take some kind of action toward your goals?

Restarting

After you’ve done some assessment about what happened that led to inaction, then I suggest restarting. That sounds straightforward but I want to point out that we often have lots to say about this - it’s too late to restart, I already wasted all of this time, how do I know I won’t fail again, etc. All of these things will lead you back to inaction. Instead, move back into the present moment and decide what action you are willing to take right now.

This idea of restarting comes straight from meditation practice. In vipassana (also called insight) meditation restarting happens frequently. You watch your breath come and go, your mind drifts off, you return your attention to the breath, your mind drifts off, you return back to your breath. Over and over. In fact, the practice of meditation is not about clearing your mind of thoughts but returning to the breath when your mind wonders - practicing restarting is the whole point.

So, if you take this practice into your daily life, restarting is about not judging yourself or doing any further assessment of how this won’t work but simply moving toward action. And you will likely fail again and you can restart again. Over and over.

This is how change happens.