Kate Courageous, my teacher, and Valerie Tookes, my mentor during the Courageous Living Coach Certification—two coaches I admire—share their best advice about getting unstuck. This is an issue that a lot of you face. You have a dream that you really want but you can’t seem to take the first step. You feel stuck, paralyzed by fear, overthinking, resistance, what people would say, the possibility of failure.
Here’s their advice when you’re feeling this way:
I think that when someone is feeling stuck, stopping to breathe and access the body is a wise first step. There are all kinds of things that someone can investigate, and the path will look different for everyone, but most of us spin ourselves into exhaustion with a lot of doing, doing, doing.
When I’m feeling really stuck, the first thing I try to do is stop, breathe, assess—not do more.
That seems like an overly-simplified answer, but it’s the one that reaps the most rewards for me as a first step in the process.
—Kate Swoboda (aka Kate Courageous)
Life coach, founder and creator of the Courageous Living Coach Certification
The DREAM…. We create in our minds a dream, the DREAM. It is this big vision of what our life will look like “one day.” One day, when we are making enough money. One day, when we meet our perfect partner. One day, when we get out of debt or move to a bigger, better place or get the job.
That “one day” we picture in our mind feels more interesting, more exciting than where we are today. So we set out for what we think will make us happier, make us more. Yet on our way to the dream we get stuck and feel insecure. We’re unsure about how to move forward. The reason for this is often some level of fear—fear of trying and failing, of trying and succeeding, of other people’s judgments about what the dream may mean.
<Please insert your version of fear here.>
So how we do move past the fear and get back on the road? How do we get past today’s resistance in order to arrive at tomorrow’s dream?
When I work with clients and stuck-ness, also known as resistance, arises we begin by slowing things way down.
Our day to day lives are incredibly hectic and busy. Add to it the commitment and drive it takes to pursue the DREAM, we can easily lose sight of where we are and why the dream was important. By slowing things down, it becomes easier to ground into what is true right now to recognize the next move. How do you slow things down? Close your eyes and take a deep cleansing breath. Feel your toes touching the ground. Feel your heart beating in your chest. Feel your breath, strong and steady. Do this for as long as it takes to feel your energy calm itself, until you feel like yourself again.
The act of slowing everything way down is a way to press the pause button. It provides an opportunity to check in and remind yourself of how far you have come. In client sessions, after we have slowed way down, we often take the time to celebrate the tiniest of steps forward. We can get caught up in thinking that we haven’t done enough and neglect to notice what we have accomplished. Celebrating those tiny (or giant) steps is key in moving beyond the resistance. It feels good to pat ourselves on the back and say “good job.” That positive feeling can provide the momentum we need to continue to move forward, the thing that helps us to see what is next.
For example, a client of mine wanted to lose some weight. After a couple of months, she had successfully changed her eating habits, was making better food choices and felt more energetic.. Yet when the scale didn’t show weight gone, she felt stuck. So we decided to slow everything down and check in with her body to see if we could shift that energy. Her practices that session became to ask herself: Why not celebrate all that had changed? Why not celebrate the increased personal energy with a hike in her favorite park? Why not get a massage to honor her body rather than berating it for not letting the weight go? She gave it a try. By the next session, her mood had shifted and she found herself inspired to keep moving forward toward her dream.
So when you are feeling that stuck-ness, slow things way down, ground into what is true right now and make time to celebrate the steps taken so far. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back while looking around to see what is the next natural step to take (and then celebrate).
—Valerie Tookes
Health and Lifestyle Coach and owner of Her Holistic Health
For more wisdom from life coaches, check out advice they would have given themselves one year ago and the best advice they’ve ever given and received.
