How to Get Unstuck Instantly by Doing One Simple Thing

standingonhead How would you like to get unstuck instantly in your life, mood, career, writing or other endeavor using one simple human behavior?

What if I told you that successful people use this behavior all the time to get unstuck and accomplish their goals? You would want to know about it, wouldn’t you?

Of course you would.

I share this with my coaching clients and use it myself.

Alright already, Flora! What is this one simple thing that will get me unstuck?!

Happiness researchers have discovered the one simple thing that gets us unstuck is intentional activity.

The Intentional Activity Theory

Humans are active creatures, spending energy on many projects and goals. When we get stuck such as in writer’s block or indecision about what direction to take in our lives, we stop taking action. The blocked writer sits there staring at the blank page. The career person in transition mulls over and over in his mind how indecisive he is. The entrepreneur freezes while creating her information product.

Simply explained, intentional activity is taking action on purpose, doing something, putting forth effort, doing something different.

Have you ever misplaced your keys and built up stress as you frantically wondered where you put them?
Then, you decided to give up the search and do something else, maybe go to the kitchen to make a sandwich or gather the books you’ll take with you when you find the keys.

Voila! When you returned to the room where you started, there the keys were, exactly where they were all along.

Another example. After working on my book for hours, I would occasionally get stuck. The next word would not come forth. The points I wanted to make were hiding out. When I recognized I was at an impasse, I would get up, leave the house and take a walk.

Why Intentional Activity Gets You Unstuck

Intentional activity works instantly because when you take action you put yourself in a different location, frame of mind and perspective. You interrupt the obsession, the mulling, the inner conflict, the fear.

All the world’s problems are not solved in this instant, but I assure you that you are no longer stuck at the same place where you were before.

What action is right to take to get you unstuck?

Almost anything that suits you that is different from what has you stuck.

Sometimes we are stuck waiting to have all the answers or while nursing the delusion of perfection.

To get team members past the fear that delays and kills projects, Seth Godin, master marketer created The Shipit Workbook. Seth believes that projects don’t fail because of lack of knowledge or concern, but because in teams everyone waits for instructions. No one wants to be the blame if things go wrong. Designed to be completed by a team, The Shipit Workbook enables a team to either complete a successful project, or realize the project is doomed and should be abandoned. Either way, it was taking action that got the team to the right conclusion.

Intentional Activity Gives You Valuable Information

Fail fast, fail cheap, and fail often is a common mantra of successful entrepreneurs.

When you have an idea for a product, service or business it’s important to do some planning, of course, but the sooner you can test your idea in the marketplace the faster you’ll know if there is a market and if your idea is viable. The early users of your idea can give you priceless feedback that enables you to make adjustments before you dump a huge sum of money taking an untested idea to completion.

When Walt Disney proposed the idea of Disneyland to bankers, he was already a successful graphic artist and movie maker, and yet he was turned away by bankers over 300 times before he finally found one willing to take a chance. After all, who could believe that such a preposterous idea would be work, much less be profitable. But Walt, familiar with rejection and failure, was undaunted.

Each fertile idea Disney proposed seemed to be met with skepticism. Naysayers saw Mickey Mouse as just another cartoon. His detractors predicted that movie goers would not sit through a full-length animated movie. And yet, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became one of the biggest grossing movies in movie history.

So, when you’re stuck, do something.

Take action.

Take a new action.

Go to another banker.

Take a new route.

Make some noise.

Call a potential client.

Take a nap.

Help somebody else for a while.

Stop tweaking with that proposal and mail it.

Get up on the other side of the bed.

What do you think?