You don’t have to be experiencing one of the top 10 stressors in life to feel stuck. Many things can cause you to feel overwhelmed. And when that feeling kicks in, feeling stuck usually isn’t far behind. These four actions can help you get moving again.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

You may find yourself wanting to push through, and resist any difficult feelings that arise when you’re feeling stuck. Almost as if the feeling will go away if you just keep moving forward. But as long as the feeling is present in your body, it will continue to pay you a visit in some way.

Feelings are part of our threat detection system and actually feeling them can help them move through and along. It can also help you learn what they are trying to share. It helps to take a step back to acknowledge your feelings and perhaps even sit with them for a while.

Saying “I feel sad, angry, upset, stuck...” etc. instead of “I am sad, angry, upset, stuck...“ etc. can help you recognize that you are not the feeling. It is a temporary state you are experiencing that will not last forever.

It also helps to think about what you would say to a friend if they were feeling the same way. It is not uncommon to remain stuck because of self-criticism and wishing you would had done things differently. Beating yourself up can exacerbate the issue, leaving you feeling stuck and bad about yourself.

Assess Your Life

Zooming out to assess your life and get a broader picture of what you want can help you identify what is important to you. This life assessment and guided meditation can help you identify how satisfied/unsatisfied you are with different areas of your life.

You may notice your inner critic getting extra loud during this exercise. The assessment is not about being critical of yourself or creating guilt or shame about where you are not satisfied. It is to take a more objective look at life as a whole and evaluate its different areas to identify opportunities for change.

The human brain is really good at telling stories and rationalizing things in service of our survival and protection. Using the guided meditation as part of your life assessment allows you to “listen” to what your body is sharing to help provide more clarity. And having that clarity can help you identify where you are feeling stuck and what to prioritize moving forward.

Take the Smallest Step

Now that you know where you are stuck. What is the smallest next step you can take in favor of moving forward? If you identify the step and it still seems challenging, go even smaller. Breaking your forward progress down into small steps, then writing them down and checking them off, can help you feel success immediately.

There are many benefits to taking small steps. They can:

• Help you get started without feeling overwhelmed;

• Add up to bigger results;

• Create habits when completed regularly

• Motivate you to keep going because of the small early wins.

What is the smallest step you can take today?

Get Help

You don’t have to go it alone. We depend on each other to learn and grow. Yet, often time we try to slog through thinking it has to be a solo mission.

Asking for help can be difficult for a number of reasons, including society’s focus on self-reliance and the fear of rejection. In order to get more comfortable with asking for and accepting help, you can begin with a small ask. Maybe even tie it to something related to your small step previously mentioned.

This post by Jefferey Davis of Tracking Wonder gives usable tips to effectively ask for and receive help.

Who can you ask for help with your current situation?

Moving Forward

As you look to move forward, using the actions above can help you begin to shift. It helps if you can have patience and a bit of curiosity along the way. Things don’t always move as quickly as we hope or plan but if we look closely, we may just learn something about ourselves.

Which of the four actions resonates with you the most?