Sometimes you are stuck
We have talked lots about goals and action setting here at Sunday Night Success, and we are so excited about the ideas we plan on talking a lot more about these topics in the future. However sometimes all of this preplanning and thinking and organizing doesn’t apply, or just isn’t working. Sometimes you just feel stuck, and you don’t really have any idea what needs to be done to get you unstuck.
Goal setting doesn’t help so try these two steps
In these cases goal setting doesn’t really provide an answer, as you don’t have any idea what goal to work on in order to get you moving again. Thinking about what to do probably won’t help much either as, if you are feeling blocked, you are not necessarily going to be able to come up with a solution. Asking a friend, your action partner, or whatever support group you have is definitely a helpful way to change your perspective, but sometimes they are not available, their ideas aren’t helping, or you are not feeling comfortable about sharing the situation with others.
When I am in these situations I follow a simple two-step process that usually gets me started on getting unstuck:
1. Do.
2. Adapt.
How does the “Do, then adapt” technique work?
It is pretty simple really, when you are feeling stuck think of a bunch of possible small actions you could take at that moment, and then just do one of them: pick a single small action and give it a try, see what happens. There are three basic results that can occur:
1. It gets worse: there is the possibility that whatever small action you take makes you feel worse. However, because you chose a small action, one with minimal consequence, it shouldn’t be too hard to bounce back from this result.
2. It stays neutral: the small action you take could have absolutely no effect on the situation you are working on. In this case nothing good or bad happens, but at least you were in action.
3. It gets better: this is the result you are seeking. Whatever small action you took helps you feel better, the feeling of being stuck gets jostled and you start to feel movement or, at least, the potential of movement.
Now that you have done, you need to adapt
Taking action leaves a trail, and depending on where this trail leads you will need to adapt the next action you take. If the action gave you the result you desire then you can start to follow the trail. Try completing similar actions and see if you continue to move in a positive direction. Try creating a more detailed action path that flows out from this first action you tried and see if this path gives you the forward movement you seek.
If the trail is neutral or negative then change your next action to something completely different, adapt what you are doing and see if something else works. The point is, when you feel stuck, depressed, stressed, angry; whatever, the feeling do something about it: pick a small action with minimal serious consequence and see where it leads you.
You don’t always need an elaborate plan or a well-planned destination. Sometimes you just need to Do, then Adapt.
What is a small action you could try this week, that you have never tried before? Give it a try and let me know if it helped you move forward in some area of your life.
When you do have time to plan your actions, try backward planning them. Check out this pencast movie as an example.
[...] One way to move from the comfort zone to the danger zone is to simply do, then adapt. [...]
[...] If Scott’s video has your interest piqued, then check out this SNS post about taking action, then adapting to the results. [...]