If you've been feeling down, kind of frustrated, and a little lost but aren't sure why, this episode is for you. In this week's episode, I'm discussing how to identify if you're feeling stuck, where it might stem from, and what to do about it. I'm sharing from both my personal experience and the experience of helping my clients as they get unstuck. 

The topics mentioned in this episode are:

• How to identify and name the feelings and situations that are causing you to feel stuck, and be specific about what you don't like or enjoy about the situation.
• How to point out the thoughts that you're thinking about the situation, and change your thoughts to be more open and create opportunities for change.
• How to determine the support you need to help you move forward, be it a coach, family member, or friend.
• How Asha's one-on-one coaching package can help you get unstuck and align your business and life. Click here to book a call and learn more

Book a call to learn more about how we can work together through 1:1 coaching https://talkwithasha.as.me/coaching

Connect with me further on Instagram @ ashawilkersonesq

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Timestamped summary of this episode:

00:02:00 - Signs That You're Feeling Stuck, Asha discusses how feeling stuck can manifest in various ways, such as not feeling motivated to do work or feeling unsure of your identity. She also mentions how negative thinking patterns can contribute to feeling stuck.

00:04:45 - Identifying Your Thoughts, Asha emphasizes how our thoughts affect how we feel about a situation. She describes how identifying negative thought patterns and reframing them into more positive ones can help people get unstuck.

00:08:45 - Getting Support, Asha talks about the importance of seeking support when trying to get unstuck. She mentions how having a coach or finding mentors can help people gain new perspectives and identify new opportunities for growth. She also shares a client's experience of how identifying what she did and didn't like about her job helped her make a pivot in her business.

00:29

01:01

Whether it's because of I don't know, seems like coronavirus isn't even the biggest thing anymore. It's norovirus. It's the regular flu. It's a common cold that have been taking people out. But life circumstances can often allow us to feel like we are stuck, like we're not moving forward.

01:21

And I will tell you that a number of the people that I am coaching with right now are feeling like they are stuck or they are coming to me because there's an area of their life or their business where they are trying to get some forward momentum and progress, and they're just not able to do it themselves. So I thought, perfect, why not record an episode on what are some of the tools that I use to help people get unstuck? So, the first question you might want to ask yourself, maybe you're asking it now, is, well, how do you even know if you're feeling stuck or if you are stuck? So, here are some of the things that I've experienced and some of my clients have experienced. You wake up, and you want to do almost anything else, but what is on your list today?

02:06

Or you have those thoughts, god, I just have to do this. Oh, my goodness. I just have to get through my list. Sometimes you might feel like you can't remember if this plan that you were on is yours or somebody else's. You wake up or have a moment of clarity, and you're thinking, is this where I wanted to be?

02:25

How am I here? This doesn't look like what I actually want for my life or what I want for my business. And that moment of feeling like I don't want it, and I don't know what to do, that's a feeling of feeling stuck, right? You might be looking in the mirror in the mornings and asking yourself, who am I? Who is this person that I see?

02:44

This is what I wanted to be. This is where I am now. And the two are not in the same place. Whether it's somebody who is able to take time off in your business or go to the gym regularly or end your workday early enough to spend time with friends or family or children. Some of those feelings might come up and make you feel like you're stuck, especially if you don't know how to put some of those responsibilities down so that you can pick up some of the things that bring you joy and excitement.

03:12

You might be feeling stuck. We've all felt like we've been drowning before, just stuck in the mud. I remember there was a period in my business before I decided to stop litigating that I would wake up and I would get dressed and my roommate would go to work and I would sit down at my computer. And then I would end up just getting on the couch and just laying there, and I would take an afternoon nap because I was mentally just so exhausted. Because everything that I felt like I had to do in my business to get ready to go to court to represent these clients.

03:45

It felt like moving through mud, something that should be a relatively easy task. Just took so much mental energy. But at that point in time, I didn't know any other way to run a law practice or to run a business. That wasn't litigation. That was the model that was put out there before me.

04:04

And it took a lot of effort for me to sort of step out of my own situation with a bird's eye view and see what it was that I could do differently so that I could get unstuck and start living in a way that was more in alignment and more fulfilling than what I was living or experiencing. Going to court three or four times a week, terrible. Ten out of ten. Do not recommend. Don't do it unless you really have a personality set out for litigation.

04:33

But I digress. Here are some things you might find yourself saying if you are stuck, I can't do that. That would never work for me. I'm just so tired. That's not how it's done in my industry or I don't have enough energy to do that.

04:49

Those are words or phrases that often come up when you want something else that's different from what you have and you don't know how to bring the two together. Those are some key words. So what has happened when you are experiencing some of these things is that you've gotten stuck in a pattern of behavior, a pattern of existing that doesn't allow you to see some possibilities for making a change. You are mentally and emotionally stuck in the same thought cycle. And so the key to getting unstuck is to start to change those thought cycles so you can begin to experience something different.

05:28

So I have three steps for you that will help you get unstuck. And the first one is to recognize the situation that you're in name and identify or identify and then name the feelings that you're feeling, but be specific about what it is that you don't like or that you're not enjoying about the situation. Before I kind of reshifted my law practice and stopped litigating and moved more into coaching, I knew that I wasn't content with what was going on, but I didn't know how to make that change. And so I had to step back and I literally asked myself, asha, what are the things that you want? What are the things that you like to do?

06:06

I said, I love to teach, as evidenced by this podcast, I want to travel and as evidenced by the trip that I'm hosting to Ghana. And I also want to make enough money that I can live. So I don't need to be chasing the million dollar bag if it means that it's going to impede my ability to teach or impede my ability to travel. And that became my filter that I looked through everything in the world, through any opportunities that come my way. I looked through that filter because I had identified.

06:38

I didn't like going to court. I didn't like being on call all the time. I didn't like feeling like I was responsible for the outcome of the case that would have an impact on my client's situation. So I was able to get specific and identify what I didn't want and also to identify what I did want that was in alignment with my constitution and how I am built. And then step two is to identify the thoughts that you're actually thinking about the situation.

07:06

So most situations not most all situations are neutral, but we think thoughts about the situation. So, for example, I'll use myself. Again, I was a litigating attorney, so I would say I am a litigator. My thought about that is that litigation sucks. My thought is that litigation is hard.

07:25

My thought is that litigation is draining. My thought is that litigation just isn't for me. Those could all possibly be true, but the neutral situation is that I was an attorney going to court and I could change my thoughts about that situation so that it would allow me to move forward. Litigation is what I am doing now. Litigation does not have to last forever.

07:49

The skills that I learn as a litigator are transferable to other realms. I am a competent attorney that can practice in many different areas. Right? See the difference where the first set of thoughts are like doomsday? They just kind of pull you in and drain your energy and make you feel like you have no other option.

08:09

But when you change your thoughts about the situation to thoughts that are more open and create opportunity and create space for you to look at the situation more objectively and then decide how you want to use your skills, and talents from that situation for something different. Then you have thoughts that are going to be productive in helping you get out of your stuck thought cycle now and into something else that looks more like what you want to do for your next move. And the third thing to get unstuck is to write down the support that you need to help you move forward. Whether it's a coach, it could be a family member that you're going to call on, it could be a friend that is just going to allow you to emote and complain. I have a handful of friends like that and I'm like, hey, you got a second?

08:59

Let me tell you what's going on. And I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I get it all out. And then I'm like, okay, thanks. And I also am that sounding board for other people. But what I had to do to move from Litigating attorney to a virtual law practice and then into coaching is that I had to look outside of my profession or at least outside of the people that I had identified as my mentors as Litigators to see something different.

09:26

So I started following different business coaches. I started following people who were running online businesses. I started talking to people who had been attorneys and who had made that shift to something different to see what it was that they did and how they did it. So I had to identify what support I needed that would help me move forward. And you will need to do the same.

09:47

So there's another situation, another client of mine who felt really stuck in her business as well. She is an advertising agency and she'd been doing it for a while, had been in advertising for a while and knew that she was working with her bread and butter main client, who was the bulk of her income, but had also some smaller jobs along the way. Now her role in advertising had expanded with this bread and butter client and she was doing a number of things that were outside of the realm that was advertising, but the money was good. And so she ended up saying yes to more and more things and at some point along the way found out or really discovered or decided or noticed that she didn't want to do that kind of work anymore. But her stuck point was feeling like she didn't know how to make a pivot to call in more clients that she wanted while at the same time letting go of this bread and butter client because the money was so good, right?

10:45

So her stuck point was, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't know what to do. So together we worked to find a solution by identifying what were the things that she did not like about the role she was playing with this bread and butter client, what were the things that she did like about the role. And if we could create an ideal situation for her, which we did, what would that look like? And then she started to change her offers and her communication with potential clients to reflect what she actually wanted to do.

11:19

So we were able to do that together. Now she's got different packages that she's really, really excited about and has been able to let go of some of the clients that were bringing in decent money, but that didn't feel right. They weren't in alignment. Not because they were bad clients and not because they were not right from the beginning, but because as people, as business owners, we grow and evolve and it is natural and should be expected that we adjust and realign as we grow and as we develop. So being stuck is not the problem.

11:51

It's learning how to get unstuck that you should be focusing on, and you can absolutely do it. Don't forget to call in your resources. If you would like, for me to help you get unstuck, I would love to be able to do that. I have a one on one coaching package and to jump on a call with me to find out more details about that. You can click the link in the Show Notes.

12:13

So I hope you're ready to get unstuck. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week and I will see you all here, same time, same place, in about seven more days. Ciao. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to hear more on how you can align your business and your life with me as a coach, head to the Show Notes and sign up for the email list.

12:34

See you next week.