Do you feel like your life has no purpose?
Are you hungry for meaning?
Do you feel dissatisfied with who you are and the life you’re living?
As uncomfortable and frustrating as this is, this is actually a great place to be. It’s when we get sick and tired of being sick and tired that we can question ourselves and switch things up.
6 Reasons Why You’re Feeling Stuck In Life
There may be just six simple things holding you back…
Here are 6 reasons why you’re feeling stuck in life, and how to fix it moving forward:
1. We Haven’t Created REAL Goals
Right now you’re probably thinking that I’ve got you wrong here, but I’m ready to argue that this presumption is on-point. Most of the goals we set are just surface goals that hit at things we’d like to have.
We can say that we want to be a millionaire all day, but that only makes it a desire.
A real goal needs to pack incentive that inspires us to take action and look for opportunities, and that takes values (or rather, knowing what’s important to us).
Figuring out our values helps us define who we want to be, what we want to stand for, and what we want to accomplish. Developing this vision of ourselves then enables us to determine our mission. And now we can create purposeful goals that really mean something.
2. We’re Holding Onto Bad Habits
There’s a reason we aren’t being productive, and that’s because we aren’t actually being productive.
There are things we’re doing that are sucking away precious time and energy. There are “light” habits like Facebook-ing and Instagram-ing, and then there are “dark” habits like “self-medicating” with alcohol.
It doesn’t matter if we do these things to relax, socialize, or balance out our mood. What matters is that we’re pissing away time on things that keep us stuck, when we could be devoting this same energy to moving ourselves forward.
3. We Want The “Comfort” Of The Familiar
We know we should be pushing ourselves to do new things and develop better habits but, as much as we want to step up, we just don’t. Many people would say it’s because we’re lazy, but that’s not it at all.
Our brains are processing an incredible 400 million bits of information per second, so developing automatic responses and routine behaviors makes it’s job easier.
Helpful or harmful, the brain likes to do what it already knows. Tie in fear of failure and self-doubt, and your brain will be hellbent on staying in it’s comfort zone. Our mind really is our greatest ally.
The problem is that it advocates for the things we’re fixated on. If you want to step outside the comfort of what you know, start by taking the advice of hypnotherapist Marisa Peer with “making the unfamiliar familiar.”
4. We See Problems And Setbacks
Stop judging everything (yourself included) for shortcomings and failures. Dissecting our problems doesn’t give us less problems.
We can pull our hair out over an algebra equation and curse the existence of pi, but we’ll just be in worse shape than when we started. Solving a problem requires us to consider the solution, and that comes from studying the problem and working it out.
Once we shift our focus to finding the solution, the “problem” suddenly isn’t as problematic anymore. And whether we’re doing math or we’re doing life, it’s all about our approach.
We can see a problem for all the little problems that it is, but if we turn our problems into projects… That’s something we can actually work out.
5. We Won’t Let Go Of Our Story
We can all list off reasons for why we’re not doing what we should be doing. Whether it’s because we’re “too busy,” or “too fat,” or we “don’t like ____,” or our partner “doesn’t understand us,” — we all have excuses for why life is the way it is.
And as legit as our complaints and setbacks seem, they really just create a story that we use to define our limits and abilities.
Life Coach extraordinaire Tony Robbins knows all about the extraordinary powers of such stories.
“A story either empowers or dis-empowers you,” he says. “Your story is not why [you’re stuck]. It’s just that you believe your story.”
So, if you ain’t where you wanna be, it’s high time you developed the art of storytelling.
6. We’re Waiting For (Insert Reason Here)
Deep down, I think all of us know what we really want to do in life.
The thing is, we think that we can’t pursue our pursuits until we have “all our ducks in a row.”
With things like money, networking, relationships, experience, and education on our to-do lists, we have a lot of ducks to get in order. So we keep our dream in the back of our mind, and we wait for things to fall in line.
Then we wake up at 60 and realize that all our dreams are just daydreams, and they now seem more impossible than ever.
In short, living a life that’s worth living means shaking off all the crap so that our life is something we feel excited about. Fulfillment comes from being passionate and having meaning behind the things we do.
That doesn’t come about by waiting for a future that may never come. It happens by looking for opportunities right NOW.
I’ve had a dream to be able to empower troubled kids for years. Just two months ago I got the idea to do African drumming lessons for kids in juvenile detention.
The moment the thought hit me, I was lit up with excitement and inspiration, but it was immediately moved to the back-burner because I needed to do “x, y, and z” first. Luckily, I realized I was putting off something that I’d been dreaming about all my life.
And that’s just insane!
So instead of keeping my excuses I emailed my idea to some general detention address. Now I’m scheduled to meet with kids in juvie and I’m meeting up with the director of a local orphanage.
There are times I’m crapping my pants, but I’m so excited and overjoyed that I forget all about the skidmarks. 
Summary
A quick recap on the 6 reasons why you’re feeling stuck in life:
- We haven’t created real goals
- We’re holding onto bad habits
- We want the comfort of the familiar
- We see problems and setbacks
- We won’t let go of our story
- We’re waiting for… (insert reason here)
Now get out there. If there was a day to start doing what you love, it was yesterday. But today is just as good a day to start.