Hello, and welcome back to Advice Session, a series here on Anything Goes where you send in your current dilemmas or anything that you want advice on, and I give you my unprofessional advice.
And today's topic is what to do when you're stuck in a rut.
To be honest, I feel like I've been in and out of a rut consistently for the last 10 years of my life, and I'm starting to wonder if that's just what adulthood is, constantly teetering between being in a rut in having shit together, which sounds a little bit pessimistic, but I don't mean it that way.
I think as you get older, shit gets real, you know, and when you're a kid, you don't even have a frontal lobe.
It's like you don't even know what's going on.
So life just seems less challenging for the most part.
And then you become an adult and your frontal lobe develops so you can comprehend how complex life is.
And then on top of that, of course, you have all these responsibilities.
And it gets harder and harder to keep it together.
Although I'm hoping that the frequency of being stuck in a rut goes a little bit something like this, okay?
When you're a kid, like a kid, like five to 10 years old, you don't really get stuck in a rut very often because, again, you don't have a frontal lobe and you also don't have responsibilities.
And there are definitely tough moments as a kid.
There's some horrible moments as a kid, but you don't really get stuck in a rut when you're a kid.
So the rut frequency is low.
And then you get into your teenage years and into your young adult years and, whoa, it feels like you're stuck in a rut all the time, which I think sort of makes sense because there's a lot of changes happening.
You're having a lot of thoughts and feelings for the first time because your frontal lobe is developing.
It's a really tough time.
It's a really confusing time.
Responsibilities are coming in at an alarming rate.
It's all happening.
It's all very overwhelming.
It's your first time doing a lot of hard stuff.
So you get stuck in a rut really easily.
Life gets you down pretty easily.
And then I'm hoping, because I can't say for sure because I'm 23, but I'm hoping that after that things get easier and easier and easier until you die.
That's what I'm hoping for.
I'm hoping that the frequency of getting stuck in a rut lightens up a bit over the next 30 to 40 years for me, crossing my fingers.
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Now let's get back to the episode.
To be honest, this topic today, what to do when you're stuck in a rut, is so relevant because I have been stuck in a little rut for the last few weeks.
And I know I say that a lot.
I don't just say it to be on theme, okay?
Listen, I would absolutely love to sit here and be like, I'm coming at you from a really strong place.
And I'm going to give you advice on how to get yourself out of a rut, because look at me, I'm not in one.
No, wrong. I'm totally in one.
I don't know, there's something about the holidays.
I spent a lot of December sort of relaxing.
And I kind of had some goals of like, you know, this is going to be my winter arc, fuck it.
Like, let me try to do the whole winter arc thing.
And like, I'm going to, you know, set all these goals for myself.
I'm going to read a book and I'm going to wake up early and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that.
And listen, the winter's not over.
Okay. I could still execute on those things, but I found myself exhausted during the holidays.
So then I ended up failing at that, which is ironic because I made a whole episode about, well, I, I think, you know, making lifestyle goals for yourself like that can be really positive.
And, you know, as long as you don't put pressure on yourself and all this.
And then I proceeded to put pressure on myself and then sort of fail, which again, it's not too late.
It's still the winter, but it kind of made me feel bad about myself.
And I've just been, you know, overthinking, you know, my life and career and everything a lot.
I don't know. I've just, I've been in my head a lot, getting in my own way a lot, being really hard on myself.
My self -esteem is down.
It's just a mess. Okay.
So I'm in a little rut.
And yesterday was the worst day yet.
I had a fucking meltdown because I woke up and I was like, today's going to be different.
Today is going to be better.
Today is going to be the day that we get back to it.
Okay. Today's going to be the day that we stop, you know, procrastinating and, and getting in our own way.
And guess what I did?
I really got my own way yesterday to a point that I put so much pressure on myself to overperform yesterday that I ended up freezing and getting nothing done.
And then the guilt of that made me completely spiral.
Anyway, you guys, let's not talk about that anymore.
Let's get into your problems.
Okay, enough about mine.
Let's talk about your problems now.
Let's begin. Okay, somebody said, I've been stuck in the house way too much and I've gotten use of the isolation.
I want to get out more, but I don't even know where to start.
How do you find things to do?
Okay. I could be totally off base here, but this statement sort of reminds me of when someone goes into their closet and they have a closet full of clothes and they're like, I have nothing to wear.
The problem is not that you have nothing to wear.
It's that you hate all your clothes, right?
And in that situation, you either need to go into your closet with fresh eyes, sort of tweak your perspective.
And instead of looking at all your clothes, like old memories and old Instagram photos that you've posted in the past and, you know, outfits that you've worn on a night out and outfits that you've worn 20 times to work or school, go into your closet and look at everything for what it is.
You know, pieces of clothing are all building blocks.
We can sometimes start to perceive our clothing negatively for various sort of irrational reasons because we've worn.