What to do if you are stuck at some point in your life?
What to do if you are stuck and it seems like it will always be like this? It often happens in life – you move forward slowly or quickly, and then something slows you down and you stand rooted to the spot and don’t know how to move forward. This applies to career, relationships with a loved one, and the realization of a dream. Anything can stop us – a traumatic event, war, emigration, divorce, loss. But no matter what stops us – what can help us move forward again despite everything?
What helps you get moving?
Today I saw a wonderful video on Linkedin as part of TED lectures about what can help us get off the ground. I often think about this topic, and no matter how much my thoughts swirl around various psychological techniques, exercises, knowledge, in the end it all comes down to one thing – action. It’s so easy to say – just do it! And it’s so hard to just take it and do it.
And yet, people move forward. They take this step towards what they have planned. But how do they do it? Why aren’t they afraid to do it? I think everyone has their own secrets, but the author of the video I’m writing about here, Molly Graham, says that it’s important to take a risk, calling it “jumping off a cliff.” And the signal to jump is the fear of making a mistake (yes, that famous one – go where it’s scary).
The funniest thing, and at the same time so honest, is that she talks about what you absolutely have to be good at in order to jump off a cliff – first of all, jumping off a cliff)
That is, if you have wanted to do something for a long time, but something is holding you back or you are afraid of something, then all you need to do is just do it.
What’s stopping you from moving forward?
But what about fear? What if the fear of making a mistake or looking unprofessional is simply paralyzing you? Then Molly Graham says that when you jump off a cliff (metaphorically, of course), you need to jump with the mindset that you will be a professional idiot for a while. Yeah, that’s exactly what she says. And I agree with her on that, because it’s simply impossible to go forward with inflated expectations of yourself and not screw up big time. It’s much easier to lower the bar first, allow yourself to make a mistake, allow yourself to look unprofessional in some situations, and most importantly, allow yourself to ask stupid questions.
She speaks about stupid questions in a really amazing way. Her idea is that we are so afraid of looking stupid and asking stupid questions, which are often stupid only in our heads, that we deprive the world and other people of perhaps important and necessary questions that could change many things for the better.
We devalue our ideas so much that we don’t even give them a chance to double-check whether my idea is really stupid and uninteresting. We thus cut off our contact with the world and with other people. We don’t give a chance to ourselves or to others. After all, someone could, having heard our question, be inspired by the idea that the question carries, and go further to where something important and necessary for many may be waiting. But we stopped this in its infancy, simply not finding the courage to ask our question out loud.
SIGN UP FOR A CONSULTATION
Conclusion
What would I, as a psychotherapist, advise you before “jumping off a cliff” – that is, starting to act and not waiting for the right moment? Take risks! If you are scared – find support. Find people, communities, groups. Believe in yourself! When I created my YouTube channel, someone’s idea that my first videos, no matter how hard I tried, would be terrible really helped me. And so it turned out. But these first ten videos might not have been there if I had not allowed myself to do as it turned out at the very beginning. I allowed myself to be a professional idiot at the beginning – and this helped me get off the ground and move towards the fulfillment of my desires)
