Stuck is a Choice
I was stuck when I first decided to produce E-Impact. I had no idea how to set up a website, post a blog, upload photos to said blog, optimize for search engines, etc.
Here we are a couple years later and all of that stuff seems elementary. I chose to figure it out. Most of the challenges we encounter in our daily lives are not that unique. There’s almost eight billion other people in the world that have some sort of way to share their experiences. You can learn from them as a result of today’s rapid information transfer.
Quick Sand
I was terrified by media depictions of quicksand when I was younger. It does in fact exist but it’s not quite as deadly as the movies portray. Read “How Deadly is Quicksand?" from Britannica to get an accurate explanation.
Quicksand isn’t as deadly as you think.
Getting stuck in quicksand may not be a death sentence but getting mentally stuck can certainly kill your momentum.
The Impactmaker Movement is full of positively minded people who want to do good in the world. I am proud of that. Yet, I’m also a realist. I know there are plenty of distractions on for us to get stuck on. It’s imperative that you address the most pressing things first.
In my book, “Personal Finance in a Public World”, there is a chapter about debt. What do we all want to do with our debt?
Pay it off!
Easier said than done.
It’s important to have a strategy. I wrote about the “avalanche” and the “snowball” methods. You can read the book (wink-wink) or just internet search to learn more about them, but for the purposes of this blog entry, it’s just having a strategy in general that’s important.
It may not kill you, but it’s going to be a lot harder to get out of quicksand without a patient approach (see the article from above). The areas of life where we are stuck often require a more thoughtful approach than one which is panicked.
Quick Luck
E-Impact 35 said that timing is everything. It is. But, it’s also more controllable than you think. The problem is we associate control with immediacy.
Control doesn’t mean you command things to happen as you wish. This is not realistic. There’s a lot mindset content floating around the Internet that says you can control how you feel or your situation in life. I tend to agree but hesitate to exclaim this because people have a false sense of it.
Don’t mistake control with luck. There’s a reason why we think that ultra-successful people (by whatever definition we apply) are at least a bit lucky. We don’t see all the hard work that made them an “overnight success”.
The good timing that you seek comes with intentional effort to accomplish hard things. It’s not perfection. It’s not easy. It’s not something that everyone can accomplish. It is, however, just that - an accomplishment.
The Choice
Being stuck is a choice yet not as you may think. It’s not a choice to fail or a decision to slow down your efforts. It’s actually a decision to speed up.
You feel stuck because you want something done now. Maybe it’s just not realistic for that thing to be done right away. Instead of deciding whatever you are working on is not happening fast enough, decide to slow down and take a more methodical approach.
Debt isn’t paid off faster when you don’t find more resources. In fact, you may have to stop paying some of your debt off altogether to build momentum paying off another part of it. Strategy is imperative.
The right choice usually leads to the best result and the toughest times might come after the best decision. Let that sink in a bit. You might have to choose something hard and put yourself in a tough spot in order to reach the greatest finish.
Writer’s Block
I usually type my thoughts out on Saturday mornings for E-Impact. Today is Sunday though (first weekend of NFL football for the year) and I was at FinCon yesterday. We drove home today and I’m a little out of my rhythm.
There have been a few interruptions and I’m thinking and typing a bit slow. Writer’s block is something I experienced when writing my book. Interestingly though, I figured out a way to overcome it pretty quickly.
I was warned on multiple occasions by some fellow writers in the Creator Institute cohort I’ve mentioned before. I found that the “source” of the block wasn’t lack of information or limited desire. It was either energy or expectations. We’ve had plenty of E-Impact content on energy. Most recently, E-Impact 115 addressed it in relation to our creativity. Make sure that is not what’s lacking first.
Assuming it was not energy issues, I would consider my expectations for that writing session (usually Thursdays from 6pm to 9pm eastern time).
I tried to be “ahead” of my writing plan as much as possible so that I never felt like I had to have a specific amount written in any given period. It was better for me to operate like that so what was written was of good quality and not an attempt to reach a quota.
Unfortunately, there were times expectations would creep up on me and I would start looking at the clock and counting how many words I had put down. This was a worst case scenario. To avoid it, I would try to break down the writing into specific topics. It was better to tackle one concept at a time as opposed to a group of words.
The sheer volume of resources I had available to me as a modern author made it virtually impossible to be stuck without any information. I may not have been typing the whole time but I was definitely making progress. After all, the best advice I got related to my book was, “It’s not what you know. It’s what you want to know”. In other words, curiosity is paramount.
See the August 18, 2020 E-Impact Blog entry for the first of many writings I’ve published related to curiosity.
Ways to be Stuck
Sticking with my open and honest book theme for the day, I feel compelled to share other places in life “stuck” has shown up.
When making major purchasing decisions (home, car, etc.)
Career decisions
Medical issues
Planning Events
Family Issues
Doing Taxes
I’m sure there’s others that aren’t top of mind. The lesson is that there are plenty of places to struggle to finish in life.
Some writers are “deadliners”. They say they do better when under the pressure of a deadline. I tend to think this is more of a habit than a mode of operation. They might not like their work that much and prefer to do other things. They might struggle to prioritize. Or, they might habitually decide to get stuck.
It’s better to prepare to take things slower than to force yourself to rush through them by waiting until it’s too late to be patient.
Prioritization
A Vision Board is a great way to identify your priorities.
As noted above, I am a realist. I know that not everything can be or should be planned ahead. There are a lot of things that happen in life that are unexpected. But what if those where the only important things that we had to rush?
The not so important things we can agree to let happen as they do. The priorities should be allowed to develop over time and should be given their chance to reach their full potential.
The great thing about this model is that there isn’t much negative work to do. You don’t have to spend thought and energy identifying things that aren’t prioritized. There’s no need to anticipate stuff that you don’t really care about. If it comes up, so be it. You may or may not get stuck. In many cases, success is not a necessity. I hesitate to use the term “give up”, but it’s not a big deal if you ignore whatever it is.
All you have to do is identify the most important things in your life and make sure they have the most attention and time (time to develop as much as actual time).
Choosing When Not to Get Stuck
I’m anticipating questions as to what things should be prioritized. I can’t choose for you but I can point you in some common directions.
The first things that come to mind (as most in The Impactmaker Movement) are faith and family. It starts at home. Anticipate family events. Don’t expect your loved ones to do things faster than they should. Take time to address the bad and celebrate the good. Choose to spend time on these most important parts of life.
As a continuation of writing these, journalists and authors have made a career choice. That’s a great thing to prioritize in your life. You can get stuck in a job but a career is something much more.
Your impact project is next. It can be tough to juggle a meaningful project in your life, but I’ve been in a place where I’ve felt helpless helping the hopeless. Give yourself time to tap resources and reach out to people.
My wife is two weeks (less than that by the time you read this) from running the Berlin Marathon. She’s raising money for BEF as she has in the past when running a big race. Thankfully, she gave it plenty of attention previously. It can be stressful when you’re stuck at a dollar amount in a fundraising effort.
These are just a few ideas on where to look. Whatever you choose, keep the priorities limited (I suggest no more than three). Over-prioritization is like not prioritizing at all.
How’s that for simple? All you have to do is choose three things!