Most people will find themselves stuck in challenging or otherwise unpleasant circumstances at some point in their lives. While these can sometimes be due to the choices we make, they can also happen through no fault of our own, such as the company we’re working for going under, a sudden severe illness, the death of a spouse, and so on.
Yet some individuals remain stuck in the muck and mire indefinitely, while others eventually reach a much better place. And although luck definitely plays its part, those who fall into the latter category usually improve their state by making the following decisions, which thankfully, are available to all of us:
1. Accepting what is, rather than holding onto denial or illusions.
Denial can keep people stuck in places they don’t want to be because they refuse to accept the reality of the situation they’re in.
They make excuses, try to focus on the bright side, or hold onto hope that the solution to their problem will magically manifest before their eyes with no effort on their part.
It’s like they’re stuck inside a well, imagining that their rescuer will throw a rope down to them any minute now. Or convincing themselves that it’s not so bad at the bottom of this grotty, damp well, because the view is really beautiful from down here.
And while gratitude and remaining optimistic are absolutely beneficial, they can cross into toxic positivity if they prevent you from accepting reality and taking action.
Those who accept that they’re at the bottom of a muck-filled well are the ones who put real plans into action to get themselves out of it. They don’t try to paint it as anything other than what it is. They acknowledge it, have a good cry or scream about it, and then get on with finding a way to get out of it.
2. Conceding loss, but not accepting it as a permanent defeat.
Failure happens to everyone: that’s just a given fact. The key to overcoming failure rather than allowing it to crush your spirit forever is to concede the loss without making excuses as to why it happened, or getting sour over it.
Going this route gives you the opportunity to fully analyze the failure to determine what went wrong. From there, you can regroup and take a different approach in the hope of a better outcome the next time.
Accepting failure and learning from it keeps a person from getting stuck in defeated despair or from doing the same thing over and over again in the hope of getting a different result.
3. Choosing potential discomfort over familiarity.
A lot of people remain stuck because even though they’re not happy, familiarity is easy and comfortable. This often happens when people stay in miserable jobs, but it can just as easily apply to relationships or even living situations.
Whatever the situation, we can often only improve our lives if we are willing to step out of what’s familiar and tolerate a little discomfort and uncertainty.
For me, it was a romantic relationship. When I decided it was time to leave, I knew it was going to be an uncomfortable experience. I had a lovely flat in a Victorian brownstone with a massive garden, a part-time, low-stress job, plenty of time to follow my own pursuits… and all I had to do to maintain that was remain in a familiar, but ultimately unhappy relationship.
Some people in my position might have stayed put for the sake of maintaining such a comfortable life, but I couldn’t do that.
I knew the breakup was going to be stressful and uncertain. I had to work at a place I disliked for a couple of years to get my life back on track, while living in a dismal one-room flat that overlooked a parking lot full of garbage bins. And it was hard. But enduring that temporary discomfort allowed me to eventually cultivate the life of my dreams.
4. Acknowledging when help is needed, and asking for it.
Did you know that it’s literally impossible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps? This phrase, which is often used to encourage people to pull themselves up out of difficulty, was originally used sarcastically to describe a ludicrous, hopeless task.
We’re often encouraged to get ourselves out of tight spots by ourselves rather than making ourselves a burden to anyone else, but it takes a lot of courage and self-awareness to acknowledge that you’re in a position that you can’t get out of without assistance, and to ask for that assistance when it’s needed.
Sometimes, asking for help is the only way to free yourself from the quagmire you’re stuck in.
5. Recognizing how your own actions contributed to the situation so you don’t repeat past mistakes.
This requires a significant amount of self-awareness, which many people are neither willing nor able to delve into.
It’s quite painful to look at yourself and recognize which of your own actions caused you to author your own misfortune, and much easier to try to pin the blame on someone else instead.
Of course, some things truly do happen to us through no fault of our own. But those who stay stuck in bad situations of their own making or unhelpful behavioral patterns that are within their control are those who refuse to do that kind of self-analysis. Often, because it’s too painful for them.
And since they don’t learn to recognize their own contributions to the problem, they end up perpetuating the same unhealthy patterns.
6. Taking action instead of waiting for perfect timing.
There’s never going to be a “perfect time” to do something that’s important to you. Although it would be great if absolutely everything fell into ideal alignment, reality doesn’t work that way.
Even in circumstances that seem great, there will be flies in the ointment that prevent them from being completely ideal.
Those who wait for all the stars to align perfectly will remain stuck where they are, since no circumstances will ever be perfect enough in their eyes.
In contrast, those who make do with “good enough” adapt to the situation at hand, use what they can to their greatest advantage, and keep moving forward even if the terrain ahead is rockier than they’d like.
7. Identifying limiting beliefs and transcending them.
For a lot of people, the negative voice in their head that’s naysaying their hopes and dreams overrides any positive narrative or affirmations they’re trying to hold onto.
They’ll allow limiting beliefs like “I’m not smart enough” or “nobody is interested in what I have to say” to stop them from pursuing things that are important to them.
They identify with these slanderous, untrue phrases instead of analyzing and dismissing them, and remain stuck where they are as a result. In contrast, those who delve into these limiting beliefs do a lot of self-work to determine where they’ve stemmed from.
For one person, it might have been a parent or teacher who put them down instead of believing in them, leaving a negative narrative etched in their psyche. And for another, it may be crippling self-doubt because of their fear of potential failure.
If they can recognize the limiting belief for what it is, namely, nothing more than empty words that carry no real weight, they can begin to transcend them by replacing them with truth. For a deeply ingrained negative self-image, this work is going to be hard and will likely need professional support.
But doing the work allows them to move forward with confidence and hope, rather than remaining stuck due to a nasty lie holding power over them.
8. Letting go of unhealthy influences rather than staying out of a sense of obligation.
One of the most brilliant people I have ever known recently told me that she feels that she has wasted 30 years of her life because she didn’t have the strength to leave her husband.
They have a classic narcissist-empath pairing (she’s the empath, obviously), and every time she reached the limit of how much of his abuse she was willing to tolerate, he would cry and beg and plead for her to stay, and her compassion overpowered her sense of self-preservation.
Now she’s in her 50s with a slew of health problems, and she feels that she’s too old to change her circumstances. She greatly regrets all the times she could have chosen differently, such as prioritizing herself and her career over pandering to his needs and wants. But she did so because she didn’t want to live with the guilt of depriving him of “his person.”
While it’s by no means easy, people who have freed themselves from situations or environments that they are only remaining in out of a sense of obligation are often those who are willing to risk upsetting or disappointing others for the sake of their own long-term gain.
Of course, when it comes to toxic relationships in particular, there are times when leaving genuinely isn’t possible, at least not immediately. But whenever you can do so safely, freeing yourself from the unhealthy bond that is holding you back is the only way to reach a better place instead of being stuck in a hellscape forever.
Final thoughts…
Although a lot of the actions here come down to choice, that doesn’t mean that these choices are easy to make or that everyone is capable of taking action the way they’d like to.
There is no victim-blaming here: if someone is stuck in terrible circumstances due to past traumas, it will be incredibly difficult for them to pull themselves free from that muck on their own.
This is why it’s so important to ask for — and accept — help when it’s needed, so forward progress can happen with helping hands offering support.
