5 Steps To Get Out of a Rut

It’s February 1st.

And even though you’re still trying to maintain the habits, goals, and systems you set for yourself at the beginning of the year… it’s getting tougher, isn’t it?

Don’t worry, I’m in the same spot as you.

There’s a dip that happens after a couple of weeks of following a plan to improve yourself or your life: things don’t go as planned, you start falling behind because other stuff showed up, etcetera. I don’t know about you, but the frustration that comes along with it is the toughest part for me.

And that frustration weighs you down, it makes it even harder to move forward. Other areas of your life start suffering as well: your room, your relationships, your sleep, etcetera.

It happens to the best of us. But there’s a difference between those that get past it and those that don’t: resilience. The ability to get back up, readjust, and try again.

Today, I want to share a step-by-step plan to get past this stage, so it doesn’t become a deep rut.

Most of this can probably be done in a day or two.

Let’s dive in:

1. Make space for your emotions

If, like me, you experience frustration from falling off track, please don’t try to start with fixing the external.

You have accumulated certain emotions as you fell into this rut: stress, frustration, anger, sadness, fear, whatever it is. And before you can change the outside, you need to deal with the inside.

Now, there isn’t a cookie-cutter way to do this. But I’ll give you my favorite ideas:

Have a good cry

I’m a big crying fan. It’s a process our bodies have created to release emotions from the body. It helps us be present with our emotions, and then let them go. I’m not saying “force yourself to cry”, though. I’m saying “if you’ve been feeling a knot in your throat for days, maybe stop fighting it.” 

I’m saying “hey, you have permission to cry if you need to.”

However, don’t forget to drink a big glass of water when you’re done, as crying dehydrates the body terribly.

Talk to a friend

Often we get overwhelmed because we’re standing in the eye of our personal little hurricane, and everything seems terrible and huge from there. When we get a second pair of eyes on it, looking at it from the outside, it helps us see it’s really not that big.

There are two ways in which talking to a friend can help: the first is just feeling heard. Many times I find when saying what I’m feeling out loud, to someone else, the problem immediately shrinks. It helps me organize my thoughts, even if there isn’t much input from the other person.

The second is in actually getting input. Hearing a different perspective, or different ideas on how to solve what I’m facing. Again, just getting an external pair of eyes on my situation, a pair of eyes that will see it with less fear and stress.

Brain dump

This is the only one of the three I’d tell you not to skip. Writing is a way to get the mess from your mind onto paper. It’s the best way to become an external observer of ourselves. The answers you find when you let yourself write freely often outperform the questions you may be asking.

To do this, set a timer for anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. As soon as you start the timer, put pen to paper. Write every single thought clouding your mind. Right now, nothing matters except for you to keep writing. Don’t over-analyze what you’re writing, just put words on paper until the timer goes off.

After this time, you may want to close it and keep going, or you may want to read it and look for deeper answers. Both are fine. Just the act of writing will ease your mind and emotions.

2. Improve your emotional state

Tony Robbins says “the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions”, and he’s right. Now that we’ve got the frustration, anger, sadness, etcetera, out of your system, it’s time to replace them with something else.

If you do this internal work before you try to fix the external situations, it will be a million times easier. Again, there’s not a cookie-cutter way to do this, but I’ll share my top three ways to improve my state and increase my energy.

Dance, Walk, or Work Out

Here’s the thing: whether you like exercise or not, it creates a lot of good chemicals in the brain. Movement, of any type, increases mood, decreases stress and increases focus.

You don’t have to go to the gym and lift weights if that doesn’t sound fun to you. Movement in this case can be dancing alone in your room, going for a walk in your neighborhood, or even bowling with friends. Find something that is joyful and energetic, and you’ve got the right movement for you.

Make yourself look amazing

Whether it’s putting on an outfit that makes you look amazing, doing your makeup in a way you love, taking a good shower, or getting a haircut, find a way to make yourself feel confident and fresh physically.

I don’t say this in a “getting your nails done is self-care” type of way, though. What you want here is to increase your mood by elevating your physical experience. Not in a hedonistic way, but in a way that makes you feel refreshed and ready to attack whatever comes.

Play music you love

Even if you’re not dancing to it, play some upbeat music that makes you feel energized, joyful, powerful, or whatever you need to feel right now.

Music affects emotions in a very direct way. But just like a very sad song can make you cry, a very happy song can change your mood automatically.

Here’s one of my happy playlists for this purpose:

3. Deal with your space

This is, by far, the hardest one for me. Cleaning and organizing is probably the most draining thing you can ask me to do. However, this is why we took the first two steps before this. Now that your emotional state is regulated, and your energy is high, you can use this accumulated energy to make your space worthy of the work you’re trying to do.

This is the part where you

• Do laundry

• Clean your car

• Make your bed

• Empty your desk

• Sweep the floor in your room

• Deal with the clothes chair - whether that means folding them or throwing them in the washing machine.

Full transparency: I always get annoyed when I’m overwhelmed and someone tells me to clean my space. I hate doing it more than I hate almost anything else. And I don’t think that “clutter in your space equals clutter in your mind” is entirely true. I’ve had times when my mind is happy and clear, and my room is a mess.

That being said… when I’m in a rut, and I clean my room, I do always find it easier to get to work. I feel like I have more space, mentally.

(I know. Annoying. But what’s a girl gonna do? Annoying stuff works sometimes.)

4. Reset, Reframe, Reorganize

Step four is a 3-part system I call Reset, Reframe, Reorganize. 

It works like this:

Reset.

If you’ve fallen behind on your to-do list or any of your goals, you probably feel overwhelmed by how all your lagging duties crash into your current to-dos. Even if what you had assigned to yourself seemed feasible originally, now that it’s all mushing together and seemingly multiplying, it’s harder to do. You’re starting to feel like you’re always playing catch up.

Resetting requires various things:

First, you’re gonna need to forgive yourself for falling behind. You need to forgive yourself for every mistake, every moment of laziness, and every time you miscalculated how long a task would take.

Remember that most of the stress you feel comes from self-imposed deadlines, to-dos, etcetera. This means you can immediately choose to let go of them. If you set a stressful deadline yourself, you can probably move that target and adjust, right?

Second, take time to make a list of everything you’ve “fallen behind” on. Cross out any that don’t feel important or interesting anymore. If you feel yourself feeling stressed or guilty, go back to steps 1 and 2 and get in the right state of mind. There’s no room for guilt here.

We just need to see what we’re working with.

Reframe

We’re going to change the meaning of these tasks. As of now, they’re no longer things you “fell behind” on. They’re things you still want to do. They’re actions you want to make time for.

Take off the weight of being “behind” and see how much easier it is to deal with the tasks themselves.

When reframing, what we are seeking to do is change the meaning we have given to something.

We’ve already changed the meaning of the task from “falling behind” to “still important.”

Now, I also find it important to shift from “I didn’t have time for them” or “I’m a failure for not doing these”, to “Other things were more important than these for me in the past, but now I’m ready to make time for them.”

Here, I want you to shed every last bit of guilt, stress, or negative emotions associated to the rut.

Reorganize

Now, we need to find the time and space for these important things. Remember: you’re the one who chooses what’s a priority, when the deadlines for your projects and goals are, etcetera.

Eisenhower said, “planning is everything… the plan is nothing.” It’s great that you’re following a plan. But when it comes down to it, plans will need to be readjusted as they are applied to real life and unexpected circumstances. That’s the goal of this step.

If the goals and deadlines you had set for yourself got you here in the first place, there are two options: either your systems for reaching them are not strong enough, or you set unsustainable goals. If you just try to fit the important things you uncovered in the last few steps within the many other to-dos on your list, falling into this rut again is inevitable. You need to do something differently. Here, you have two options.

1. Re-evaluate your systems: are the goals too big? Or is it just that your systems are not efficient? Is there a way you could optimize and keep the same goals? This requires a lot of brutal honesty with yourself.

2. Re-evaluate your goals: maybe your systems are great, and you’re just trying to put far too much on your plate, to an unrealistic degree. If this is the case, then readjust the goals and make them feasible.

No matter which one you choose to do, don’t forget to create intentional time to attack the important things you uncovered when Resetting and Reframing. And, include some time to rest somewhere in there too. That’s also part of making it sustainable.

5. Act. Act. Act.

Over the first four steps, we improved your state, gained clarity, and got a new attack plan for your goals.

There is only one thing left to do: execute. Take massive action to make this plan happen in sustainable ways.

The plan is worth nothing if it stays on paper. It’ll make you end up in the exact spot as the last one did. To avoid this stress, frustration, etcetera, you need to take action.

It’s the only way to truly transform your reality, and turn into who you’re meant to be.

Now… if you do nothing else from this email, promise me this: take one action that will move you closer to where you want to be, TODAY. Whether that be sending a text, signing up for a class, creating an account somewhere, whatever it is.

Take 1 step, big or small, toward the future you want.

Action is the only antidote to fear. Use it freely.

A moment of vulnerability

I don’t think I’ve ever said this here, but I often write what I need to hear. That was the case this week.

Last Thursday, I got a message from a friend: “Where was my Wednesday email?” I felt a knot in my stomach immediately. I had let life get so messy, so fast, that I literally hadn’t even noticed Wednesday pass me by without a newsletter. I’m really sorry about that.

In my case, it was a matter of ineffective systems, not unrealistic goals. But this is the exact process I’m walking myself through to get back on track after a couple of chaotic weeks.

I hope this helps you, as it has helped me.

I hope the rest of your week feels like drinking a glass of cold water after a good cry, like getting that one “yes” after many “no”s, like finally understanding the reason behind “everything happens for a reason.”

See you next Wednesday!

-Vale, The Friendly Artist