It’s more than likely that at some point during your life, you will feel as though you’re stuck in a rut. Whatever the cause of that feeling, it’s a tough one to shake: you might feel like you can’t do anything about it at all. I don’t think that is the case, and, in this piece, I want to address how I try to get myself out of the feeling that I’m stagnating in my life.
I’ll start this piece with a quick description of what it feels like to be stuck in a rut in life, and, from there, make some recommendations for some practices that seem to help me.
The Dreaded Rut
For me, being stuck in a rut usually starts with forgetting what day it is. When days all start to look alike in terms of routine and tasks accomplished, they begin to blend together. Wake up, work out, commute, write, teach, write some more, check emails, go home, and prepare for the next day. While it’s certainly a productive day, they get stale fast.
Of course, all of those things are necessary. It’s not like I can simply take a few weeks off to find myself on the side of a mountain trial or any of the usual things that I do to get refreshed and ready to engage with my days a little more actively. After a while, this sameness of a routine of everyday activities can start to feel a little overwhelming: not only are the days the same right now, the sense goes, but they’ll always be like this.
That thought is not a totally rational one, and fighting against it is going to be key in making me feel more like I’m in the driver’s seat of my own life again. So, how do I do that/