Get Unstuck: How to Release Stagnation and Put Yourself On the Path of Good Fortune
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."
Wendell Berry
There are seasons of life when you know exactly what you want. And then there are the other seasons.
The ones where you feel like you’re standing at a crossroads with no sign pointing toward the right road. You know something needs to change, but you don't know what. You’re ready for something new, but you can’t quite see what that something is yet.
You may call it being stuck. But what if you’re not? What if you’re simply in the unknown?
There’s a particular kind of discomfort that comes with not knowing. The mind wants answers, plans, certainty, timelines. It wants to know what happens next so it can make a decision and move on.
But sometimes the next chapter isn't visible from where you’re standing.
And when you can't see the road ahead, your job may not be to figure out your entire life.
It may simply be to take the next step, or to wait until the time is right.
Sometimes the way through uncertainty is action and sometimes it's rest.
Chinese philosophy provides a particularly useful framework for uncertainty because it doesn't treat periods of transition as problems to eliminate. They are understood as natural parts of life.
Try new things. Go new places. Meet new people.
There are two seemingly opposite practices here: The Yang: move more. And the Yin: force less.
“Luck flows through people and travels by conversation. The people you talk to determine the opportunities you find. Keep talking to the same people, keep finding the same opportunities. Start talking to new people, start finding new opportunities. If you want different luck, start walking into different rooms.”
James Clear
"Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once."
Marcus Aurelius
YANG: MOVE MORE
A lot of what we call “luck” is really increased exposure to possibility. After all, luck needs somewhere to land.
New environments introduce us to new people.
New people introduce us to new ideas.
New ideas create new possibilities.
And sometimes one seemingly insignificant interaction becomes the thing that changes everything.
You don't necessarily need to know which interaction will matter. You just need to give serendipity somewhere to happen.
In other words: Go touch the world. Go be available to life. Go engage!
The more you get out into the community, the more unexpected connections seem to happen. Some are social. Some are professional. Some simply remind you that there is a much bigger world outside whatever happens to be occupying my brain that week.
Increase your randomness
If you keep talking to the same people, in the same places, about the same things, you're likely to keep encountering the same possibilities. Sometimes different luck requires walking into a different room or taking a different way home.
When you feel stuck, change the inputs. You don't necessarily need a five-year plan. You may just need a new stimulus.
The goal isn't constant novelty. It's breaking the closed loop of the same people, places, routines and assumptions.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is actively increase the likelihood that luck can find you.
Five simple ways to increase your surface area for luck:
1. Change your scenery. Go somewhere new. Take a different route. Try the café you've never been to. Travel. Work somewhere different. Go to the weird little community event.
2. Change your circles.Volunteer. Take a class. Join a group. Go where interesting people gather. Start conversations. Accept invitations. Introduce people to one another.
3. Follow your curiosity.Take the side quest. Eat the unfamiliar thing. Listen to different music. Make something. Explore the neighborhood you've never visited. Do something simply because you're interested.
4. Create openings.Send the email. Tell people what you're working on. Follow up. Make the introduction. Host something. Take a moonshot. Say yes to a small opportunity.
5. Disrupt the pattern.Take the long way home. Use your non-dominant hand. Rearrange the furniture. Work from somewhere else. Do one thing you've never done before.
You don't have to do all of these. Pick one or two to shift the energy.
Increase your readiness
Movement is only half of the equation. The other half is being ready to recognize an opportunity when it appears.
That might mean:
Building useful skills before you need them
Keeping your resume, portfolio or website reasonably current and updated
Sharing your work before it feels completely finished
Knowing what you're interested in
Having a simple answer to “What are you working on?”
Keeping some margin in your schedule
Following up when you meet someone interesting
Bringing your business cards wherever you go.
Wearing the outfit that makes you feel most like yourself.
Saying what you're looking for instead of assuming people already know
Making it easy for people to find and contact you
Having your shoes by the door.
Giving yourself enough flexibility to say yes when something unexpected appears
This doesn't mean you need to become a perfectly optimized human. Readiness can be remarkably ordinary.
Serendipitymaxxing: deliberately increase the number of opportunities you have to encounter something unexpected.
Geralyn Brennan
Stop waiting for reality to shift. SHIFT your state within.The mirror NEVER smiles first. You must smile first, then the mirror reflects it.
You don't have to wait until something exciting happens to start participating in your own life. Your life. ishappening right now.
YIN: FORCE LESS
You don't have to know the full path
Sometimes we aren't stuck because we're doing nothing. We're stuck because we're trying desperately to determine what we're supposed to do next. We want the right answer before we take the first step.
But you often can't think your way into information that only experience can give you.
You have to make the move first, learn from it, change your time and try again.
The path often becomes visible because you are walking it.
Being stuck is a myth. In nature, there is no being stuck., You may be still. You're nesting. You're rooting. You're gestating. You're germinating. You're incubating. You're transitioning. You're hibernating. You're ripening. You're settling. Youre integrating. You're regenerating.
Stillness isn't always stagnation
Of course, there is another side to all of this. Sometimes the answer isn't to do more.
Sometimes you really do need to stop.
We live in a culture that tends to interpret stillness as failure. If you're not producing, progressing, achieving or moving toward something measurable, it can feel like you're falling behind.
But nature doesn't work that way. Living things have adapted to conserve energy. They wait for the right combination of temperature, moisture, light, nutrients and season.
A seed or bulb underround doesn't look very productive. A caterpillar inside a chrysalis isn't posting progress updates..
Slowness isn't necessarily the absence of growth. Sometimes it is the condition that makes growth possible.
Before you decide you're stuck, ask: Am I actually stuck—or am I in a necessary period of becoming, rooting, nesting, incubating, integrating?
"The older you get, the more you realize luck is just exposure. The world rewards motion. You have to touch the world to win. You don’t find opportunity sitting still. You bump into it."
Codie Sanchez
Let uncertainty be uncomfortable
One of the hardest things about uncertainty is that the ego hates not knowing. It wants to fill the silence, find the answer as much as possible.
But there can be information in the pause.
Maybe you don't need to immediately resolve the discomfort.
Maybe you can sit with it long enough to notice what emerges.
Sometimes the old version of your life has stopped fitting before the new version has become clear.
That in-between can feel like failure.
It might actually be transition.
Road-opening ritual
If you like working symbolically or spiritually, you can also make the transition tangible.
One of my favorite ways to think about crossroads is as a reminder that you don't need to know the entire road to choose your next direction.
You can create a simple “road opener” ritual around that idea.
Write down the possibilities you're calling toward yourself: a new job, creative opportunity, relationship, financial opening, community, adventure, healing, whatever feels relevant. You might draw several roads branching outward from a central point and place your intention at the crossroads.
Use herbs, objects or symbols that have personal meaning to you. For example, basil and cinnamon are often associated in folk practices with prosperity and abundance, while salt or black pepper can be used symbolically for protection. The important part isn't getting the “right” ingredients. It's creating a physical representation of an internal shift: "I am willing to move. I am willing to receive. I am willing to encounter something I couldn't have planned.
If fire is part of your practice, you might safely burn the written intention and release the ashes to the wind. Or simply keep the paper near the entrance of your home as a reminder of the roads you're willing to explore.
Change the energy by changing the pattern. Create tiny interruptions and disruptions to remind your brain and body: There are other ways to do things. That's often the beginning of possibility.
"How uncomfortable is it for the ego to not know? To pause, to be still in the nothingness. How much does the mind kick and scream, thinking it needs to be going all the time? That part of self is dissolving. Let it. What emerges from there is something magical: a state of being that is the most surrendered , trusting magnetic and powerful."
Bella Solanot
Move More, Force Less
Maybe getting unstuck isn't about pushing harder. Maybe it's about becoming more available—to information, to people, to coincidence, to curiosity, to rest, to change.
The goal isn't to manufacture an exciting life at every moment. It's to stay in relationship with your life while you don't know what happens next.
if you're feeling stuck right now, you don't need to figure everything out.
Start smaller.
Increase your surface area for possibility.
You never know which road is going to lead somewhere.
And you don't have to know.
You just have to be willing to walk far enough to find out.
"There are so many small freedoms tucked inside an ordinary day. I try not to miss them. "Life is short” isn’t just something people say.So much of what we complain about, rush through, or barely notice is actually a privilege. Walking through the woods. Making something with your hands. Driving yourself somewhere. Getting on a plane. Dancing in the kitchen. Going outside on an ordinary Tuesday. When I say, do the thing or change your life if it needs changing…I mean it."
Geralyn Brennan
Erin is a certified feng shui consultant, energy healer, wellness coach and holistic growth strategist.
SUBSCRIBE or FOLLOW below to receive short & sweet tips for intentional interiors, sustainable systems, and high-vibration, low-impact living - straight to your inbox!
Comments