Getting Majorly Unstuck

When you start feeling discouraged, anxious, or overwhelmed, that means it’s time to STOP and become AWARE of what is happening.

Many of you have heard of the “Wheel of Life.” It’s something you can use to guide yourself as you look at your life and focus your personal growth. You choose the main elements of your life, and evaluate them one at a time to see where you need to make the most progress.

But sometimes we’re not in a place to think about our “overall personal growth.” We’re facing a challenge. We need to make a change. We’re stuck.

The Wheel of "Stuckness"

Sometimes our “stuckness” feels like an overarching thing. It isn’t that this one thing in our lives is stuck—we feel that WE are stuck! Unfortunately, unless you’re physically stuck in a hole somewhere, “getting unstuck” isn’t a very clear objective!

So, I’ve created my own little “Wheel of Stuckness!” Click to Download it Here.

STEP 1:

Check out the 2 Wheel Diagrams. See the major zones of life. (You can adjust these to be the 8 major areas of your life if yours are different.) Print the diagram if you’d like to make this exercise super tangible.

STEP 2:

Start with the first circle. This is the WILD Wheel. Go ONE AREA AT A TIME, and evaluate on a scale of 1-5 how long it has been since you’ve tried something new in that area. This is your WILD score.

If you put a 1 in a section, it means you can’t remember the last time you tried something new, made a change, or done things differently. Maybe you’ve been avoiding risk. You’ve been distracted with other things. Maybe you feel like this area is fine, and believe that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

If you give yourself a score of 5, that means you’re constantly trying new things. You’ve taken a risk really recently, or you’re still in the process of adjusting to the big change you’ve made.

Once you’ve chosen a number 1-5 for every slice of the WILD Wheel, move on to the next step.

STEP 3:

This is the BRAVE Box. Just like before, go ONE AREA AT A TIME, completing each line from the top down. This time, though, ask yourself this question:

“If I were to break out and move forward in this area of my life, what would be the one forward step I could take?”

STEP 4:

If you have an answer to the question in Step 3, check the box at the front of the line. If you can check that box, it means there is something you already know to do that can break you out of being stuck in that area! All you need now is to be BRAVE enough to take that step.

Why We're Stuck

One thing I’ve found to be true is that we usually aren’t stuck because we don’t have any clue what to do. We’re stuck because we have closed ourselves to change and or haven’t marshaled our bravery to do what we know we should do.

Why do I evaluate these as two separate elements? Take this example, and see what it can do.

Interpreting Your Score

Say for example, I gave myself a Wild Score of 1 in the area of career, and I have my Brave Box checked. That means I may need BIG bravery in order to take that step. If I’ve got that 1 Wild Score, it means I haven’t gotten out of my comfort zone in that area for a while. Using the Wild Wheel, I can prepare myself and recognize that there’s a reason I haven’t branched out before now—it is going to take more than your average bravery to make that change! By recognizing the size of the bravery required, I can prepare myself appropriately and end up having much greater success making the change.

If, in another example, I gave myself a Wild Score of 5 in the area of health, but I couldn’t check the Brave Box for that area, it tells me something important. It means that even though I’ve been trying lots of things, I’m at a point that in order to break out, I need some outside insight. Being brave means taking an intentional step. If you’ve tried all the wild things you could think of, and exhausted your ideas for how to change things it means you no longer have the clarity necessary to take an intentional step. The next step then, is to reach outside for fresh, reliable ideas in order to make bravery possible.

Whether you’re using this wheel for yourself, with a friend, or one of your coaching clients, it will do one major thing: You can see in black-and-white that you aren’t stuck in EVERY way, and you DO have a next step that can be taken. If you use it honestly, it can help turn that feeling of being “completely stuck” into the clarity that says “it may be hard, and will require change, but if I do ______, I don’t have to stay stuck forever.”

Get Wild + Brave

Schedule a Free Coaching Session to learn more about what Wild + Brave can look like in your life. Get unstuck and stay unstuck - all the way to your next breakthrough!

If you're looking for a scientifically-based way pathway to getting fully in the driver's seat of your own life, check out our Wild + Brave Life in 90 Days, the most powerful coaching program we've ever designed. What would YOU do if you were brave?