On Feeling Stuck: An All-Too Common Story
“It took me to get to this point for me to understand that I wanted more from life, that I don’t want to be someone who just gives up. So I made changes in my life, however small, and I was able to escape the hole I was in, even though it seemed impossible.”
Oftentimes life has felt diluted, filled with trauma I have experienced and choices I have made that have helped influence the person I have become. Through both of our experiences we have had a lot of trauma that has heavily shaped the current day situation we are in. As of recently, we have noticed that we started to feel stuck and that the options we have are now limited because of our past actions. Through this article, we hope to offer ourselves (and others) different options on how to overcome this feeling. We want to help others who are also dealing with the same issues as us. Because it’s okay to feel stuck, sometimes it can even be helpful, but when it becomes too much, it can definitely be a problem.
When it comes to me, Richard, I for one have dealt with my parents always fighting and never spending time with me. Even as I'm writing this; my parents aren’t as involved in my life as I would like. It often feels like I'm a neighbor that lives next to them, and not actually spending any real family bonding time. I guess because of that I never got to see my life being fun or worth living. Especially when everything I did was solely on me, I had to figure out everything myself, and I had nobody else to be there. As time kept going, I eventually found out what worked for me. It wasn't the best, but the way I cope is definitely a better option when it comes to me being satisfied.
As for me, Alfredo, at the start of high school, I started developing feelings I wasn’t familiar with. A new environment left me with less friends, more confusion, all while I also struggled back at home with arguing parents and a father who had left me disappointed more times than I could count. I was lost, but I did end up finding a friend group that made coming to school easier.
This was my way of coping with my depression for a while. To come to school and become someone else, someone who could laugh. Eventually this way of coping became less effective, and as high school went on, I found it easier and easier to stop coming to school and to stop caring. Other ways I coped were music and video games, both fading in and out, as with my depression it's hard to keep interest in things for very long.
That’s unfortunately how most of my high experience was. Feeling stuck, and desperately finding ways to cope instead of branching out and finding my interests and who I am. It wasn’t until this school year that I started to understand how to make true progress and fight feelings of being stuck, and it came after being in one of the worst states I had ever been in. I had stopped going to school and was in a state of comfort and no direction. It took me to get to this point for me to understand that I wanted more from life, that I don’t want to be someone who just gives up. So I made changes in my life, however small, and I was able to escape the hole I was in, even though it seemed impossible. The changes led to me coming back to school. And through chance, I was given a bracelet from Ms. Ytuarte with the quote: “great things are done by a series of small things put together.”
In my view, this is the best way out of feeling stuck. Build up momentum by doing small things that are in your control, and eventually you can make a change you thought was impossible.
In What Ways Do People Feel Stuck?
Here’s a couple different ways people can feel stuck, starting from feeling stuck in your career. Many who work in their field can feel as if their career hasn’t been progressing, which makes them seem like nothing is working. Sometimes it can take too long to do something and later on, someone figures out that they aren’t cut out for this line of work. This is totally okay, no one should have another 20 years working in a field if they don’t enjoy it. So don’t worry if you have already spent time in the field, just switch and keep looking for opportunities.
Some people can struggle with personal development because of the lack of direction they have personally. Whether it’s no goals to aim for, feeling like they aren’t able to learn new things, and themselves. This makes it hard to see that there isn’t any real proof to show that they are able to change to keep improving oneself. This can also include relationships that feel like something isn’t getting better because of the amount of toxicity that’s going on. If this happens more than once, someone can also feel stuck because of the feeling of not being able to find a partner who they love.
Climbing Out of the Hole
The first step out of the hole of being stuck is to actually be self-aware, so in a way this article is actually a starting point. Knowing what is causing you to feel this way is so helpful since you know what you can do to fix it. The next step is to make goals for yourself both small and big so you can be consistent with yourself. The most important part is actually trying to do your goals and not just creating goals for the sake of it. Also recognize your goals and appreciate yourself for completing them. This is where you shape your mindset to enjoy the little things in life which are often hard to do as the current day fast past stuff is everything. So don’t compare yourself with people who are already at the top; compare yourself with the people who are around you. They are still trying to get themselves out of feeling stuck.
Look for someone in your life that cares about you. This person can be a friend, lover, or simply just a therapist. These people who care about you can pick you up when you're down, but the most important thing to do is to make sure your goals are genuinely what you want to do. When this happens, you can keep improving and getting better – because of you and not for someone else. Also never aim to be perfect, because it’s boring to never grow as a person. So just do the thing and have a plan to create an idea for yourself of how something can work. This way, you can keep learning as a person and improving yourself in order to be fulfilled.