What does stuck look like to you?
I know we have all been there. Some, I am certain are sitting there right now. Stuck.
When I think of stuck, I think back to a time in college when a friend of mine was into taking his four wheel drive truck out and getting it covered in mud. He was so ecstatic about this truck. He would take it out to the nastiest, muddiest, dirtiest places and drive through without missing step. Until….
Until the day he took me along. Not believing it was possible to drive wildly through the mud with any vehicle, he just had to show me how cool it was to go four wheeling.
Needless to say, we got stuck. Did we ever. All I remember is that truck getting buried so deep in the mud that we had to climb out of that cab, step into the thickest, deepest, nastiest, shoe grabbing mud ever. Worse than that, we had to walk back to school to get help towing the truck out.
That mud-strong, all powerful, truck got stuck. It was going nowhere and there was not one ounce of creative energy that was going to get that truck out of that spot.
That is stuck. You know you are stuck when a vehicle designed to conquer everything mud related, gets swallowed up by the very thing it is expected to be invincible over.
We all know what stuck feels like. That feeling like we are in a quagmire, a swamp, a mud hole and there is no way to simply flip a gear and pull ourselves out.
Sometimes, when you find yourself stuck, you simply need to walk away. Spinning your wheels, pushing forward without any progress, and staying determined to drive through sometimes isn’t the answer.
This does not mean give up. It merely means you may have to find, discover or create another path. Finding another way to your objective, creating a new course, or stepping back completely to rethink the entire situation is often very productive.
When you find yourself stuck, in the mud, knee deep in garbage, I would encourage you to to completely detach emotionally and physically from the situation. Allow your mind and your body to relax, regroup, and rethink. Trust the mission you have created for yourself, allow yourself to believe that there may be a better way, and create an environment that enables you to peacefully discover it.
Knowing when to grind it out and when to regroup is the difference between will and wisdom. Sometimes a little wisdom is all you need to get out of the mud.
