You have a passion (or two) burning in your belly.
You want to live a passion-filled life offering the best of yourself to others.
Your passion keeps you up at night, occupies your thoughts, fills your journal with fabulous visions.
But you’re not moving.
You hit a road block.
In short, you’re stuck.
Maybe you’re stuck in analysis paralysis, where you’re overthinking every step instead of taking action.
Or you’re burned out. If you have a full-time job or family responsibilities and you pursue your passion on the side in your spare time, you might be out of band width.
Maybe you’re not moving because you’re not sure what you want. And it’s hard for you to start until that aha moment hits you and gets you moving.
If this is you, I’m going to tell you something you may not want to hear…
You might be seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.
Before you stop reading, allow me to explain.
If you’re like me, you probably read a lot of self-improvement blogs. But one thing I’ve noticed is that they can be overly positive.
The reason they’re overly positive is because people read them to get a boost and feel inspired. And that often why I read them. I’m a glass is half-full kinda gal. But if you’re looking at your situation in an overly cheery way, you may be missing the truth.
The truth is sometimes hard to look at. Why are you stuck? What’s the real reason? Are there feelings you’re trying to avoid? Are you busying yourself with trivial work so you don’t have to face them? Are you pursuing the wrong dream and you’re afraid to admit that to yourself?
These are tough questions. But they’re critical for you to get move again on your path to pursuing your passion and creating a passion-filled life for yourself.
The following are 5 reasons why you may be stuck and what you can do to free yourself:
1. You’re burned out.
This is a simple one. You pursue your passion day and night, you have a day job, you have bambinos, you have a lot on your plate, and well, you’re exhausted. Maybe you’re always in front of your computer without any balance in your life.
Stand up and get outside. Go for a walk, go for a swim, get away from your passion for a while. Do something fun that makes you laugh and fills you with energy, or take a nap. Give yourself a break to re-energize.
2. You’ve suffered a Lack & Attach Attack
You’re working hard, but results aren’t coming in. The passion pursuit business is tough. It’s taking all of your blood, sweat, and tears just to break even. You wake up in the morning thinking about all the things you lack, “Why don’t I have more clients, subscribers, followers, resources, creativity, drive, etc, etc?”
You’re also attached to the outcomes you’re hoping to achieve. Instead of using your goals as motivation, you’re attached to achieving them, thus not allowing the best of you to come through.
To recover from a Lack & Attach Attack, spend some time each day thinking about or writing down all the things you do have. A gratitude journal works great for this (you may have heard this advice to start a gratitude journal 100 times before, but have you done it?). Remember to spend a bit of time considering all the things you do have with regards to your passion pursuit.
3. You’re ignoring signs from your body
Your body is a sophisticated machine that is constantly giving you raw, honest feedback regarding what it likes and doesn’t. But very often, we neglect to listen to the messages being sent to us by our body because we’re distracted by our mind and the voices in our head telling us that we’re not good enough or that we’ll reach our dreams.
For every action you contemplate taking, your body will react with a physical sensation. Every body reacts differently, but very often your body will feel light, tingly, or free if you’re going in the right direction, and tense, heavy, or tight if you’re going in the wrong.
So check in to see what you’re body is saying. It will always give you honest, no frills feedback. If an action you’re thinking about taking feels light, free, and expansive, then don’t hesitate, hold back, or wait for a better moment, take it.
4. You’re delaying your happiness
You have a vision of what you want your life to look like, but it’s not yet here. So you’re frustrated and feeling like giving up. Consequently, you’re not moving.
You don’t need your goals to be achieved to live a happy life. You can start living the life of your dreams, today, right now. You do this by identifying the core values that are most important to you and the feelings you want to experience on your journey and start living by the values and feelings right now.
Values are what you want to do, and feelings are the emotions you want to experience. Thus, if creativity is a value that is important to you, and inspiration is a feeling you want to experience, then start creating something today that is inspiring to you (first and foremost) and the ideal people you want to reach.
In addition, if going to a yoga class or hitting a museum is a creative act for you that brings forth feelings of inspiration, add more of those activities into your routine.
5. You aren’t taking responsibility for your passion
When you’re pursuing your passion and hit a road block, it’s great to blame others. This is what I hear most from my clients:
“My partner just isn’t supporting me, so I feeling as though I can’t continue.”
“The market is too saturated, and it’s too difficult to attract new clients.”
“If only I had more time, I’d really be able to go after my dreams.”
I’m here to be honest with you, it’s all poppycock. When you think these thoughts, you’re playing the role of the victim. When you play the victim you’re ceding all of your power over to the victim police. Don’t do it.
You may truly and honestly have a partner who doesn’t support your vision, but that’s OK. Have daily or weekly conversations with him or her about how much these means to you and fill them in on your progress and struggles. If they still aren’t 100% on board, that’s OK. They don’t need to be.
You keep doing you’re thing. Stay true to your vision, your core values, the emotions you want to experience, and your power to make it happen.
6. The action steps you want to take are too bad
If your dream is to start a non-profit that makes sure every person in the world is literate, then that’s a big, awesome goal. It’s perfect. Think and dream big. It’s the way to keep you inspired and motivated. It means something to you and the world.
But when you’re considering how to make this dream a reality, don’t stay with the actions step of, “Convince Congress this is a good idea.” Start with the action step of, “10 minutes of research on illiteracy around the world.” Make your actions bite-sized, tiny, so easy they’d be silly not to do them.
If you’re not sure if your action item is too big or not, then check in with the body. If the body is feel expansive, then execute. If the body is feeling constricted, then cut your action in half.
To quote Amelia Earheart, “The only way to do is just to do it.”
And the best way to do it is to bite-sized actions that feel good in the body, are in line with your core values, and bring about the feelings you want to experience on your journey.
By doing this, your days of feeling stuck will be a thing of the past.
For additional support to get you unstuck, click here to sign up for my free 10-Day Bold Action Challenge, which is designed to help you get moving again.
What do you most feel stuck? I’d love to know. Post a comment below.
Allyson Scammell is a Life and Career Coach who helps purpose-driven professionals and busy people to discover and pursue the things they’re most passionate about. She loves to take inspired action and believes there’s always enough time in the day to pursue your passions. Learn more at shantipax.com, and connect on Facebook or Twitter.
The post Feeling stuck? 5 Ways to Take Inspired Action in Pursuit of Your Passion appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
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