How to Get out of a Rut

 What is a rut?

It’s a feeling of being stuck, feeling unmotivated, feeling too overwhelmed to move forward. It’s a brain fog that’s causing you a mental block, and it’s holding you back. It may be trying to protect you from fear or uncertainty by preventing action, but by its very nature it means you’re not taking action, and you’re not doing the things you probably know you need to do. But how can you do anything when you feel so miserable? It’s not a nice place to be. So let’s accept that we are in such a place and let’s get out of it.

Identify why you are in a rut

Once you identify the core reason you are in a rut, you have identified the problems that need addressing. But how can you work on these problems if you are too overwhelmed to even think and lacking an ounce of motivation to even meet your own basic needs?

Lock away those problems in a mental container to be revisited later, and put your focus right now on getting your mental state better by getting yourself out of the rut you are in. Give yourself a recovery day to follow the steps in this guide to get yourself out of the rut.

If you aren’t taking care of yourself, then you won’t have the energy to do anything else, which is why self-care is one of the most pivotal foundations in getting yourself out of a rut.

So, ready? Let’s do this!

Steps to get out of a rut

  1. Go to the gym: this will get you going outside and boost your energy levels. The endorphins released will also help you see things from a different perspective.
  2. Try a new recipe: go shopping for some high quality ingredients and cook slowly and eat mindfully, savouring each bite. Go for warm comfort foods that relax you and familiar flavours that you enjoy.
  3. Clean your environment: a clean environment will help your mind to reset and make you feel comfortable. Perhaps just do one room, but do the activity itself slowly and mindfully. Getting rid of junk and making a place clean gives you a sense of accomplishment.
  4. Go for a walk: connecting with nature helps change your mental state. Better still if it’s a new place. I use the AllTrails app to discover new walks.
  5. Journal: spend some time to write down everything that’s on your mind and empty your thoughts. This will give clarity on what you need to work on.
  6. Plan: think of ideas to get yourself on the path of getting things done. Now prioritise your most important tasks. Of the most important task, just state the first step you need to do, however small, and do just that one thing. It’s better than nothing and gets you started on the right track.
  7. Sit and stare: sometimes you’re too overwhelmed to take any action at all. This method involves just sitting down and doing nothing, for as long as it takes, until you become so bored that you end up eventually doing that one thing in step 6 for the sake of it.

Goodbye rut, for now

Hopefully, by following these steps, your mental state is in a much better place. You may have developed new ideas or perspective and taken steps to put yourself in a different environment, hence changing the environment of your mind.

Doing that one thing builds momentum and gets you back on the right track.

This method doesn’t solve all the problems in your mental box which you stored away earlier, but it gets you in a different state of mind to be able to deal with them more effectively.

It releases you from that “stuck” state of mind to a more “let’s move forward and do what needs to be done” state of mind. Hope this helps, and bookmark it for the next time you get back into a rut.

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