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Turn your adversity into opportunity

“Success is not to be measured by what one accomplished in life, success is to be measured by what one overcomes while trying to succeed.” – Booker. T. Washington

How do you respond to adversity or when things don’t go to plan? Do you become aggressive or do you disconnect from life and hide? We all experience difficult times in our work and personal lives often through situations or circumstances outside our control and struggle with some obstacles and hardships. But while some people endure hardships and overcome the adversity, some cannot. They might give up when faced with similar circumstances. How you deal with difficult circumstances and obstacles life throws your way depends on your patience and perseverance. You can either let these obstacles bring you down and take you into a downward spiral or you can use them to motivate and lift you up. The key difference is how you perceive and respond to adversity or obstacles you face. If you consider them as bad and try to avoid, you end up closing your possibilities and avoid taking risks. On the other hand if you take them merely as challenges filled with opportunities to endure, learn and grow, you can profit from them both physically and emotionally. The ability to persevere such situations is the only difference between a successful outcome and a failed outcome.

When it comes to accomplishing your goals, you might face short-term failures along the way, or sometimes you may struggle as it might take longer than you expect. Even while making some change in your life like creating new habits, developing new skills or learning new concepts, short-term failure or challenges or difficulties can drain your motivation. They even might make you want to quit before you’ve put in enough time and effort to reach your goal. And how you respond to such failures, setbacks or difficulties when pursuing your goals depends primarily on your mindset and willingness to persevere. What ultimately makes you successful is your choice to persevere and overcome adversity or hardships. In the end, it is perseverance that translates into success.

So, What is Perseverance?

It is defined as your inner drive to persist steadfastly in pursuit of an undertaking, task, or goal even if hindered by difficulty, setbacks, obstacles or discouragement. It is continuance in a course of action in spite of adversity or opposition and is a necessary skill to overcome setbacks or failures. Perseverance enables us to take risks, learn from our failures, and forge ahead with new and better information.

It requires regular practice to develop the quality of perseverance. Only with strong determination can one achieve his/ her goal by perseverance.

Why is it important to practice perseverance?

Most often, people who accomplish great things no matter what field they are in, understand that failure or an obstacle is not a stumbling block but a stepping stone. They are the ones who have succeeded enduring hardships, challenges, or failures at some point in their life. Should you quit when you face obstacles or adversity? Should you quit if you are not able to achieve goals fast enough? Should you quit in case of disappointment or self-doubt?

The answer to above questions depends upon how much you are willing to and can persevere in times such as these and how hard are you willing to work towards overcoming such situations. And how much you can overcome further depends upon the foundations you base your life on. Those who built solid foundations as a base for their lives develop the persistence necessary to overcome adversity or setbacks. Take for instance, sumo wrestling, an ordinary person would have absolutely no chance of winning against a professional sumo wrestler. This is because of the gap in skills they possess. Professional sumo wrestlers practice in the ring everyday so they become strong, solidity and speed. When faced with someone like this, ordinary person would not be able to exert enough strength and naturally defeated. The same can be said of encountering troubles in life. By practising perseverance, you can be better prepared to face such situations in your personal and professional pursuits.

Strengthening your foundation by building on your internal resources like emotional and strength, resilience, courage and patience can prepare you mentally for any possibility and you can remain in control of your emotions and actions without creating much friction. And you can form a clear perspective to persevere. Through her research, Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit: The power of Passion and Perseverance, has identified four psychological assets that most perseverant possess.

•Passion– is important be genuinely interested in what you are doing so that you are intrinsically motivated to keep going even when things don’t work out the way you initially thought.

•Practice – The next step is developing the discipline to practice your passion. Your intentional actions help you develop productive habits that can support you to get better in case you facing obstacles or failure.

•Purpose – Developing a greater purpose where your work or actions or outcomes are beneficial to others and not limited to personal gratification can help you overcome short-term failures and struggles.

•Hope – Hope or optimism is what lets you challenge yourself when things get tough so that you get back up and keep moving forward. You can cultivate emotional strength and courage to persevere in the hope that you will overcome.

How to persevere through adversity

“Adversity causes some men to break, and others to break records.”- William Arthur Ward

Adversity often provides us with a learning opportunity that can help us in improving our true potential. However in order to turn adversity into an opportunity for growth, you must first be able to adapt yourself well to life-changing situations. And the strength to persevere through them often comes from your internal attributes and learnt skills like acceptance, resilience, and being self-aware. Here are some ways to strengthen your resolve to persevere and turn adversity into opportunity to grow.

Flip your thinking

Just think about how you see the situation and the story you are telling yourself. The attitude you bring to the situation is reflected in the thoughts you allow yourself to dwell upon consistently while facing adversity. These thoughts manifest in internal dialogue that manufacture your emotional experiences that either empower or weaken your resolve.

If you are thinking of the setback as a negative experience, then reflect on the story you are making up about the circumstances. If it is empowering then you will be more focused on solution that help you move forward. But if it is based on blame, excuses and complaining, then you fall victim to your negativity bias where you close yourself to positive alternatives. Stay self-aware if your thoughts and emotions you bring forth into the situation. Stay objective and try to change your narrative to more empowering and meaningful that can help you persevere through the obstacles.

Questions to reflect: Am I being self-aware of my thoughts and emotions? What story am I telling myself? Is it empowering? What is the problem here? What can I learn from this experience? What can be done to improve the situation? How can I move forward in a better way?

Let go of your expectations

Fully accept your present situation by letting go of expectations you are holding on to. Challenges will come while pursuing your dreams, vision and goals. When dealing with bigger goals, acknowledge that things don’t always go according to your expectations. Holding onto your expectations makes you confined to fixed mindset and will not help you effectively deal with the situation you are in.

Expectations not only create resistance to alternative perspectives but also create internal conflict. Instead of holding on to your expectations of a particular outcome, accept the fact that you are experiencing an obstacle and try to see things more rationally. Clinging on emotionally to a particular outcome or the way you want things to turn out may not let you see the things clearly. Acknowledge that there are certain things beyond your control and choose to respond to them in positive ways.

Questions to reflect: Am I holding onto realistic and helpful expectations? Am I being attached to a specific outcome? Are my expectations flexible? Are there other alternatives to consider? Am I reasonable in my expectations of the outcome I wanted? Which alternative perspectives can help me in overcoming this situation?

Take one step at a time

Adversity and setbacks can often become overwhelming or knock you off balance. Many of us react to such unexpected circumstances hastily or rather unprepared and cannot take actions that will help you better the situation. This will result in making other mistakes and eventually end up regretting. The best way to persevere in the face of obstacles is to take a pause, assess and identify the problem. Break down the problem into smaller steps.

This helps improve focus which subsequently allows you to gain more clarity about the situation and about possible options to solve. Think of why they arose in the first place. Although not every obstacle is a result or a consequence, a personal reflection always helps to understand your bigger aim or sense of purpose and can come up with solutions. This way, you can display resolve against the odds and lay down the action steps you can take to help solve the problem.

Questions to reflect: How could I present this situation in the form of a question? Is there some solution that I am undermining or not considering? What process must I follow in order to solve this ? What part should I tackle first? How will I tackle this part of the problem? What is the first action step I must take?

Build your external resources

Cultivate a supportive network of friends and family. When you feel overwhelmed and anxious, just talking through helps. Often you might discover a friend who has had a similar experience and can help guide you through the difficult time. Nurture supportive relationships. Psychologists call this social support. According to their studies, social support enhances your physical and emotional health. A mind open to communication will think a way out of difficult situations.

Supportive relationships shield you from the negative effects of stress. Surround yourself with those people on whom you can rely, talk to, open and share your feelings. It can also serve as an opportunity to share ideas and get to know alternative perspectives or solutions. Don’t compare yourself with others. Everyone’s journey is different. Instead be inspired by others to persevere when you face criticism and opposition.

Questions to reflect: Am I building supportive relationships? Am I aware of any friend or coworker who endured such hardships? Whom can I rely on to persevere in the face of any obstacles or difficult situations? Am I being supportive of other people in their struggles when they go through similar challenges and hardships?

To conclude,

Think about a goal or a dream you are currently working towards. What obstacles stand in your way that might take you off-course? How are you prepared to handle those and overcome? How do you respond to obstacles or challenges? How do you perceive or what story you tell yourself? What is your willingness to persevere? How strongly you believe in the purpose of your goals ?

There is no such thing as success without failure or obstacles. The question is not about whether or not you will encounter challenges but when obstacles arise, you mustn’t quit or change directions and must be prepared to endure and persevere through them. Turn them into an opportunity with the help of above strategies and questions to mentally prepare for such moments and to build momentum you need to move through them successfully.

If your focus is on succeeding in life, then you also should learn how to respond to adversity or failures or obstacles or hardships. Regardless of your situation, you need to develop these essential skills to put forth the necessary effort and move forward after setbacks. Set yourself a long-term goal, connect deeply with its purpose, take action towards that goal and allow that to pull you through.

“Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn

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How to challenge the Status Quo

“If you focus on results, you will never get change.If you focus on change, you will get results.” ― Jack Dixon

A good way to predict the direction of our life is to measure how much of our time we’re actually trying to enhance and improve it. Most of us claim that we want better life or want things to change. It is easier to wish than to face change and uncertainty. Sometimes, we imagine that when we make a change, the choice we select should be easy to accomplish. So we wait until that magical state arrives by expending a lot of mental energy only wishing, expecting, and worrying. In other words, much of our time is spent in just maintaining the Status Quo rather than working constructively in creating the change we desire to enhance our personal or professional life.

Many times people end up on not taking action that will take them to the next level and prefer staying with the Status Quo, that is “the way things are”, no matter how flawed that may be. This way, they often find themselves stuck in mediocrity trap that keeps them in an automatic loop of routine. This makes them complacent as they get used to the ‘norm’ and are not desperate enough to change. There are others who want to pursue a goal, but don’t feel it can be achieved. They want to change, but are afraid of failure. Some have clear objectives to achieve but unhappy in place where they are. They want their environment to change without them having to do anything about it. So they just are stuck to their status quo instead of finding ways to make fulfilling changes.

In today’s world, if you want to compete or stay ahead or want to create sustainable growth for yourself or for your organisation or business, you must constantly think about how you can adapt and change. But one of the biggest barrier to change is our Status Quo thinking. We resort to thinking “its how we’ve always done it..” or “ that’s just how we do things here.” and so on. we often like to doing the things in same way or keep things as they are and don’t want to shake things up or change.

So, What is Status Quo?

Status Quo is a Latin phrase that means “state in which”, the state in which your current outcomes or results happen or your current state of things. It is about doing what is comfortable and thinking inside the existing box. As creatures of habit, we always tend to move toward the familiar, known, and believe it into be safer than what is new and different. This creates a Status Quo bias or our preference for familiarity. Because of this, it is harder to accept change and we usually prefer the easier option of keeping things as they are as it takes less mental effort.

Downside of maintaining Status Quo

To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are or being complacent with how things are. Sometimes things are done a certain way because it’s the best practice. Other times we do things without a thought to process improvement. Sticking to status quo in your present circumstance, habits, behaviour, or efficiency or your skill or how things are in your personal and professional life not only keeps you stuck, stagnant but also hinders your growth and progress. We get so comfortable and safe thinking inside the existing box that it makes us resistant towards change or to think outside the box or to take risks or to challenge ourselves or to move out of our comfort zone. We see something new as inherently risky while something familiar as safe.

Change is something every body wants and talks about but cannot make it happen in reality as many of us get stuck in our Status Quo mindset. We get caught up in daily routines and any change seems uncomfortable. We refuse to challenge our status Quo thinking and refuse to adopt to more positive outlook thereby creating an aversion to change. Adhering to status Quo and giving preference that things stay the same is problematic for your self-growth or professional growth.

For some reason, we find it difficult to challenge the status quo when dealing with peers, friends, superiors or others in our personal and professional life. There is a sense that the act of challenging is inappropriate and may lead to conflict. But it is important to understand that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing as it can lead to insightful learning and change by challenging a problem from different viewpoints.

Why is it important to challenge your status quo?

Challenging Status Quo means that you identify better ways of doing things in order to change for better or to improve yourself or to add value. This not only makes you feel more engaged, meaningful, creative,and content but also increase your productivity, leadership skills and helps in managing things more effectively. And you can find solutions to a problem through different perspectives and can think more creatively or you can set yourself some personal challenges to encourage personal growth.

To become more productive and improve, you need to shift your perspective to challenge what’s become “the norm.” Just because something has worked until now, it doesn’t mean that there’s no need for change or room for improvement. Also, If you don’t challenge your status quo bias and are not ready to address what’s keeping you from making a change to enhance your life or to get yourself out of the mediocrity trap, you really cannot get on the path to create change or growth that you actually desire for.

“Trust your idea enough to know that it can challenge the status quo.”

― Arlyn Davich

How to challenge your status quo ?

When you have to challenge how things are, you need to modify behaviours to impact results. Just knowing does not equal change unless you take different actions than those that created your present state of affairs. Only when you really understand the relationship between your inputs and outcomes or state in which your current outcomes are generated by current inputs, you can find your status quo and challenge it successfully. One of the effective way to do so is by asking right questions.

Ask questions

Asking yourself ‘why’ can help you to quickly pinpoint the actions that are generating your current results and you can identify what needs to be changed or improved. By asking yourself what actions can lead to positive change, you can challenge the status quo and focus on finding solutions. At work, be open to new ideas brought in by your team or others. Consider all the variables to implement the idea and explore all avenues to make a positive change. asking questions like is there something that isn’t working? Or why isn’t it working? How can you arrive at a solution? What are the ways to improve? can give you the ability to turn negative outcomes into positive. Asking right questions can give you insights to why you need to challenge the status quo, what resistance you may face and potential strategies to improve.

Here are some more ways to challenge your status quo.

Take risks. We often resort to status quo to avoid risk or uncertainty. If you want real change, you must embrace risk as new normal. Understand the impact of doing nothing is rarely ‘nothing.’ You must learn to create to anticipate unexpected and should learn to perform under pressure and should be able to adapt yourself better to change.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo: What is the risk involved in doing the same things or doing the same work or keeping the same habits? What short or long-term risks do your status quo results pose? What is the risk involved if you were to challenge your status quo? What can you do differently to improve yourself?

Identify the emotions behind change. You must identify what fears or emotions may be keeping you from changing. Unhelpful emotions can hold you in a status quo state. Emotions like fear of failure, or unwillingness to move out of your comfort zone or fear of the consequences of an unsuccessful implementation can keep you in Status Quo. Sometimes the root cause may be fear of additional effort required to implement a change, or to invest in time, money or other resources. You need to emotionally commit to the desired change.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo : Which emotions have strong hold on you? Which emotions are holding you back? Which emotions drive you towards change? Are you willing to move out of your comfort zone to challenge yourself?

Take responsibility. We talk about change but we don’t include it in our thinking or actions or decisions. We expect and maintain the status quo and want others to work on existing framework and not challenge them. This happens when we don’t take responsibility for the problem. You must be willing to reach out to others and new ideas. Also sometimes you might not be thinking in the right boxes to recreate growth or it might be uncomfortable for you to think outside the box. By being accountable, you will be able to challenge the status quo of your actions and decisions.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo: Are you willing to take responsibility for your ideas or choices or decisions? What needs to be challenged? Is there something that needs to be changed? What can you do differently to improve your status quo?

Be growth seeking. When you lack growth mindset, you cannot break down status quo bias or open to new possibilities to learn and grow. To challenge status quo, you need to think long-term and explore new insights, perspectives and ways to improve things.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo: What is your obstacle to growth? What behaviours are causing you negative outcomes? If you want your outcomes to change, which actions or behaviour you need to change? Which new ideas and perspectives you should be open to?

Evaluate your core values. Lack of honest evaluation of your current conditions, values, results and actions keep you in status quo thinking. How you approach change depends on your core beliefs and in how you view learning and improving yourself and other values.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo : What are your core values? Are your core beliefs aligned with desired change? What values are taking you away from moving forward in new and better direction? What values you need to embrace to progress in the direction of change?

Prepare your approach. If you are challenging long-standing attitudes or processes, you cannot just challenge them in a knee-jerk manner. Being passionate about change is admirable, but not able to present your ideas in a positive manner may lead to failure. You might face resistance while challenging status quo, especially in a workplace environment from your coworkers or superiors. Some may resist your efforts and think you are accusing them of doing something wrong. Some may even take changes you proposed personally or perceive them as self-serving, or inappropriate and reject them. In such situations, clearly communicate your intentions as to why you are challenging the status quo.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo : Am I presenting my suggestions in a positive manner? Does the proposed change leads to improvement? What actions can lead to positive change or increase productivity, efficiency or morale right now?

Improve your social environment. Your social environment like friends, family and co-workers play an important role in challenging status quo in progress oriented way. Your social interactions and relationships may hold you back in implementing the changes whether intentionally or unintentionally. You need ensure you have supportive, challenging and mutually beneficial relationships in place to enable you to successfully challenge status quo. Gather right allies to wheel and support you in the cause and change.

Questions To Challenge Status Quo: Is your social environment supportive of you? Do the people around you facilitate change you want to make? Are people holding you back in challenging your status quo?

Conclusion

Challenging status quo is not pointing out every little flaw and error or being rebellious. It has got more to do in making a positive or creative contribution that can improve your present situation. It is about bringing change by trying something new be it in your work, or personal habits, or in setting a new routine, or to implement new ideas in your business or workplace.

Measure your goals. Goals are nothing more than desired changes. You are choosing to maintain status quo if you don’t have concrete goals. To create the change you desire, you need to confront what has been simply accepted so far. Identity which areas of your life you are stuck in mediocrity and use the above strategies to challenge your status quo. The more you challenge the status quo, the more progress you will make towards your goals and objectives.

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How to get unstuck

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” – Mandy Hale

We all at times feel stagnated or emotionally stuck, worthless, and confused. These feelings often build slowly overtime and may evolve into anxiety, fear, depression or overwhelm. We all experience that feeling where we just don’t feel like ourselves anymore or we feel stressed, exhausted or irritable as though we are trapped and starting to question ourselves as to ‘is this the real me’? And we have all these goals we desperately like to achieve and somewhere along the way we have lost our drive and we lack forward momentum. It is like you’re doing the same old thing, but it doesn’t seem like you are actually getting anywhere. Instead of moving forward toward your goals, you feel as though you are just stuck at the same point going in circles. You then struggle and force yourself to work, to come up with ideas or to make things happen in such a state.

When you are stuck, things feel immovable, entrenched and even hopeless. This constant feeling of life should be different than it is makes you force yourself to do something and words like ‘should’, ‘have to’ and ‘must’ appear in your thinking. Being stuck is like you getting stuck in quicksand, the more you try to get out, the deeper you sink as your mind tends to push, control, and manipulate. We feel as if we simply cannot move on with our goals as if there was something that kept us from pursuing our dreams. As a consequence, we feel limited and held back without an idea how to break free from such invisible obstacles or limitations.

If you’re feeling stuck, this may be why

When you feel stuck, your mind is filled with confusion and inner conflict and you cannot see the possibilities all around you as you get caught up in the negativity, mistaken assumptions, and limiting beliefs. There are some valid reasons why you feel like you are stuck at the moment. Understanding these reasons can help you become aware of how you got yourself into such state.

Toxic emotions like shame, fear, guilt, anger or flawed can stifle your energy and prevent you from being yourself. When you get stuck, may be you spiralled off into a cascade of regrets about the past, worry about the future, or judgment about yourself. You keep repeating old thoughts and behaviours that no longer fit the current reality. Sometimes, your need to be right leads to conflict with others rather than understanding. You try to protect yourself from these unpleasant feelings by being overtly defensive in a way to avoid taking responsibility for your behaviour. These hidden toxic emotions often serves to keep you stuck.

Stuck in the past. When you want to move forward, our mind has a tendency to look to the past and tries to find solutions based on past or what it already knows. It might be your past failure or a deep-seated belief that might be keeping you stuck.

Fear of unknown. Whatever you fear limits you from moving forward. Fear of unknown sabotages your own progress. Living a life without risks might seem like a logical thing to do. But gets you used to your comfort zone and makes it difficult to ever break free from it. This habit leads you to become stuck in life.

Physical and mental exhaustion. We all try to fulfil our dreams through relentless effort and overcoming obstacles. While determination and focus are valuable qualities, expending need less energy, stress and exhaustion take over your life. When you are stressed, your attention gets scattered to pursue meaningful and purposeful goals making you feel stagnant.

Self-doubt and feeling unworthy

Self-judgment is one of the greatest reason that people get stuck. When you judge yourself as unworthy, you don’t believe in yourself or in your abilities. You keep your expectations low and resist the positive changes because you fear that you are incapable of reaching your desired outcome and remain stuck in an unchallenging position.

Constant disappointment. When you fail to meet your expectations or when you make mistakes or fail, you get disappointed. Constant disappointments make you feel helpless. As a result, you are stuck in the same situation unable to move forward towards your desired goals.

Lack of focus and purpose. May be you are stuck because you lack focus and purpose or you’ve set no goals. May be it is because you have no active passions or you have too much to handle and are unable to focus on your priorities. Lack of direction keeps you stagnant.

Limited perspective and hope. Wallowing in pessimism and constant worrying can keep you stuck in the same place. This not only limits your possibilities but also generates unhelpful emotions like frustration and hopelessness. Limited perspective holds you back from reaching your highest potential.

Lack of motivation. When you are not motivated intrinsically or if you are pursuing things that you are not passionate enough, you lack enthusiasm to take positive action or to move forward.

Being in ‘stuck’ state further manifests into

• Avoidance of people, situations and tasks

• Unproductive habits

• Criticizing others

• Procrastination

• Perfectionism

• Negativity

So, what can you do to get unstuck?

“Getting stuck is not a problem. Staying stuck is. Good learners practice getting unstuck.” – Alistair Smith

Having a clear understanding why you are stuck is the first step towards moving forward. Now since you have identified that there are changes that need to be made, the next step involves willingness to change and to make those changes to break free from feeling stuck. Here are some more strategies to get unstuck.

Improve your emotional agility

Certain emotional responses might cloud your perception of reality. Sometimes feeling stuck could be a response to exaggerated expectations. Be mindful and accept your difficult emotions to improve your emotional agility. Identify your toxic emotions to understand what they are telling you- what you can learn about your desires, boundaries, or needs. One way to get perspective on difficult emotions is to write them down. Call it, name it, and define it. Putting your emotions into words gives them less power. This doesn’t mean they won’t return, but you will be more prepared to not to get stuck. Also negative emotions can be clues to your deepest insecurities and to your inconsistencies. So, you can make small course corrections to move forward in right direction. Emotional agility is choosing how you will respond to your emotional warning system by loosening up, calming down and living with more intention.

Face your fears

If you want to get unstuck, acknowledge your fears and accept the situation you are in. Changing how you perceive your fears might not make your fears disappear but you can move ahead inspite of them. Don’t allow your fear of losing what you have to stop you from moving on. Try to think about the worst possible outcome of that which is causing you anxiety or keeping you stuck. It might be just your fear trying to persuade you to do nothing about your situation that is keeping you stuck. It is important to realise that you would be still be able to find a way out and can initiate positive change. Do not allow your perceived fear discourage you from making changes.

Broaden your perspective

Limited perspectives can decrease your ability to see existing opportunities. You feel as if you have seemingly impossible options to implement. Your limited thinking patterns and an array of unhelpful choices can contribute to the feeling of being stuck. It is your inflexibility what keeps you stuck. Instead of getting trapped by your limited perspectives and thinking patterns, try to explore new possibilities by learning new skills, insights, knowledge and information. Break yourself from negative beliefs and explore new perspectives by asking yourself, what reasons am I telling myself? What excuses am I making? What patterns am I seeing? Your excuses might be keeping you from moving forward. Think long-term and reconnect to broader perspective and improve your possibilities by opening yourself to new experiences and people.

Let go of past mistakes

Holding onto past failures and mistakes leads to self-doubt and decreases your self-belief. You might be holding yourself back from making certain decisions and choices because of your past regrets. This leads to indulging in unproductive and unhelpful habits like procrastination or self-sabotage. Do not allow your past mistakes and failures to keep you right where you are. stop rationalising and focusing on all the different reasons that keep you stuck. Learn from them by reflecting on them and put things in perspective to make sure that you don’t make the same mistake again. Taking some time out to reflect on all the successes you had and things you achieved can also help you to get unstuck.

Break unproductive routine

Feeling stuck can be the result of your unhelpful and unproductive habits or restraining routines. While we are creatures of habits, our habits can quickly become stale, leaving us feeling stuck or unsatisfied in certain areas of our lives. Developing certain habits and routines can be quite helpful as they provide a structure to work with. But at the same time, they can also limit your possibilities as some of them can be time-wasting and unhelpful. Stagnation often results when you continue to do the same thing over and over again for long period of time. Your usual routine can develop into restrictive rules and obligations. This regular routine can turn unproductive and needs to be broken in order to free yourself from feeling stuck.

Reevaluate your goals

At times, you might be stuck for all the wrong reasons. May be your goals are not serving your purpose or you are stuck because you are doing for someone else’s benefit. Asking yourself as to whether your goals are serving your present purpose or do they need to be modified provides forward momentum. Also prioritising those that are in alignment with your core values and life purpose can help you find the right motivation you need to move out of your stuck state. Gain clarity on why and what you are indulging in and what would you prefer to do instead. Set some new goals that you are passionate about and create a plan of action to get unstuck.

Conclusion

Do you feel that you have no traction in your life and that you are just spinning your wheels? What is stopping you? Is it your mindset, belief, fear or an excuse? Are your current patterns helping you in making progress? Or are you feeling stuck? Are your negative emotions dominating your life? What specific fears are keeping you stuck? How are your existing habits hurting you? What new habits could you develop to support your goals? Why must you get out of this stuck state? What changes can you make to get unstuck?

Asking yourself above questions can help you in arriving at possible solutions.

It is natural to feel stuck during some points in our life and these moments exist to remind us that we are always growing and evolving. If you feel stuck in some areas of your life, you don’t have to remain where you are. Remember that “stuckness” never has to be permanent. Even if you feel like you’ve been stuck forever, you always have the freedom to choose new goals by making small changes in your life to find your way out. With the help of the above strategies, identify the reasons and areas you need to work on and choose to make the necessary changes to create the forward momentum you need to achieve your goals.

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Why you should stop being so hard on yourself

 

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” – Mark Twain

When it comes to doing your work or getting what you want in life, having high standards can be a good thing. Being a perfectionist motivates you to go beyond your comfort zones and keeps you focused on your goals and leads to big rewards. Perfectionism is often considered as a positive trait when it comes to excelling academically and professionally. Because of this we tend to associate it with our self-worth and the drive to perfect everything starts from very young age to overcome fear of rejection or failure.

Perfectionism helps you do well in your career, academics, and to excel in your personal goals. And while it sounds positive on the surface, it has its downsides and can sometimes do more harm than good. Perfectionism can sometimes become too big a burden as it is always more demanding and time-consuming. It can turn you into an obsessive, restrictive, and stressed person for things you haven’t done perfectly and might cause you to place too much pressure on yourself. This can lead to feelings of unworthiness, depression, anger or frustration and can become detrimental to your well-being and success.

What is being a perfectionist?

Perfectionism is a personality trait whereby the individual sets high personal standards for their own behaviour and actions and can sometimes set the same expectations for others. Perfectionists tend to want or expect things to be flawless. Here are some signs that you are a perfectionist.

• You end up spending lot of your time just to perfect something,

• You have extremely high standards for yourself and others.

• You constantly wait for right moment to work on your goals so as to deliver best quality work.

• You are highly demanding, critical and exceptionally hard on yourself.

• You would like to do your work yourself rather than delegate.

• You think there is no room for mistakes and think you know what others should do.

• You feel anxious and stressed when something doesn’t conform to your approach or when things don’t go the way you want.

• You are highly organised and have a specific manner in which things should be done.

• You feel dissatisfied and feel like no matter what you do, it’s never good enough.

• You find faults in what you or others do.

• You avoid situations that could result in perceived failure.

Some of the above traits can be advantageous at times, but when you become overly rigid, it can have negative effects on your health, relationships and self-worth. Though many view perfectionism as a strength, it often gets in the way of achieving your goals. Perfectionists strive ṭo produce flawless work, and they also work more engaged and are motivated, always ready to push themselves to achieve that next big thing. However, they are also likely to be rigid, inflexible, and have a habit of getting overly critical with themselves. They hold excessively high standards to evaluate their and others’ behaviour, hold ‘all-or-nothing’ mindset and associate their self-worth to performing perfectly. They become over-stressed always pushing themselves to constantly do more and achieve more. While certain perfectionist tendencies might be beneficial, they can also clearly impair your productivity.

“Seeking perfection just ends up creating ridiculous amounts of stress and disappointment.” – Arielle Ford

The Downside of ‘Perfectionism’

According to research studies, perfectionism has an impact on a range of outcomes. According to them, individuals with higher levels of perfectionism experienced stress and emotional distress.

There are generally considered to be two significant dimensions of perfectionism. The primary being excellence-seeking perfectionism where there is excessive fixation on perfectionistic striving and refers to the individual themselves, whereby the person attempts or endeavours not to make mistakes and does their best to be as good as possible at whatever activity is in hand. People with this type of perfectionism not only evaluate their own performance but also hold high performance expectations for others in their lives.

The secondary being, failure-avoiding perfectionism which involves perfectionistic concern where they worry or feel anxious about making mistakes, they have doubts about their own actions, and feelings that there is a discrepancy between their own standards and their own performance or actions. They worry that others will negatively judge them for mistakes or failures and negatively react to situations that do not meet their exacting demands. The beneficial effects of perfectionism are stronger in excellence-seeking perfectionists where as the detrimental effects of perfectionism were stronger in failure-avoiding perfectionists. The research further shows there is no link between perfectionism and performance.

However, perfectionists have incredible work ethic and have what it takes to perform as they approach challenges with courage and motivation. But if left unchecked, perfectionism can sabotage your success. Here are some downsides to perfectionism.

• Perfectionists have a specific manner in which things should be done. Being detail oriented and getting obsessed with every single thing weighs them down. With the need to do things perfectly, they tend to put off the tasks for later time, some get in analysis paralysis and some even give up. Also due to extreme high standards, the targets stress them out and makes them procrastinate out of fear that they can’t meet the standards they have set for themselves.

• Trying to perfect every small thing ultimately leads to emotional exhaustion and wastage of time as they spend lot of time just to get simple things done to achieve that final perfect output. With the obsession ṭo achieve high standard, they try and try and strive to the point when it becomes detrimental to their health and relationships. They aim for high standards at the expense of their well-being.

• Perfectionists mostly compete against themselves and feel the need to be in control. Their perfectionist tendencies are not restricted to only their work, but also in managing other personal activities like cleaning, cooking, and parenting. Because they let their achievements define who they are, they often experience constant worry, unhappiness and feel nothing is ever good enough.

• Whenever something is perceived to have gone wrong, the perfectionists become extremely hard on themselves and are flooded with negativity thereby failing to learn from it or see it as the lesson that it is. They get depressed and feel everything must be their fault if they don’t achieve that perfect or desired standard.

• Having very harsh expectations of themselves, perfectionists are rarely satisfied with what they are doing. The always look for mistakes and issues to correct. This makes them often experience recurring feelings of dissatisfaction and regret over seemingly small things. They have difficulty in letting go of mistakes and imperfections and often mull over outcomes that don’t turn out as expected.

“The key to happiness is letting go of that idea of perfection.”– Debra Messing

How to balance your perfectionist tendencies?

Most part of your perfectionism might be a result of your passion about improving and giving your best at everything you do. If you are educated in an environment where success is extolled and mediocrity rarely regarded, you tend to achieve perfect standards in every area of your life making you an overachiever. Perfectionism is a healthy trait. To persevere in your goal-striving, you need to be positively motivated by high standards that can take you forward. But the problem comes when you get into a perfectionist mind trap and play host to a harsh inner-critic. You reach a point where your life seems to be programmed from a place of stress and fear rather than positivity or creativity. But with the right strategies, you can learn to recognise when you are bordering into the extreme perfectionist tendencies and moderate your behavior to overcone them. Here are some do’s and dont’s ṭo overcome extreme perfectionist tendencies.

1.Stop working when you feel you’re getting diminishing returns. Focusing on every detail and unimportant information drains you from getting more done. It is important ṭo ask yourself whether the details you have been obsessed about are essential to your end goal. If not, it is time to set them aside. Trying to push every little thing, especially the ones that do not affect what you are trying to achieve decreases your overall output. Check in with yourself when you are striving so hard for an external goal that it’s getting you down, and reassess your short and long term priorities before continuing on.

2.Avoid failure-avoiding perfectionism. Putting lot of emphasis on external achievements gets you wrongly associated with your self-worth and your perfection gets steered by a fear of failure. This leads to ‘all-or-nothing’ approach where you either do everything well or you don’t do it at all. Such mindset is self-defeating as no one achieves success without having failed in some form or the other. Everything happens in progression and not in all-or-nothing manner. Instead of seeing mistakes as failures, choose to see them as part of the learning process. Instead of trying to avoid mistakes and failure, reframe them as normal and as an essential part of your growth.

3.Stop self-criticism. The need for perfection makes you feel compelled to keep moving towards your goals with high standards and it’s easy to beat yourself up when things don’t go the way you want. Such situations can make your inner-critic quite harsh and strong. Check out the negative things you are saying to yourself in such situations. Ask yourself whether the need for perfection is self-driven or is it driven by your need for others to approve you. By understanding your motives, you can switch your negative self-talk to positive. Instead of blaming yourself, love and appreciate yourself.

4.Adjust your expectations. Have realistic expectations. It is impossible to do everything perfectly. Try to focus on the task at hand rather than running on what the end result will be. High standards and unrealistic expectations of yourself and others constantly make you disappointed and frustrated. Realise that you cannot control every situation and force others to meet your unreasonable expectations. Balance your pursuit of perfecting in all things with excelling in fewer and more important things. Choose tasks that are worth the effort and put your perfectionist traits to work on them.

5.Stop focusing on your achievements. Perfectionists tend to associate their self-worth and success with their achievements. When you focus on the outcome, you work towards pleasing others. Let go of comparisons and the need to prove yourself. Instead focus on the process and on your strengths and values. You are more than your goals and achievements. Treat your goals as guides and not as absolutes. Whether you have accomplished a particular task yet is not as important as the fact that you are progressing towards it.

6.Delegate and let go. As a perfectionist, it is tough to work with people as you may feel that it is easier and faster for you to do everything yourself as opposed to relying on others. You also may think having to rely on others is to deal with the errors and their imperfections. To achieve high standards, it is not possible to do everything alone. It is important that you find the right people and delegate your work by sharing your expectations with them. Allow yourself to let go of your expectations of them. Not everyone one will be able to measure up to your expectations.

7.Finally, Embrace mediocrity. The fear of being mediocre holds us back in many of our pursuits. But the key is to embrace certain imperfections. You dont have to be perfect to set out to accomplish your goals. Instead sometimes just getting started without worrying that you are good enough is also important. You can trust some of your imperfections and mediocrity without treating it as indicative of your abilities as a whole.

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

To conclude,

Are you a perfectionist? Does the pursuit of high standards weigh you down? Do you often seek to achieve a perfect standard so that others will see you as a success? Do you need to perfect every single thing you do at the expense of your health and relationships? Do you become extremely hard on yourself whenever something goes wrong? Do you constantly wait for the right moment to work on your goals? Do you feel anxious and stressed when things don’t go the way you want? Do you get stuck in ‘all-or-nothing’thinking? If your answer to the above is a ‘yes’, then it is time to balance your perfectionist tendencies. Use the above strategies to embrace your true self with some imperfections. Sometimes it is important that you should lay aside your perfectionism and let go of it to develop a healthy and a happier approach.