What to do when you don't know what to do

There's something that’s been happening a lot to me lately:

I’ve been struggling a lot with working, with taking action.

I will try to sit down and write, but I stare at the blank page or screen and have no idea what to say.

I want to stand up and go for a walk, but I feel frozen in place and end up spending all morning in bed, scrolling on my phone.

The frustration starts to grow, it feels as if an invisible force is pushing down my mind and my body and I can’t take a hold of either one. I feel out of control and incapable to move. The seconds go by painfully, and suddenly it’s too late to get anything done and there are still no good ideas in my mind.

Have you been there?

If you have, you know how much it sucks.

Today, I want to cover three things:

• How to get out of this state

• How to get better ideas

• How to thaw your frozen brain

A strategy that helps me always:

This is not the first time this happens to me. This can either be scary (it feels like the beginning of depression feels) or hopeful (I’ve gotten out of this before, and I know how to do it.)

Within those two, I always choose the hopeful option.

And that’s why I’m writing this: to remember how I’ve gotten out of this before, and share it with you.

This is a philosophy I strongly live by:

When life starts feeling unpleasant in any way, I think back to times when life felt great.

I don’t do it to reminisce and fall into nostalgia. I do it to find answers.

I ask myself, “what was I doing that made life feel great? What parts of that can I adopt or replicate today, so I start moving in the right direction?”

I’ve always thought it’s strange how most of us know what we should be doing to improve our lives, and yet we don’t do it. Because of limiting beliefs, because we see it as inconvenient, because we don’t feel like it, or for whatever reason, we don't do it.

But it’s senseless to approach life in this way when deep down, we already know what would improve our situation.

Sometimes, we forget we know. And that’s where this question comes in. When life looked and felt great, what were you doing to create it? How can you replicate that?

Examples of this for me right now would be that in my happiest and most proactive times, I:

• spend less time on my phone than I am right now

• work on my desk, not the bed

• write daily

• track my days and activities

• wake up at the same time (or close to the same time) every day

• make time to take walks or move throughout the day

• have meaningful conversations with cool people

• think of the long-term consequences of my actions

Just by asking this question, I can get a few ideas on what I can do right now to change how I’m feeling and therefore how I’m acting.

This is step one in getting out of the rut. But I still feel uncreative, and frozen. So what’s next?

On getting better ideas

There are two ways in which I divide my work: one is ideation, and the other is execution. They intertwine and combine in really interesting ways for different people and different situations.

Lately, I’ve been craving execution (I want to write, I want to create, I want to build) but I’m struggling with ideation.

Two weeks ago, I spent two hours trying to think what to write the newsletter about, and I got so frustrated I ended up not writing anything.

Now, here’s the thing. There’s a time for deep work and execution, and there’s a time for exploration and ideation. Neither of those exists in a vacuum. Often, when one of them is not working, it just means the other one needs our attention.

In my mind, the division between them looks like this:

That day, attempting deep work wasn’t aiding my process in the slightest. There were no ideas in my mind, no burning desire to write something, and no way in which my brain was willing to come up with them on its own.

What I needed was exploration. I needed to be with others, not by myself. So even after giving up on writing, that's what I did.

I went out for dinner and had good conversations with friends. And in a couple of hours, I got at least four writing ideas.

These ideas wouldn’t have sparked in my mind if I kept staring at my blank screen. The ideas came because I was with other people, and they had meaningful things to say, and I connected their ideas with my thoughts and beliefs.

And just like that, ideas!

Here, I have explained this process by talking about writing, but it can be applied to anything that requires coming up with ideas.

Sometimes, working more won’t help you get ideas. Stepping back and talking to some cool people will, though.

And then, you can go back and execute them.

How to un-freeze a brain

My least favorite part of this semi-slump I’ve been in is the feeling of being frozen. For most of the past few weeks, my mind has felt unable to stop scrolling TikTok, my body feels stuck to the bed, and I feel stuck in frustration.

Now, I don’t know if there are any easy ways to get this feeling off of you.

But I do know three things that help. Although they both have a certain level of difficulty, I’d say they’re the ones that help the most. You could use any of them individually, but I like thinking of them as steps.

Here’s how I do it:

Step 1:

Call a friend, and tell them you feel frozen. Tell them what you wish you were doing (cleaning your room, working, etcetera.) Tell them you need their help to unfreeze and do it. This help may look different for each situation and person.

Sometimes, just asking them to tell you to get up and do it is enough. Other times, you may ask them to join you in a video call as you do the thing. And in some severe cases, you can even ask them to come over and sit next to you while you do the thing.

Step 2:

Using your friend’s support, do a small thing that points you in the direction you want to go. This may be putting a load of laundry in the washer, sending one single email, or putting your phone in another room.

Step 3:

Take a slightly bigger action in the direction you want to go. After laundry, clean your desk. After the first email, start working on that project. After putting your phone in another room, take out your work materials.

By now, you’ve:

• started building momentum

• have someone willing to hold you accountable or give you company

• and it’s a lot easier to keep moving than it is to stop.

With frozen brains, the real issue isn’t the fact that you can’t do it. It’s the fact that you can’t start. By following these three steps, you can get going, and then you just need to keep going.

I hope that this week feels like having someone you love make oatmeal for you, like getting comfort from a special person when you’re sad, like crying because you can finally see how far you’ve come.

See you next Wednesday!

-Vale, The Friendly Artist