I especially enjoy doing life coaching with adults who are feeling stuck in their lives. Each of us has a comfort zone, and if we stay inside it we can get bored, complacent and unhappy. Challenging yourself to learn a new skill or try to get past your comfort zone in a small way can help keep you feeling alive, fresh and growing.
Are you feeling that your world is too small? Expand your world by volunteering, helping others, or joining a cause that you care about. Many of us get too isolated and feel too alone, and being around positive people who care about the same cause that you do will reduce those feelings. Watch less television or do less time with technology and see what you can create with that space and free time.
Taking a class or learning a new skill at any age is a great way to meet other open-minded people, challenge yourself, and build a sense of community in our often too fragmented world. Even after college, I like to see people learn new things or try new adventures. Taking on new things to learn gives you a growing edge. It makes you more interesting. In an classic life planning book, The Three Boxes of Life, and How to Get Out of Them, the focus includes not making the mistake of doing all your learning at the front end of your life. Brain experts tell us that life-long learning and keeping your mind active is critical to optimum aging.
Setting some goals for the summer or the remainder of this year may also help you get unstuck. What's on your bucket list? Is there a trip you want to plan, a bad habit you want to release, or a way in which you'd like to develop yourself so that at year's end you can look back with satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment? What do you really, really want that you could take some steps toward accomplishing?
Get more active. Set your intentions to get outside every day this summer spending time doing something active you enjoy. We think better, sleep better and feel better when we get exercise daily.
Watch what you say to yourself. Most of us have picked up an internal critic along the way who says mean things to us and contributes to staying stuck. Fire that critic. Write down negative internal chatter and counter it on paper. Consciously upgrading your self-talk makes a huge difference. Try to avoid telling yourself you can't, or that you are not good/strong/attractive/disciplined/brave enough.
Don't let fear run the show. If you really want to go back to college, find a different job, improve your relationship, move, get out of debt, travel, or date and find a partner, make a plan and go for it. Notice the fear any time you do something different, but don't let it stop you. Like Susan Jeffer's book by the same name, feel the fear but do it anyway. This is the only life we know for sure that we get, so don't leave unaddressed dreams on the table.
Take calculated risks. Trying new things or going for goals that you have may make you feel vulnerable, but it's also where the good feelings of growth and accomplishment live. If you don't get some rejection or disappointment, you may not be risking enough or aiming high enough with your goals.
Take baby steps toward a goal that you have. Many people fail to meet their goals or get unstuck because they won't break down their goal into tiny little bites. As I often share with coaching clients, we eat elephants one bite at a time.
Do extreme self-care. Think of how you might be neglecting your health, your spiritual growth, your sleep, or any other area of your self-care, and reverse the trend.
Don't live in a world that's too small. Come out of your comfort zone to keep growing and creating the life you want. Get an accountability partner who hears your dreams and encourages your steps towards them, while you do the same for them. There are lots of people who live life in a sort of automatic pilot, rather than challenge themselves to keep growing. Don't be one of them!