How to Start Anything and Get Unstuck in Life? Use the Force
Some of you are still stuck in life. You feel hopeless. You don’t have the motivation to start anything. You have the same routine every single day. It’s predictable. Life isn’t exciting.
You feel lazy or unmotivated cause you’re stuck. You have dreams, but you always fail to take action to make them come true. What will it take for you to finally get started?
I know what it took for me to get unstuck. It wasn’t hope. It wasn’t an inspirational quote. It wasn’t a miracle. It’s something that I possessed, but rarely used.
After years of getting no results, I realized one night I needed to do something about my life.
Like Obi-Wan Kenobi would say to me, “Use the Force, Benny”.
Let’s first talk about why you might feel stuck in life or not getting anything done.
Why do you feel stuck?
Feeling stuck doesn’t mean your life sucks. You have many things to be thankful for in your life, but the part that’s missing completely makes us forget what’s good.
Everyone’s life has the potential to be how they want it. As humans, we’re the only species on earth that can change the course of our lives.
Yes, you are human! If you’re not and you’re reading this then that’s pretty eerie. But since you’re human that means you can change your life.
Feeling stuck means that you’re not being fulfilled in a way that excites you. Where you are now is so far from where want to be. In that gap lies frustration and hopelessness.
I thought my life really sucked when I felt stuck, but when I looked around me at the time, I had lots to be thankful for. Simple things like good health, a house, a working car, food everyday and running hot water.
But the part that was missing from my life overshadowed all the good things I had.
If you feel stuck in life, I’m here to tell you there is hope. I’ve been there.
Your brain: Friend and Foe
Your brain can be your best friend or worst enemy. Let me explain.
A lot of things we do every day goes into auto pilot. We’ve done it so many times that our brain allows us to do it without much thinking. That can be great. It saves us from having to think about every single little thing we do.
If we had to, our minds would be exhausted by the end of the day.
Have you ever driven somewhere and when you got there you didn’t remember driving there? You weren’t drunk or on drugs (hope not at least). You were on autopilot.
When you wake up in the morning do you have a routine? Probably. You make coffee. You check Facebook. You check emails. That’s your brain on auto pilot. Your brain is your friend in these situations.
The brain can be your enemy cause it’s protects you too much. An important duty of the brain is to protect you from dangerous situations, but it also protects you like an overbearing parent.
Anytime you do something new, your mind will say, “Whoa….slow down there! Wait wait wait. Stop!!”
You stop. Then you start to think about that decision. Your inner voice starts to creep in. You then doubt yourself. You have second thoughts. Then you don’t proceed any further.
You’ve stopped before you’ve even started.
You might be doing something new and exciting. Something you’ve dreamt of doing. It’s not dangerous. It’s not illegal. It’s just new and that’s why your brain stops you.
That is the problem.
Your brain wants to protect you. That’s why it likes routines. It doesn’t like change. Your brain knows what you’re doing has been approved of many times. No warning signals go off.
But if we want to make our lives more exciting, get out of the same old boring routine, or achieve our goals, we need to break though that resistance.
Force Yourself to Do It
We need to break through what is trying to hold us back. In this case, there’s only one way to break through the resistance.
You have to force yourself.
You just have to suck it up and do it. No complaining. No whining. Block everything else out of your mind.
Stop waiting for that one moment when the stars align. Stop waiting for when you feel like starting.
That push your looking for isn’t in one famous quote that’ll inspire you. Nor from another personal development book searching for that one sentence or paragraph that instantly turns you from unhappy to fulfilled in the blink of an eye.
Trust me it’s not there because I wasted so many years searching for something that’d get me unstuck.
I kept waiting and waiting. Then I realized it was up to me to get started.
Remember being a kid? Our parents had to force us to do so many things.
Take a shower. Brush our teeth. Eat vegetables. Do our homework. Stop playing video games and go to sleep.
We didn’t like it most of the time, but we agreed to.
If our parents never forced us, we wouldn’t have done any of those things on our own. I know I wouldn’t have!
Now that we’re adults, who’s going to force you to do what you need to do?
Nobody.
That’s right. This push that you need isn’t going to come from anyone else.
Will your parents force you to starting writing that book? Probably not. They can’t punish you now by sending you to your room.
No one will force you to finally start pursing your passion. Only you can do that.
Who’s going to force you to get off your butt and take some action in your life?
No one. No one’s coming to save you. That’s the truth.
It’s not because they don’t care, but cause they have a million of their own things to worry about.
Even if you paid a lot of money for a coach, they’re not going to care if you don’t take their advice and do something about it.
No one cares about your whining and your sob stories about why you can’t. After awhile that whining gets annoying.
If you know something has to be done, but you’re not doing it, then you’re going to need to approach it differently.
Take your foot off the brakes and step on the gas!
The Three Second Rule
The Three Amigos
Pick up artists teach the three second rule. In a book called “The Game” By Neil Strauss (great book if you want to read about the world of pick up artists), he goes from average frustrated guy to a pick up guru. Along the way he learns what the best pick up artists do.
One important lesson for beginners is the three second rule.
It’s vital for beginners. Why? Think about what the hardest thing is for a guy when meeting girls. It’s not the small talk or how to get a phone number. The hardest thing is approach a woman and start talking!
The three second rule states that you must approach a woman within three seconds of noticing her. You might think that’s way too fast. What will you say? What will you do? What will you say if she says this or that? So many things to think about!
The point is to stop that inner voice from talking to you. You don’t have time to be nervous. You don’t have time to second guess yourself. You don’t have time for limiting beliefs.
It doesn’t give you time to freak out. It also keeps you from freaking her out by staring at her like a stalker all night.
The only way to overcome your fear of approaching beautiful women is to not think too much about it and just do it.
How does the three second rule apply to you?
Do you ever get an impulse to do something, don’t do it, and then regret it?
If you applied the three second rule, you wouldn’t give your inner voice to talk you out of doing something you want to do.
Let’s say you want more free time so you want to get up an hour early. We all know how hard it is to get up earlier. The moment the alarm goes off, we hit the snooze button and back to sleep. Just a few more minutes we think.
How long does it take for you to fall back asleep? Depending how early it is, it could be fast. Alarm rings again. We hit snooze again. Then all chances of waking up early goes away as we wake up our normal time.
What if you gave yourself the three second rule? You had three seconds to pull off the blankets and stand up and start moving.
You wouldn’t have time to think “Should I snooze or should I get up early? I’m so tired so I need more sleep, but I really want to (your important task) before I have to go to work.”
Getting right out of bed is so hard to do! It takes a huge amount of force. The bed is so comfortable and we feel so sleepy.
Don’t think about how you feel. Of course you feel sleepy!
If you listen to how you feel versus what you want, you won’t get it. How you feel will win every time. Feel tired? Sleep some more. Feel lazy? Procrastinate.
The force needed to get out of bed is the same force you need to do anything you want. It’s not easy to do. It’s a challenge, but if you’re serious about getting up early or doing anything, it is what needs to be done.
If everything was so easy to get started, we’d all be well on our way to being perfectly happy.
When you want to do anything new in your life, you’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone. In order to get out of that comfort zone, you can use the three second rule.
If you have an impulse to do something, if you don’t take action in three seconds, you’re going to hit the brakes.
That includes waking up the moment you hear your alarm.
Stop Waiting
There is probably a big goal you have right this moment. You’re thinking about it, planning it, thinking about it, talking about it, and daydreaming about it. Guess what? You’re not getting any younger.
There’s not going to be a drill sergeant standing next to you while on your computer yelling “Get off Facebook! Close Twitter! Stop watching cute pictures of cats! Get to work!”
You have to force yourself to. You may not feel like doing it, but you know you need to.
I had to kick myself in the butt earlier this year, because I kept thinking what I wanted to achieve this year, but not doing anything about it! No one told me I needed to begin. I knew myself I needed to.
Finally I had to just start doing it. That’s it. I stopped listening to my inner voice. I had to take action without any motivation. I had to use force to push that 2000 lb rock down the hill.
You have that power inside of you. It’s time to use it.
(Important news: My book, “Get a Life That Doesn’t Suck” is on Kindle now! Download it now.)
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