The Best Ways To Get Out of a Rut

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy, it is what you think about it.”

Dale Carnegie

You are there, right? Or maybe, possibly, almost there?

In your rut, I mean.

If you aren’t yet, then HUGE kudos to you!! But many, many of us are. We feel defeated, tired, frustrated, land locked, irritable – shall I keep going?

For people who have been groomed by society to be on the go 24/7, this abrupt and immediate stop has absolutely challenged more than its fair share. And I don’t blame us! I don’t blame us for being all those things listed above. Because it is HARD. Right now, is hard.

But it doesn’t have to be. Or, it doesn’t have to be AS hard.

I love the quote that I put at the beginning of this article. Dale Carnegie is a legend in his own right – and I have used him in a myriad of ways throughout my blog. Whether you like him or agree with his teachings or not, he definitely has “something” in that quote.

We, as humans, are made up of our thoughts. We have opinions and ideas on anything and everything that enters our mind, and sometimes those thoughts err on the side of positivity, and sometimes those thoughts err on the side of negativity. And whether you like it or not, YOU control that. You control how you react in and to a situation.

Now, I am not saying that it is easy. Ummm, it is not. But, whether it is easy or not doesn’t negate whether it is true or not.

So, what can we do to get ourselves out of this little (or even sometimes, big) rut that we have found ourselves in?

I know for me, I absolutely cannot just change my way of thinking. If I am mad, I am mad. If my children are driving me batty, or I feel my frustration level rise, it stays high. I just seem to lack any and all capacity to reroute my way of thinking on the fly. So, I need to do something alternative. And for me, that alternative idea stems from keeping myself feeling fulfilled.

I am much less apt to snap, or get frustrated, or wake up on the wrong side of the bed, if I feel productive or if I am dabbling in something that brings me joy. How that looks can be posed in a variety of different ways, and that is what makes it so glorious – it can be customized to you! To get you started though, I will recount some of the ways that I use [most] to keep myself feeling fulfilled.

Start a Passion Project

HELLO, blog!! For me, my blog is definitely my passion project. I wake up every day excited to work on it. Mostly, I just want to keep writing articles – ha! – but there is also a lot of behind the scenes stuff that has to be built and applied.

My blog allows me a place to let my creativity out, it gives me a forum to practice writing (something that I really enjoy doing and missed greatly when I had let it go), and gives me a way to share my thoughts and to help others. I am not one to post anything controversial on my Facebook page or within Twitter (you should definitely follow me on both, by the way), because I really dislike confrontation. And not that I post about real controversial issues here, but I at least know that within my own blog, whatever I say is “safe”.

Your passion project can be anything that you like – and anything that gets your creative juices going. Get yourself that Cricut you have been drooling over and create some logos. Or, start a bead-making business, or take some of your extra time and start perfecting those cake decorating skills. A passion project can be anything you like, as long as you are PASSIONATE about it!

Participate in Positive Forums

For me, this means Goodreads. I have been a member of Goodreads since forever (I don’t know, like 8 years). I love to read and I love to write book reviews and I love to discuss storylines – so Goodreads was a natural place for me.

Forums are great because they allow you to stay active and engaged within a topic that you enjoy, and you can interact in a community of people who are like-minded. The one thing you need keep in mind when looking for a forum to get involved in, is the word positive. You know as well as I do that you can find negativity in almost any route you take online these days. So, make sure that you are seeking out places that are going to bring you joy and happiness, as opposed to conversations or interactions that are going to fire you up.

Book Clubs

Let’s just stick with this reading trend while we are on it, shall we?

It was about 5(ish) years ago when I said off-handedly to my teaching partners that I wanted to be in a book club. They just looked at me and said, then why don’t you start one? – like it was the most natural thing in the world. I remember just sitting there for a second thinking, I can do that? (WHY I can’t seem to see that I have the power to implement things on my own, I will never understand.)

But, starting a book club is just what I did.

And we are still going strong! Some of our members have changed over time, but we have grown to the perfect size of eight.

Right now would be a little more challenging to begin a book club, simply because we are under quarantine with COVID-19. However, you can still do it, perhaps just a little more creatively (work around those challenges!).

Start by reaching out electronically to people whom you think would be interested (feel free to start small in the beginning if that makes it easier). Then, plan your first meeting through an online platform – Zoom, Skype, Google Meets, etc. You can also spend some time figuring out who will pick the first book, how long everyone has to read it, and what the meeting itself will look like once you get there. The rest should fall into place!

At Home Projects

So my husband is definitely better at this than I am (at least regarding BIG projects) but I hold my own in the organization side of things.

I am sure that everyone feels the way that we feel: there is never enough time to get everything done. Well, for some of us, we have more time now then we used to. Why not take that time to accomplish some of the tasks that you keep putting off?

Organize those bathroom drawers that have become a DISASTER (stay tuned for a picture when I did just that); clean out your fridge (yup! I did this, too); build the shelves that she has been dying for in her laundry room (uh huh – just wait until you see them!).

Or, if inside work isn’t your thing (or the outside needs tending more), then work on some curb appeal. Rake up everything that you didn’t rake from the fall; plant some veggies or new bushes (if you live in an area or during a time of year that is conducive to this); power wash your siding; bring your deck furniture back out and hang that spring sign on your door. I never feel better than when the outside of my house looks its best.

Really, what this is all about, is finding areas where you can feel successful. Because being in a rut – whether it is because you are newly stuck inside, because your routine has drastically changed (and perhaps not for the better), or because you have fallen off the wagon of an eating plan or workout regiment – they all boil down to you losing an element of success. And once you find a new way of feeling successful (or even an old way that you have resurrected) you will find yourself slowly but surely, climbing out of that rut.

I promise.