Do you feel like you are destined for more than the path you are on currently? Occasional daydreams of a different life, that in the moment of reflection feel possible. Working less, feeling healthier, changing your career, moving to a different area, finding a new hobby, making new friends or just taking a leap of faith with something different. Fleeting glimpses of a future you that is happier and living a fuller and more rewarding life.
Does this sound like you?
You’re not sure why, but something doesn’t feel right with carrying on living the way you are. Accepting the status quo. Groundhog day. You need to change something, but don’t know where to start. If only it was that easy. To just do something different. To break the habits of a lifetime.
If this is your narrative and some of the things that are going on for you right now, I would suggest that you are not achieving your full potential. All the signs are there to change something, but you’re feeling a bit stuck. The discomfort is enough to cause you concern. And you’re not happy with the way things are.
Feeling stuck is completely normal. Nothing to be overly concerned about. You feel a bit stuck for a while. You ask for help and work through it. (So many people won’t ask for help and stay stuck – good for you if you’re great at asking for help). You change something. You don’t feel stuck anymore. You move on. Life is good again.
Then there’s a different kind of stuck. The kind of prolonged stuckness that has been going on for months, maybe years, possibly decades. This kind of stuck is not healthy and eats away at you from the inside. You try to find ways to keep it suppressed, but it keeps popping its ugly head up. “I’m here, I’m not going away.”
Are you properly stuck?
If you’re properly stuck. My first piece of advice would be to ask for help. I wrote an article about asking for help a couple of years ago, that may just provide the insight that you need. Give this a read and ask for help.
If you don’t feel that asking for help will do the trick, you need to find a way of getting to the root cause of the stuckness. A tool that I have been using for over a decade that works well, is the Wheel of Life (see image below).
When you are in a state of flow and heading towards your full potential, your satisfaction score will be high across many segments on the Wheel of Life. Your life will be in balance due to the efforts you are putting into your own growth and development, and how you are interacting with the world and other people.
Try it now. Provide yourself with a satisfaction score out of 10 for each of the segments in the Wheel of Life.
Has the Wheel of Life offered some insight into where the root cause may be?
You may have one clear area that you are not satisfied with. One area that you feel is the biggest contributor to you feeling stuck. Or you may have a few areas that you are less satisfied with, that as a collective are causing the feeling of stuckness.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always got, so if you want the score on your Wheel of Life to be different, you will need to change something.
There are two approaches to this and I will share both of them with you.
Approach 1: Define what brilliant would look like and then make it happen
When I ask people to score the Wheel of Life, most people haven’t defined what brilliant would look like first in each of the segments. I would take some time to reflect and write down for each segment what would brilliant would look like for you.
Example. For the Personal Development segment for me, brilliant would look like… having the opportunity to try new things and stretch myself on a monthly basis and feel like I am growing towards my true potential. My satisfaction score with this will be based on how I feel about it, and not how much I am doing.
This will take some time and quality reflection time. Don’t rush it. When you’ve done this, I would score yourself again against your brilliant life. Things may change when you know what it is that you really want from life.
Now set yourself a goal for one of your segments. For my Personal Development brilliance, I need to make sure I have something new to do every month. Get it booked in and do it. If I don’t research and book it in, it won’t happen.
I appreciate that if you’ve got a segment that you’re stuck with and feeling down about it, committing to doing something is going to be hard. Get yourself an accountability buddy or a coach if what you are about to embark on is going to be a big change for you. Having someone in your corner that can act as a sounding board will be of huge value.
Approach 2: Change your perspective
I asked a few people recently about a good glamping site to visit for a long weekend in Wales. I got a few responses, and two of them were quite extreme, so I asked for more details.
One of them said, “do not go to this site, it was awful”. The staff were miserable, the towels in the toilets were never clean, people were noisy on the site, the food was cheap and nasty, and it took over 2 hours to get there. Don’t bother, it was rubbish.
The other extreme was, “it was the best site we’ve ever been to, you would love it”. Colin the site owner is a bit quirky, but when you get to know him, he’s such an interesting guy, he shared loads of stories about the local land, and the best places to visit. The site had such a great atmosphere, and real community feel where everyone was having fun together. The fresh pizzas from the pizza oven were amazing. Great slow and steady drive down through the Welsh countryside too. It was bliss. I would just take your own towels. We always do anyway.
When I asked where each of them had been, by some strange coincidence, they had both been to the same glamping site. Same place, but a very different perspective.
Is this you? Are you viewing your own life in the same way? Seeing all the negatives and all the things you are not happy with. Not the amazing things that are happening around you each day. It could be that your low Wheel of Life Scores are down to perspective. One for you to reflect on.
Conclusion
Being grateful for what we have is as much a part of achieving our true potential, as exploring new territories and what is yet to come. We can miss what is right in front of us because we are chasing what’s next. I will be happy when…
Achieving your full potential is a lifelong journey of experiences that help you to connect with the true essence of who you are. We don’t want to be in a place of stuckness for too long, nor do we want to be chasing shadows that are not meant for us, but we know deep down when things are not right, and we need to change.
If this is you, what do you need to change? What do you need to start doing? What do you need to stop doing? Is it a physical thing or is it your mindset?
Want some help getting unstuck and achieving your true potential?
Feeling stuck is not a great place to be, but there is only one person that can change this, and that is you. Would like some help in getting unstuck and discovering your true potential?
I am running a 2 Day Retreat – Discover Your True Potential – to focus on just that, with a group of up to 9 like-minded people in the glorious British countryside. Would you like to be one of them? Are you the kind of person that would take the red pill and wake up to what is really going on for you?
I have been delivering SELF Discovery retreats and helping industry leaders find their path of personal transformation for over 10 years. I have a unique and unconventional style that brings together the worlds of business leadership, modern psychology and deep experiential learning. Having recently completed my Firewalk Instructor and Breakthrough Empowerment Coach training, I will be adding a new dimension to this retreat that will take groups to new levels of SELF Discovery.
Please request a brochure if this is of interest to you: https://www.manufacturersalliance.co.uk/events/2-day-retreat-discover-your-true-potential/
This article has been written by Founder & Managing Director of the Manufacturers’ Alliance, Gary Sheader. He has been supporting business leaders in reaching their true potential via high impact learning retreats for well over a decade. He is keen to help modern leaders find their true purpose in life and enjoy their own authentic leadership journey.
