What To do when you feel stuck

 

Do you ever feel like you’re in a loop, things just seem to go on and on and no change occur? It’s as if nothing in your life is changing while others and everything else around you is becoming different.  And you may feel like you’re stuck in this drab cycle, and there is nothing you can do about it. Except you can something about it. We all experience boredom and that is natural, but, too often we get trapped in a monotonous life that we make our ‘normal’ and allow ourselves to believe that change is impossible, or we are waiting for the right time, however, according Martin Luther King  Jr. ‘It is always the right time to do the right thing.’

Six Signs your life is tedious

We don’t intend to have a boring life, sometimes it just feels like the only option due to our limitations, fears and what not. But, Dalai Lama said ‘the purpose of our lives is to be happy,’ so we all need to ask ourselves ‘Am I happy?’ Below are six signs that tell if you’re living a boring life, and need to consider if you’re truly happy.

1. Always Daydreaming

Daydreaming is a natural human activity; in fact a study stated that half our thoughts are daydreams. However, daydreams can also be used as a means of escaping stress, frustration or boredom. So if you find yourself constantly daydreaming while at work, school, and especially while home it is important to realize that you may be extremely bored and need a few changes in your life.

2. No personal interests

Do you have things/activities that you are passionate about, and excited to do? Not just to pass time but things you try to make time for even when you’re swamped with work. If not, then it’s safe to assume that your life is boring and you need to find an interest as soon as possible.

3. Excessive Sleeping

Like daydreaming sleeping is often used as an escape. Do you find yourself sleeping for hours even during holidays or any other free time you have? It might not just be because you are tired, instead it could be you just have nothing to do, nothing interesting that will pull you out of that blanket of boredom that surrounds you. So you sleep all the time to escape. Unfortunately, sleep is not the answer for everything.

4. You have a routine

So planning your days are actually very effective, however if it a case where, you don’t even plan your days you just do the same things each day, such as eating the same kind of food. Your day just becomes routine and you can anticipate exactly how it’ll unwind. Overtime routines become extremely boring, and can make you feel like you're getting nowhere.

5. Always watching TV

We’re all guilty of this, but it may be regarded as a sign that your life is boring when you do this all the time even when the movies don’t interest you, and you just watch them because you have nothing better to do. This is proof that your life lacks interest.

6. Envy

If you find yourself envying how other persons are living, whether that person is your sibling, friend or even a celebrity it just means that you are discontent with how you are living yours and the good thing is that you have the power to make a few changes to your life so that you can be content with how you’re way of living.

Facts about boredom

• The belief that only boring people get bored is simply a myth, and a research conducted states that there are two types of persons who experience boredom; those who are spontaneous and those who are withdrawn.

• Boredom can in fact affect our mental and physical health, causing backache, headache, insomnia and personality changes.

 

 What to do when you feel stuck

Set Goals

As we try to move away from our once boring life the first thing we must do is to set goals, which includes all the things we are interested in doing, its away to remember all the things you’ve been missing out on. Additionally, you may not have all the resources to do all that you want to right now, but it doesn’t hurt to write them down as well as, how you plan to work towards them. 

Break unhealthy habits

Try to stop doing things that fail to uplift you, and forces you to remain in your state of constant boredom and feeling stuck. For example listening to sad and depressing music which does not encourage you to make a change in your life that will bring happiness, another unhealthy habit could be sleeping all day.

Try new things

In order to develop personal interests and to find new ways to add flavour your life with fresh entertainment it’s important to try new things. Here is a list of new things you can try:

• Learn a new skill on line. Three great websites that are free includes: Canva, Alison, and Khan academy.
• Take singing lessons
• Learn a new language
• Draw
• Write – stories, poem, blog
• Meditate
• Learn to juggle
• Read many books from different genres
• Start a podcast
• Learn to crochet
• Try Yoga
• Make origami                                   

 Break routine

If your life has come to the point where you know exactly how your day will go, then you might need to switch things up a little. Routines are beneficial however, it is important to occasionally shake things up. Here are a few benefits of breaking your routine:

            > New experiences – when you do the same thing over and over and over – you lose motivation to do it. So try something you wouldn’t normally do and you might find out that you have a special gift, or you discover something that you are passionate about.

            > Re-evaluate routine – breaking from our routine give us a chance to see what no longer works for us and the changes we need to make.

            > Increased happiness – given that having a routine is what may cause a boring life changing the way you do things will allow you feel less ‘stuck’ and more ‘happy.’

            > Helps to keep the mind sharp

Stop overthinking

Often time we get caught up in the media and want to live our lives like the way celebrities do. And we become too hard on ourselves and become stressed even when we already have a good life. While it’s okay to want a great life overthinking things and forcing yourself to do things others are doing, that don’t even bring you joy is not the solution.

Take small steps

We will not have everything figured out all at once, it will take time to change our life and shake the feeling of being stuck, however we can start today and right now with some small activities that we have never done before, and then we can work towards the big things. Don’t forget that the little things matter too.

Let go of things that make you unhappy

Finally, letting go of the things that make you unhappy is another thing to do when you feel stuck. This is easier said than done but like I said previously start small, for example let go of a few or all of those songs that don’t make you happy, let go of daily routine and do what you actually want to do.

 

I believe a life that is characterized as ‘not boring’ depends on each individual. Because you decide your interests and what may seem boring to you, could be fun to someone else. So living your live to the fullest, and refusing to tolerate boredom or that feeling of being ‘stuck,’ does not necessarily have to be swinging  through the forest or  swimming with great white sharks. It’s living a life where you can honestly tell yourself that you are happy.

How are you going to live freely, today, tomorrow and this month, in order to shake off that feeling of being stuck?