These two simple questions can help you get unstuck and shift your thinking, your energy and your actions toward the future you desire.
“God, I hate this.”
Do you ever find yourself in a loop, saying something like this to yourself – about someone or something in your life? – and the situation or circumstances keep repeating themselves like a Groundhog’s Day pattern, but somehow you just can’t seem to break out of it?
For reasons you can’t explain, no matter how hard you try, you keep going back to the same feeling of dread to be with that someone or something in particular, doing a job you don’t want to do, or in the same situation you can’t stand, yet again.
We all have these sprialing, cyclical thoughts sometimes. However, the deeper problems begin to arise when these thinking and feeling patterns cause people to stay stuck in unhealthy situations far longer than necessary. So how do we break free and disrupt the pattern?
Get out of a rut with these questions
First, if you haven’t already, let’s brush up on how to trust your instinct here.
Now, while you’re truly listening to your inner voice, ask yourself these two questions to help you courage your way out of this negative pattern.
- Am I moving away from what I don’t want?
- Am I moving toward what I want?
These two questions are important because:
what you put your mental and physical energy into – what you think, feel and do – are the things that you start to magnetize towards you.
The more you feel about something, the more you think about something, those feelings and thoughts become your attractors which will be reinforced as you action on them. Your attractors will become what grabs and holds on to most of your attention. Where our attention goes, our energy flows.
For example, maybe you’d like to move away from discomfort, loneliness, or feelings you don’t enjoy. Perhaps you want to move away from the company of people you don’t really enjoy. The more you keep thinking, “I need to move away from this. I don’t want to feel this particular type of feeling, the stronger the pull will be for you to do just that. The stronger your courage will need to be.
What we think about most is what gets magnetized in our minds, and what we end up making happen. Mastering our thinking is key.
How your thinking creates your reality
When we find ourselves frustratingly in the same loop of unwanted situations, feelings and patterns, often it is because we are putting too much energy, focus, time and attention on the thing we don’t want, making it nearly impossible to focus on anything else.
To get out of your rut start thinking this:
“If I don’t want this, what do I want instead?”
“If I don’t want to feel this way, what do I want to feel instead?”
“If I don’t like my circumstances, what circumstances would make me happy, what circumstances would I prefer to be in?”
The goal is to start thinking, articulating, visualizing and feeling the things you want, even if you don’t have all the resources just yet.
“Courage ‘til you make it” hack
What do you do in the meantime, between your unhappiness with a situation and getting to the other side of it? I have a little hack when I’m in a state of not feeling great.
Smile!
Just try to smile even if you’re feeling bad. It will be hard to stay in a bad headspace. The shift is almost immediate. It’s not that you’re ignoring your bad feelings. No way. You’re seeing the bad feeling, and you’re saying, “I see you there, bad feeling, and I’m shifting my energy toward the solution I desire – my happiness.” It can be hard and feel weird at first, but smiling anyway is like a shockwave to your system. This hack short circuits the negative spiral and elevates you up and out.
Visualizing your positive change
When you’re in a state you don’t enjoy, imagine what it would be like to be in the state you want to be in in the future.
Make that your Groundhog’s Day thinking, because those thoughts will get your energy, focus, and become your magnetizing attractor toward positive change and results.
If you find yourself in a narrow-thinking mindset and have a difficult time thinking about what you want instead (and it can be tough, sometimes we are in a tough situation and we’re just not sure what to do!), I suggest writing it down and journaling. As busy adult humans, we don’t give ourselves a lot of time to imagine the things we want and how we want to feel rather than how we currently feel, we stay locked into the system we hate.
If you want a different future than what you have right now, your feelings, emotions and actions have to start matching that future.
That’s where the congruence happens. That’s where the bridge to your future will be built.
So if you’re stuck in a rut and feel there’s something you don’t want in your life, think hard about what you want instead. Magnetize and attract the change. Stop putting your energy into what you don’t want, and I promise you you will start to see things move in the direction you desire.
Courage your future.
