When I was a preteen, my Father was part owner of a farm. In South Florida, it was known as a “U-Pick” which is exactly as it sounded. It was open to the public on certain days where customers could come in and pick their own produce. For a young boy, it was one of the coolest places to be because there was a lot of machinery like tractors, bobcats and an old Chevy Impala we affectionately referred to as, “The Limo.” We called it that because it wasn’t! It was old, rusty and not street worthy, but it worked for the farm. And it was the first car that I learned to drive.
My Father gave me some instructions as to where I could go and couldn’t go on the farm. There was one aisle in particular that he wanted me to stay away from as it was pure sugar sand and he was afraid I would get stuck. Guess where I immediately went after he gave me my instructions?
I headed down that row and was doing fine. Suddenly, I was pressing the gas but getting nowhere. When I realized I was stuck, I did what came naturally, I floored it. Finally, I realized what I was doing wasn’t working. When I got out of the car to see how bad it was, I was shocked. The bottom of the car was touching the sand. That car was buried!
I panicked. I knew if Dad found out I was in trouble so I had to do something. I quickly found Pat who was the Foreman on the farm. He helped me get the car unstuck. I’m not sure that my Father ever knew anything about it.
Getting stuck is no fun, especially when we get stuck in life. Maybe we go in a direction with our career we were warned about and suddenly we find dug-in. Perhaps we take a wrong turn with our relationship and we can’t seem to move out of the rut that we got ourselves into. Possibly we make a jaded financial decision and wind up spinning those financial wheels. However it happens, we are buried and wonder how we will get out.
When you get stuck you have three options. The first is to keep doing what you are doing. That, of course, doesn’t work. It’s also one of the popular definitions of insanity which says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting to get different results.”
The second is to get frustrated and beat yourself up about how dumb you were in the first place. While that may help you blow off some steam, it doesn’t help you get unstuck.
The third option is to do something different. Take action. Figure out how to get out. Ask for help. Take the next step but whatever you do, don’t stop.
Far too often when we get stuck we spend too much time analyzing and not enough time mobilizing.
So, if you find yourself stuck, do something different, but do something. You likely already know how you got where you are, now you just need to take action, massive action, to get where you need to go.
It’s like Winston Churchill once said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
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