Getting Unstuck 1: Find Your Flow
If you feel stuck in life, here is the beginning of a series of articles that can help you.
6/30/20265 min read
Getting Unstuck Series 1: Find your Flow
The basic formula of life appears to be this:-
Find something that you enjoy. Learn how to do it to the best of your ability, and share what you can do or create with others. Keep doing it, and keep getting better at it. Your life will be filled with good friendships and good incidents. Money will flow to you. You will feel happiness and contentment.
If you are grinding away in life, and not getting anywhere, you are not applying this formula. It is that simple. If you are working in an area that you enjoy, you may be experiencing tough times, but you won't feel exhausted or that you are grinding away. You will feel exhilarated, and you will feel that the problems you are encountering are challenges to be overcome. What's more, you will have great flexibility of thinking and action. If something is not working for you, you will rethink it and approach the situation differently.
Got it?
This tends to come under the heading 'Life Purpose'. And yes, finding a powerful purpose is very helpful, and can be life changing. This is more simple than that. This is simply where you find something that comes easily to you. Something that when you do it, you lose track of time, and sometimes you find yourself still doing your cherished activity in the early hours of the morning.
Look at people who are rich and successful. Did they get there by grinding away at something they hated? Imagine a rock star saying "I hate music, I hate the music industry, but hey, I kept at it and made some good money". This becomes more obvious when we look at business leaders such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and so on. Warren Buffett in the field of investment. Did they loathe every day of life as they built their business empires? According to their autobiographies, no, they loved every moment.
I have known people who went into law, or accounting, for the basic purpose of 'making money'. Yes, they made it through their studies. Were they successful in their chosen field? No. Were they happy? No. The people I am thinking about jumped ship early on, and went back to doing something they ENJOYED.
If you think of someone who has become successful by forcing themselves to work at something, by grinding away at something, they are the exception, and not the rule. And they may have made money and made a name for themselves, but let's be clear- they have not attained happiness or contentment. And whatever they are doing, they won't last.
If you have gone into some area of work thinking that this is a way of making money- FORGET ABOUT IT. There are few areas of life (if any) that are not competitive. If you are struggling to study something, grinding away at something, while somebody else is doing it joyfully- they will come out as the winners. Think of any profession, and see if you can find where this is not so. The people who are passionate and joyful about their daily work, are the winners in life. People who are forcing themselves to work in an area, they will feel like impostors. If you have heard of Impostor Syndrome, this is a large part of what that is. If your work area involves selling or interacting with people, you will lack confidence, because your heart is not in what you are doing. If you are making products, you will struggle reach the required standards for your products to sell. If you do reach the standards required, the nightmare will become that you now have to do this, day after day.
What is success? Earning a living by doing something you are good at, something you enjoy, and feeling happy and fulfilled for every day of your life.
Life should be for you, a FLOW. Where each day is an exciting adventure.
Problems should be challenges. Perhaps there is some real block or barrier in the way between you and where you are trying to get to…if you are in FLOW this will be amusing to you. You'll be thinking "Oh, I wonder what I can do about this?". Problems are part of the game of life. If life does not seem like a game, I will say again, you simply have not found the right path for you. You are on the wrong road.
This is the first thing to consider, if you are not flowing in life, then you are not applying that simple formula. The formula begins with asking the simple question that leads to something better: What do I love doing?
Career coaches would say that finding your area of Flow is finding your vocation. And a vocation is simply something you could do, easily and with some sense of pleasure, for the rest of your life.
Please do the following exercise, to loosen up your mind and your heart and to begin to tune in to what is right for you, what will bring you joy and success.
EXERCISE
IMPORTANT NOTE: As you do this exercise, write down what you are thinking about.
(1) Scientific studies show that writing engages the mind much more than typing. The hand and the brain work together to create a flow of thoughts. (2) Writing opens up a flow of thinking that thinking alone does not. (3) By writing your thoughts down, you begin to bring them into reality. You are impressing your thoughts onto paper, and into the physical world. You begin to tell the world what you want. (4) When you have written down your thoughts, you can step back and review them. This is the 'meta' viewpoint that is a vital part of therapy and coaching. Step back and review your thoughts, rearrange them, gain insight into them.
Imagine your Ideal Life. Your Dream Life. Apply the simple tool of BE-DO- HAVE and see how to redesign your life.
1) What do you want to HAVE in life? Look at these areas and think what do you want to have or experience in these areas.
Health / Career, Income and wealth / personal growth / fun and entertainment / intimate relationships / family relationships including children / groups / material possessions / spirituality / God and infinity / + anything else.
Write down what is coming up for you as you consider these areas. Don’t get bogged down in looking at what has gone from your life. Let it go. Whatever you manifested in life before, you can manifest again. Hanging on to the past will only create a sense of scarcity within you. If you can't let your past go, there are therapies that can help you. (These therapies are discussed elsewhere on this website).
(2) What do you enjoy, and what have you enjoyed, DOING? What is something you have done where you lose track of time? If you knew you had to do something for several hours a day for the rest of your life, what would you do? Use the headings above as a guideline.
(3) What do you enjoy, and what have you enjoyed, BEING? What roles in life have felt good for you? When you have had good periods in your life, what sort of person were you being? If you imagine an ideal future for yourself, what kind of person are you being in that future?
This is the starting point. Don’t expect miraculous solutions to spring out of the woodwork simply by doing this exercise. The magic begins when once you have isolated your key areas of interest, you begin to actively pursue them. When you take action, when you begin to actively redesign your life around what you love, you put the message to the universe that this is what you want to be doing from here on. This is when you will feel FLOW begins to open up for you.
There are no easy roads, but entering into a flow with your most heart-felt desires is the beginning of life becoming much easier for you.
Be totally HONEST with yourself. If you are grinding away, seeing no clear solutions to create a better life for yourself, feeling more miserable most days than happy, are you really on the right path?
