How To Get Unstuck

A few years ago, I was feeling stuck

I was feeling stuck in my career, stuck in my marriage, stuck where we lived. 

It was one of those moments where life felt like an impasse. Nothing seemed to be moving forward or making progress. 

I knew deep down, that it was time to leave my job, so I started looking pretty aggressively for new work. I started calling on connections and friends for new leads, but still, everything felt like a soft roadblock, as in, nothing felt “just right."

So, we thought, maybe we need a new place to live, land, or a new house. We drove all over our city, outside of town and in ever-increasing circles in the countryside, waiting for something to grab us. Nothing did. 

Even in our marriage, we loved each other, but something felt stale and listless. We were tired, worn out from parenting, day to day decision making and just not feeling lively. 

All of it felt a bit like a country song, like this one by Robert Ellis (I’m a sucker for sappy traditional country music).
 

"What am I supposed to do?
Just drivin'round the fairgrounds another time or two
Where am I gonna go?
When the girl behind the counter at the coffeshop
gets tired of me hangin' round withnothin' left to say
I'm tryin' to get away

I'm bored out of my mind
And I've changed all the lightbulbs
And had this conversation about three million times or more
I guess I walk around the grocery store - again

Ohoo this don't feel like livin'
It's just survivin'. I ain't goin' nowhere
I'm just drivin'"

How many times have I been there, a fight with my wife or just the dark moody thoughts about my own life? When is it going to get better, when are things going to round the corner and go from stuck to something more?

Have you ever been there?

I thought I'd be there forever.

Then a tiny miracle happened. Something in my brain shifted. I stopped looking at life right in front of my face and I started to think and dream and imagine beyond the four walls of my day to day life. What if what I’m really looking for isn’t a new job, a new house, or a new spark, what if it’s a new experience altogether?

I think I was at my desk at work when a new possibility entered my mind. What if I did something crazy instead of something conventional? I was raised in the church and this kind of thinking is not often encouraged unless God, on high, tells you himself to do something crazy. 

Thankfully, I’ve matured and been given the gift of seeing life through the lens of the freedom- that I am free to choose to live a brave, Romantic and Adventurous life and when I really give myself over to it, the possibilities of life begin to rapidly expand. 

So what was that thought at work? I’ll wait to tell you in my next email, but I’ll give you a hint, it was something big to look forward to. It might sound silly or underwhelming or not impactful to you, but to me- and then when I told it to my wife, it spoke right to our heart, like an arrow in a bullseye.

That’s how we knew we were on the right track, it rang like a bell for us. Even though it was nuts, even though it would be costly, even though it would be hard and challenging. More than that, though, we had a new path to head down, we had something to prepare for. We had work to do and because we were both so excited, it refreshed us, it gave us energy and a new angle on our purpose with one another. To be honest, even thinking back on it, after all this time, it’s still so invigorating! 

So, let me ask you somethin, when was the last time you really had something to look forward to? When was the last time that you were able to shift your thinking and expand your belief to live with more Romance and Adventure, in the truest sense?