Life can be hard. Sometimes, you’re just minding your own business and BOOM, you run straight into a brick wall. Maybe you’ve been scraping by and trying to succeed, maybe you’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity to roll around, but whatever it is, that wall can be so demoralizing.
What about all my progress? What about my goals? My future? My dreams? Well, if you want to get that far, you need to know how to keep moving forward when times are hard.
So how do you do that?
1. Shift your perspective.
The average person has a poor perception of failure. Obviously, right? It’s failure! Well, what if failure wasn’t a wall that stopped all your progress? What if failure could be a valuable learning tool that teaches you what hasn’t worked, so it can point you in the direction of something that does?
Psychology Today informs us that this is what is called a “growth mindset,” a phrase you will hear often in self-help spaces. It’s not about toxic positivity or not accepting that sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s more that sometimes, a wall isn’t as solid as you think it is.
Alternatively, there may be a path that leads in a different direction from that wall. It may be difficult to see if you aren’t used to looking for other opportunities that might be available. A lot of folks get wrapped up in their sadness over something not working and drown themselves in that instead.
2. Take smaller steps.
Big goals can be overwhelming when you feel like you’re stuck. The best way to handle that is to break a big goal down into smaller, tangible goals that will get you closer to success. Goal-setting is a solid way to make progress in life, because the small goals help you build momentum toward the bigger one.
How do you do that? Well, I personally suggest the SMART system for goal-setting. SMART is an acronym that stands for “Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-Bound.” Every goal should have those five pieces of the puzzle.
It needs to be specific. If it’s not specific, then you won’t be able to measure your success. It needs to be measurable. Does the goal have a success or fail state? It needs to be actionable. Is it reasonably possible to actually accomplish the goal? It needs to be relevant. The small goal should be one step on the path to the big goal. It needs to be time-bound. Open-ended is not conducive to progress.
Let me give you an example. I wanted to lose weight. Well, on the one hand, I could say “I want to lose 50 pounds!” Okay, but that’s not an actionable goal. It doesn’t direct me at all on how to get there. Instead, what I opted to do was eat at a calorie deficit. Every day, I would eat no more than 1500 calories.
Let’s run that through the SMART filter. Is it specific? Yes. I’ll eat no more than 1500 calories. Is it measurable? Yes. I either meet that goal or I don’t. Is it actionable? Yes, after consulting with my doctor, we decided that 1500 calories was a healthy target for weight loss. Relevant? Yes. The small goal will lead to my bigger goal of losing 50 pounds. Time-relevant? Yes. 1500 calories per day. That is what a SMART goal looks like.
3. Take time to rest.
It’s interesting the way the brain works sometimes. I recall years ago in school, our teacher gave us a piece of advice: “If you’re angry or frustrated, take a break. Come back to it later with fresh eyes.”
And why is that? Well, it’s because when you’re frustrated, stressed, or angry, you’re not thinking clearly. You’re angry, or you’re desperate for this result, so you keep trying to make the stupid thing work, but it won’t! I know this shouldn’t be a barrier, but it is! What do I do about it?!
Rest. Take some time to rest, don’t think about the problem, and resolve some stress and frustration. Rest is invaluable, yet our society glorifies the lack of need for a rest. People draw comparisons to “working like a machine,” but ask any blue-collar worker what happens when you don’t properly maintain your equipment.
Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what happens. It stops working, usually in spectacular fashion, and costs a fortune to fix. Or, you have to buy a new one, which isn’t really an option when it comes to people.
If you hit a wall, take a break. It’ll still be there for you when you get back to figure it out. And, you may come back to it with a much clearer perspective and solution. I can’t tell you how many times I put a problem down, came back to it later, and immediately found a solution.
4. Seek fresh input.
Everything looks harder when you’re trapped in your head for too long. You get yourself on this one particular path of perception, interpreting a problem one way. As you get angry or frustrated, you may not be seeing the problem in the right context. It happens to everyone.
It’s worthwhile to talk about your issue with someone you can trust, like a mentor, coach, counselor, or supportive friend. They will likely be able to provide you with insights that you hadn’t considered and give you ideas on how to get around the wall. Furthermore, they may actually be able to see a hidden door in your wall that you missed.
Sometimes, just talking about it can help you sort through it, too. You engage different ways of thinking and different parts of your brain when you’re trying to explain something to someone.
5. Reconnect with your “why.”
Thrive Counseling shares that motivation is fleeting, which is why discipline is so important. Still, when you feel your motivation waning and you want to get back on track, it helps to look back on your “why”. Why did you start this journey in the first place? Why did you make the choices that you did? Anchoring back to your purpose can help you push forward with clarity.
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “He who has a ‘Why’ to live for can bear with almost any ‘How’.”
Why is powerful. It can get you moving again when you’re stalled. It can help you feel purpose when you feel lost. It offers clarity when you feel confused. It gives meaning to our suffering because it makes our suffering into something more transformative rather than just being miserable.
That is not to suggest that “everything happens for a reason.” Terrible things happen to innocent people who don’t deserve it every day. That’s just life, unfortunately.
6. Be open to change.
Let me be blunt – sometimes the wall is there because you’re on the wrong path. You can interpret that as failure, or you can interpret it as something that is not working for you. Humans thrive on adaptability. It’s what helps us survive in circumstances that may not always be the best.
You can’t cling stubbornly to that which is not working in the hope that it’ll work out. At some point, you have to be willing to cut your losses and choose a different direction. Well, how do you know when to do that?
That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? If only we all had the wisdom and foresight to know when we were just fruitlessly bashing our heads against a wall, trying to make progress that just isn’t going to happen. Unfortunately, it’s usually something you have to figure out on your own, or with the help of someone knowledgeable about the problem. Talk therapy can help.
Final thoughts…
You will hit walls in life. It’s unavoidable. Even the best laid plans can fall apart when unforeseen circumstances start cropping up. But what do you do? Do you give up? Do you keep staring at the wall, hoping it’ll move? Or do you pivot and look for another direction?
The relationship that so many people have with failure prevents them from succeeding. Too many people just give up when they hit the wall, rather than looking for other ways forward.
Don’t give up. A wall doesn’t have to be an end.
