We all know what it feels like to hit a wall; to get stuck. What do we do when we feel like we can’t do anything?
Episode 35 of the Make Saints podcast: “The secret to getting unstuck”
the episode script
A couple of weeks ago, I hit a wall. Not literally, of course. My car’s fine. My head’s fine. Nothing’s broken. All walls are fine.
No, the metaphorical wall. That’s what I hit. (Of course, you knew that—but I have some really concrete people who follow me, so I wanted to make sure [see what I did there? Concrete/Wall—I’m so punny]).
Anyway. The wall. I hit it. And it was so unbelievably demoralizing. First week back to work. Flying high! Feeling good! Then WHAM! I was a puddle of ooze trying to stand at my standing desk. (Which is hard when you’re ooze. I could’ve brought the laptop down to the floor with me, but the oozey arms probably wouldn’t let me type anything.).
I was stuck.
Here’s what I did.
I should get this part out of the way fast.
I know you’ve read books, listened to podcasts, or watched youtubers give you the 7 tricks to getting unstuck. All of that stuff. So 1) this seems superfluous (which, ironically, is a superfluous word that means: unnecessary) and 2) I’m just adding to the noise.
And, in that sense, I am.
But I think there is real value in naming two responses to those two criticisms: 1) hearing about someone’s personal experience is a different thing than hearing some generic tips and tricks. Our brains process this stuff differently. And 2) my story can be used to explain the why behind the tricks in a way that may connect with you.
So, here we go.
Step 1: The Moment
I was stuck. Really stuck. Puddle on the floor. Useless to the world.
At this point, I trust you know the feeling. You’ve experienced this at some point. So we test how we’re feeling.
- Am I tired? Did I get enough sleep last night? Did I work out earlier? Have I gotten enough physical activity lately?
- Am I hungry? Did I skip lunch? What has my diet even looked like lately? Too many carbs? Too little caffeine? (oooh caffeine…)
- Are there any things causing stress? Am I in a stressful environment? Is something bothering me? Do I have deadlines?
After we go through the inventory and see if there is anything biological going on that can be remedied by, you know, sleeping, eating, or meditating, we can move on to step two.
Step 2: Back it Up
There was nothing wrong with me. I was back from vacation and feeling great. I’ve been sleeping well, eating well, and feeling a regular amount of stress. It was the end of the week, so…deadlines. But I don’t turn into a puddle every Thursday.
So I needed to see what I was actually doing that day.
And to tell you the truth, it was a really productive day. I was up by 6:45, did Morning Prayer, made breakfast for my son, dropped him off at school, went to Starbucks to write for several hours, updated the church website, wrote a few difficult emails, ran up to Staples to cross a to-do off the list, came home and made lunch, and read a few pages of a book while I ate.
Then when I pulled the computer out of my bag, went to my standing desk to work…it just all fell apart and I was a puddle, like that {snap}.
What happened?
Step 3: Stop looking for The Problem
Here I was, a puddle. On, probably the most productive day I’ve had in months. Maybe all year. And yet it was only 1:00. I had no reason to be a puddle. I couldn’t find it.
Now, I’ve read enough to know what happened, so my head kicked in and gave me the answer. Maybe yours did already. And here’s where self-help gurus actually do come in handy. They give you the concepts that will make sense when you’re in the moment. And I totally was.
And yet…I didn’t entirely trust it. I really needed to convince myself because the counter-programming is strong. So I had to say it out loud:
You need a break.
Six hours with no breaks. I was in a total flow all morning. I wasn’t just getting stuff done, I was feeling good while doing it. I was in it.
And also, I broke up my actions with different tasks. Cooking, driving, writing by hand, typing on a laptop, browsing office supplies…
But did I ever stop?
No, I didn’t.
And the culprit that was most hidden from me was not the time we label as “work time”. It was all of it.
I have podcasts running constantly when I’m running around. So, from the time I dropped my son off at school, to Starbucks, then from Starbucks through Staples, and home, until I sat down for lunch, I was listening to podcasts.
Then I read during lunch.
And the whole time I was pushing myself. Asking myself What’s Next?
My brain was on for over six hours without pausing.
We Need Margin.
Our brains need downtime. They need to pause and rest. The brain is a muscle. So when we spend so much time in active thinking, we are quite literally working them out. Yeah, we can make our brains buff. But everyone knows gains require regular time off. You don’t lift for hours without resting between reps!
At any point during the morning, I could have taken time to just chill. And it probably wouldn’t have led to my being a puddle.
And if you’ll indulge me one second more, because I think this is valuable.
The problem isn’t flow. Experts in productivity have found it is quite the opposite: short breaks during flow states actually increase creativity by helping us make connections. As long as we don’t too severely interrupt our process with different brain work.
So taking a few minutes to search random junk on the internet can actually help our creativity, whereas being interrupted by colleagues wanting you to solve their problem can hinder it. But that’s a whole other thing. And beside the point.
When I was in the flow/productive state, I didn’t take breaks. In fact, I was doing the opposite. I could sense the need to take a break and kept going. I forced myself to work. To get more done.
I didn’t stop to celebrate victories or even acknowledge that I was just trying to power through task after task.
In essence, instead of maximizing my productivity, I burned through all of my energy.
Step 4: Unstucking Myself
The solution really is as obvious as it sounds: rest. I needed to take a mental break.
And I know this. It is what all of the productivity experts say.
But I had an old, broken soundtrack in my head that was looking at the clock and getting mad that I wasn’t still hammering away at 1 in the afternoon. I needed at least two more hours before I could allow myself to stop.
So let’s acknowledge what this means. I wasn’t listening to my body. Or experts in brain science or productivity. I wasn’t listening to professors or colleagues. Let’s face it: I wasn’t even listening to my own mind! Because I knew what was right.
Against all of that, who was I listening to? A made-up person representing a devil’s advocate. That’s the person I was trusting with my health. A figment of my imagination.
I went for a walk.
I stopped what I was doing, got changed, and went for a walk. Now, it wasn’t total silence. I went for a walk in my neighborhood with earbuds in while listening to music. I couldn’t have listened to a podcast if I wanted to!
And guess what? Maybe ten minutes into it, I started thinking.
I opened up my voice memos and started taking notes of what I was thinking about.
Mostly about vacation and work and all of that. But also this.
The Wall. Becoming a puddle. What we often diagnose as writer’s block. The fear. The exhaustion. Frustration incarnate.
I talked into my phone for about 15 minutes. And when I was done, I just kept walking. I walked the whole neighborhood. Then I came back and took a shower.
And I forgave myself.
I forgave myself for pushing my mind and for ignoring it
And in recognizing that I had already done a day’s work, I found it easier to simply go through the backlogged email, pet the cat snoozing on the couch next to me, and before I knew it, the kids were home from school.