What does it mean to “feel stuck”?  I know what it feels like but I don’t know how to explain the feeling.  I once heard it equated to sitting in your drive way in a parked car with the vehicle on and simply revving the engine.

I think there is this idea that being stuck means not wanting to move or progress forward.  I have personally seen people react to someone that’s stuck in a way that suggests they believe the person who is stuck is void of ideas or wants to remain in that state.  Most times the opposite is true.  The individual normally wants to move forward and frustration sets in because they have “too many” ideas running through their heads.

Move Forward, Keep Your Head High, and Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You Down are all great sayings but are also meaningless to the person that’s stuck. Those ideas, while true, are as meaningful to someone who’s stuck, as telling a brand new mother of triplets to relax and get some sleep.  Life is sometimes complicated but it was designed with solutions to guide us.  One solution is revisiting our goals.

I love the game of football and if you ask most people, what is the first goal (objective) of football, I believe the answer that would top the list would be “to score touchdowns”.  While that sounds logical and is a part of the game, that is incorrect.  The ultimate goal is obviously to win the ball game and in the pursuit of that goal, the first objective is to get first downs if you play offense and to prevent first downs on defense.  Sometimes we become so focused on the big picture that we lose sight of our true game plan.

Sometimes in life, the goal posts get moved on us.

I have heard that statement many times but it’s false.  The goal posts don’t move, we just don’t adjust our play calling.  I have discovered that when I haven’t adjusted well, it’s not because of my plan, it’s because of not believing in my goal/purpose!

When I was growing up I was asked, “what do you want to be?” or “what are you studying in college?”.  The question was always posed in a singular context, never a plural one.  Yet, in the past, I have found myself discouraged when someone doesn’t believe in my purpose.  They aren’t supposed to!   It’s great when people latch on to our individual visions and regardless as to how “self-made” someone may proclaim to be, no one succeeds on their own.  In spite of that last statement being true and all of us needing a team to win big, we must never forget our singleness of purpose.  Purpose=solution.

I know well how frustrating it can be to remember or discover your purpose when you feel stuck, but even in those times there are things that  still make our hearts sing and dance.  Those things are the “plays” we need to call to achieve our first downs and move the ball.  Call those plays enough and eventually we will be able to raise our hands and yell, TOUCHDOWN!

 

 

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the music)