Forward Momentum: 7 Strategies to Overcome Feeling Stuck

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:01]:
to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:04]:
episode 181. I'm Dr. Christine Li, your host. And today we're going to dive into 7 powerful ideas to help you break free from feeling stuck, and we're going to, in the process, refresh your life. These strategies cover things like manifestation, energy, and mindset, and they culminate in a final tip about removing your physical clutter. Stay until the very end of this episode where you'll be invited to join me in my upcoming free 5 day challenge called, reenergize your home. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:50]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:35]:
Hi, my friends. I think today, I feel like really diving in deeply into the 7 strategies I have to help you overcome feeling stuck. But I also have the feeling that I need to say a few words about why we get stuck in the first place. I feel and I know that our nervous system is comprised of 2 components, at least 2 components. 1 large component is responsible for helping us to feel calm, allowing us to feel calm, enabling us to calm down. Another part of our nervous system is geared towards creating excitability, getting us to feel more alert, more agitated, more excited so that we can take action. But of course, when we feel calm, we can also take action as well. My aim today is to help you think through those moments where your body and perhaps your nervous system have agreed to have you feel totally stuck.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:43]:
And again, there's so many different reasons why we can get into that situation. It might be that you've just been burning the candle at both ends. You haven't been resting. You've been doing too much. You have not been scheduling purposeful rest in between long periods of working. It might be that you are overcoming something like jet lag or a brief illness or a big event that happened in your life, like somebody graduated and you had to go to a different state. It's graduation season right now, so many of you might relate to these kinds of things. And when we have disruptions to our routines, sometimes that can cause us to feel like we're overwhelmed and we can't do even the day to day business.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:31]:
And, of course, there's so many other reasons. The list is miles long. We won't go into every single one, but I think it's important to start off with the concept that we all do get stuck every once in a while at least. And when we do, perhaps the best strategy overall, before I get into my 7 ideas here, is to really treat yourself with kindness. Really insist on supporting yourself at a very high level. Take the overwhelm and the being stuck as a big message from your mind and your body that something needs to change, that you need some rest, that you need some reflection, you need some support. And right now, we can now dive into the 7 strategies for overcoming feeling stuck. The first one I have for you is to set your intentions very clearly.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:24]:
I think in order for us to get things done, we have to know what our intentions are, and I think we have to make them very clear to ourselves. So take a moment in your feeling stuck to visualize what are you actually aiming for. What is it that you truly want? Take the time to grab a notepad and a pen and write down those goals. It may seem silly in the moment because you're gonna say, well, Dr. Li, I already know what I need to do, but you might be surprised how putting pen to paper, putting your thoughts into some sort of structured format will help you to see, oh, I don't actually need to be so terrified. I don't need to feel stuck because all I need to do is x plus y plus c, and I'll be moving again. So write down your goals, create a small mini vision board if you need to. Everything is fine, keep those goals in your sight so that you don't get lost. I have found when people's intentions are not that clear, their goals are not well defined, they're too afraid to really go for their big goals, then what happens is that their attention gets drawn elsewhere.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:38]:
They start to feel like they're not good enough. They have distractions that come into their schedule and into their lives, and then we really don't know where we're headed. And so we feel not great, we feel unaccomplished, and nothing's getting done, and then we grind to a halt. We don't wanna do that anymore. We wanna always feel like it's just so easy to move back into action. It's something you can practice. It's like a muscle, but you can do this for yourself. I promise.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:08]:
Okay. Idea number 2 is you want to harness the power of affirmations. You have heard me on this podcast mentioning the power of affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements that resonate with you and state the desires you have in your heart in a positive light. And sometimes, these affirmations might not resonate with you because you might be feeling like you're doing crappy, you're not on schedule, you're letting yourself down, but that's when and where the power of affirmations can come in even more handy. Because when we state these positive words, this practice of using positive affirmations, we are actually rewiring our brain to focus on what is positive and what is possible for us. And by doing that, we overcome all the things that have been overwhelming us, like self doubt, overwhelm, and limiting beliefs. So a very powerful tool that we all have in our back pocket is a set of powerful positive affirmations.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:20]:
If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say affirmations, please take a moment. You can stop the recording or stop the podcast episode, I should say, and Google positive affirmations for when I'm feeling stuck. And you'll get a list of, I don't know, a set of 20, maybe 25, maybe even more, and search for the ones that really resonate with you. Search for the ones that you can hang your hat on, print it out, keep it by your computer, keep it by your bathroom mirror, whatever you need to do to remind yourself that you can always arise out of feeling stuck by adopting a more positive outlook. Instead of believing that things are not going to work, I challenge you to say to yourself, this is definitely going to work. I am going to make this work. I believe things always work out in my favor. And when you try that out and you compare those positive statements with a negative statement like, oh, well, this is never gonna happen, you will see that your body feels differently saying these 2 different kinds of statements.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:33]:
When we're stating positive statements, we can sound stronger. We can feel stronger. Our energy is kind of coursing through us. And when we're saying these kind of negative, pessimistic statements, I feel our energy kind of sinks a bit. And really, when we're trying to get out of a feeling of being stuck, we want that high energy. We want that positive outlook. The third tactic for overcoming overwhelm and feeling stuck is to cultivate gratitude. Similar to positive affirmations, we want to tell the universe, tell the people around us, tell ourselves that we are enough and that we have enough.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:19]:
When we get into that state of pure gratitude, knowing that things are okay, that we are enough, and that we're doing well, when we have that feeling of openness and receptiveness, then guess what? We start not feeling as stuck. We start feeling like we can do some more writing. We start thinking about all the things that we can be thankful for. And that simple shift to transform from negative to feeling grateful, again, is a very powerful tactic. It feels like, well, we're just Dr. Li, you feel a little bit like you're just talking about intangible things. I don't really believe in this stuff. Well, I would say try it on for size. When you say thank you to someone, you're expressing gratitude.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:12]:
When you feel excited about something, that's expressing your interest in something, and that's also a piece of gratitude. When you make this a consistent, reliable habit to see what is around you as happening for you and happening as a gift, you're gonna feel more empowered, more stable, more confident. And I think all of this will help you to feel like, you know what, I don't have to feel stuck anymore because all of life, my entire life, is just one continuous stream of things I can feel grateful for, even this time where I feel there's a bit of a challenge in my life. Alright. Idea number 4, you wanna practice mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness for me just means something very simple. It means that you're focused in the present moment. And when we focus on the present moment, we automatically reduce our stress.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:14]:
And how does that work? I think it works because our brain doesn't have the wandering nature that it otherwise might. When we wander and think about how we're just not good enough, we're thinking typically about the things we haven't been so good enough for in the past. We're telling stories to ourselves, and we're not looking at our past very positively. We're thinking that we're just one big screw up. But when you're in the present moment, you can see that your opportunities to succeed are all over the place. That you can even if you've been a total failure in reality in your life, this moment is a brand new opportunity for you to start again. You can, by focusing in on the present moment, start to feel yourself settle back into your natural feeling of being clear, of being mindful, of being balanced, of being undramatic, of being kind of just, you know, at ground 0 for getting things done, that you're not hyped up, you're not feeling overly dramatic, you're not feeling desperate, and you're not feeling afraid. And that is the benefit of things like being more mindful, keeping yourself in the present moment, and then doing things like meditation, where you're actually setting yourself up to let your mind roam, but in a calm framework.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:50]:
Instead of stressing about the exact same thing that you've been stressing about all week, you're gonna allow your mind to settle down, to feel balanced and recovered, and to come up naturally with the solutions that you desire, with the answers, with the better routes, with the people that you need to call on for support, to come up with the right language to ask for an extension. Whatever you're going to need, enlisting your brain, your calm brain, is gonna be a help. And if you're really feeling stuck with this thinking part, you know what? I'm gonna stick this in here as idea 4.1. Open up ChatGPT. Use some sort of AI tool that you might have access to that I might not even know about. Use Google. Use your neighbors. Use your children.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:46]:
Use your parents. Use the people who are around you. Use your friends. You don't always have to rely on yourself to get yourself out of a jam. There's always this artificial intelligence these days. There's also the web. There's also just so much to support you. So allow the universe to support you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:07]:
I was gonna say all the people, all the things, but I can just shortchange it by saying the universe is ready to help you, and you need to show it that you are ready to be helped. Tactic number 5 for overcoming overwhelm and getting unstuck is to boost your energy with some physical activity. Lately, I've been thinking to myself, as I find myself deep in the aging process, that the people that I see who are doing well in their older years are people who really move. They move quickly. They walk quickly, they make decisions quickly, things like that. And I've just noticed that basically at my gym, when I go to the gym. And I've decided, you know what? There's no better time than the present to get myself to be a little bit more active. And for me, I'm generally pretty active, but I know I can boost how much I'm at the gym, how much I'm moving throughout the day.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:11]:
And I am not forcing myself into anything, but it's part of a philosophy of mine that I wanna age well. That's my intention. So back to step 1, have your intentions be stated clearly. My intention is to age with full movement without massive decline and to avoid any decline that I can consciously and purposefully avoid. Why wouldn't I start to take care of myself at this age, so that 30 years from now, I'm not suffering because I didn't take action now. I'm thinking positively. I'm making small changes. I'm staying in motion.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:53]:
And of course, physical activity tends to be the healer of all healers. I think whenever I tell my clients to just do a little bit of exercise, especially when they're feeling low or feeling stuck, it tends to be the remedy for all things. There's really no downside to exercise that I have found. Maybe it feels stressful for you in the moment to think about going to the gym, but when you get there and you actually engage your body, you engage your muscles, you engage your spirit and movement, it's a win win. You've won. You've overcome your resistance, and you've set your body into action. And when our bodies are in action, we can no longer be stuck. Alright.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:41]:
So move with joy, not out of obligation. Right? It's not because I'm telling you, you know, you should go to the gym. I think people should go to the gym or be outside and be active. Wherever you take your movement, take it. But do it not because you think, oh, you know, it's just some big to do list thing that everybody keeps talking about. Do it because you love yourself. Do it because you're gonna start to love being in motion and aging really beautifully and gracefully and vibrantly. I think you're gonna love that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:15]:
Alright. Tactic number 6, I would love for you to surround yourself with positive influences. I certainly hope I'm one of your positive influences. Take me on one of your walks with you. Take me on the treadmill. Take this podcast with you on your long car rides. I hope that you do, and I feel so honored that you would even think to do that. But, of course, I'm not the only podcaster out there who can support you in getting unstuck, in learning about yourself, in learning about the opportunities that are so abundant and available to you in this world.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:53]:
Seek out people who are doing maybe just a smidge or 2 better than you are, because then you can pick up on what they've done. Maybe you can find some shortcuts for doing the things that you wanna do by hanging out with those kinds of people. Find groups of people who are doing the same kinds of things that you're interested in, like, perhaps a running club, or a movie club, or a book club. There's so many different, like, secret, ongoing, long standing book clubs. I know I hear of them all the time. I'm not much of a reader. I read here and there, but I think I'd be the worst book club member there would be because I would always start and probably not finish the book and then wanna come for all the socializing, but not really ever have gotten through the book. That's me in a nutshell.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:44]:
So surround yourself with people you love, people who are positively influencing you. Make sure you have the opportunity to not only learn from people, but also to help people learn about themselves as well. I think when we feel like we can give back socially and in our social environments and communities, that engages a feeling of wellness in us and a feeling like we belong and it's okay and we're enough. Alright? And the 7th tactic, I've saved the in some ways, the best for last. One way to get unstuck is to release clutter. And I oftentimes talk about the benefits of releasing physical clutter. There's so much physical clutter that we could talk about. There is sentimental clutter, the stuff you've inherited because your relatives have passed.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:38]:
Your loved ones have given you treasured items. But for some reason, they don't ring as so treasured to you because you find yourself wondering if you should get rid of some of the stuff, or pare it down, or store it away somewhere. And I would love for you to not keep yourself stuck in the land of physical clutter. I would love for you to decide that you're gonna trust yourself with what you need to do with every item that comes and passes through your hands. It is okay. I promise you, you will survive the passing on or the throwing away or the donating or the burning of different items after you've decided that it is enough, that you no longer wanna struggle with things that keep you stuck, or make you feel stuck, or have stuck energy in them, or around them. So it is okay. Just be real with yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:42]:
I think give yourself permission to be the authority in the clutter situation. And I think you'll find by doing that and practicing that day in, day out, that you end up not being stuck anymore. You'll find, wow, I can get myself clear out of any situation, especially stuff like inanimate physical clutter. So good luck with all of these tactics. Implement them 1 or all 7. It doesn't really matter, but do take some action to change your energy, change your environment, change your outcomes that you're looking at. Make them more powerfully appealing to you so that you don't find the TV is your best friend, and that, you know, letting the days go by is the smartest idea. Because oftentimes, it's really not.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:35]:
If you need rest, of course, take really good rest. Take very good care of yourself. But then decide, you know what? I'm gonna fill myself with this great movement, this great energy, this great sense of abundance and positivity that I know I have in my world. Alright? So thanks for listening to all the seven tactics and strategies for overcoming overwhelm and overcoming being stuck. I have another thing to share with you. I would love to help you dive deeper into idea number 7, which was releasing physical clutter. Starting June 3rd, which is coming soon, June 3, 2024, I am going to be hosting my free 5 day challenge called reenergize your home. And this is a very powerful experience.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:29]:
It's live. It's hosted by me, and you'll meet 100 of other people going through this challenge with you. And what we do is we practice the habit of getting unstuck with the clutter as the tool. That clutter is the vehicle. Our bodies are the powerful agents in this challenge, and you're going to surprise yourself with how much you'll be able to handle, understand, release, and reenergize when you go through this challenge. All you need to join this free event is to go to https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/challenge. Again, it's https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/challenge. I'll have the invitation in the show notes, and I look forward to working with you starting June 3rd.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:21]:
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. I look forward to seeing you next week. Take care.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:31]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a d m and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:11]:
Talk to you soon.