{"id":124622,"date":"2024-03-15T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T18:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=124622"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:43:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:43:48","slug":"feeling-stuck-in-life-and-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/feeling-stuck-in-life-and-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling Stuck in Your Life and Career? Here’s What’s Causing It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Are you feeling stuck<\/a> in your life and career? What are the mental barriers you must overcome to reach success?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A problem you’ll probably face in life is hitting a wall, whether it’s in your career, an important relationship<\/a>, or a creative endeavor. Adam Alter breaks down some common characteristics of this experience, from the inevitable slowdowns in the middle of long-term projects to the traps that can sabotage progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s look at the factors that are keeping you stuck in a mental hole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

When You Feel Stuck<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When discussing the blocks that leave you feeling stuck in your life and career, we\u2019re not talking about small everyday challenges such as making a difficult phone call or fighting the urge to skip your regular workout. The major life-blocks that Alter addresses are those in which your progress on something important to you has stalled long enough that it\u2019s wearing you down<\/strong>, and whatever you\u2019re doing to fix the situation hasn\u2019t been working at all. Maybe you\u2019ve been applying for jobs without success, or you\u2019re trying to lose weight but the pounds won\u2019t come off. The situation feels like an existential threat<\/a>, and your brain shuts down like a deer in the headlights, further tripping up any chance of progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: This sensation of feeling mentally frozen is an unfortunate side effect of how your brain is wired. Alter doesn\u2019t delve into the science behind it, but, in Emotional Intelligence<\/em><\/a>, Daniel Goleman explains how your amygdala, the part of your brain that generates your emotional states, can hijack your rational mental functions by reacting to emotional threats as strongly as it does to physical danger. If the amygdala\u2019s emotional signals are strong enough, they create static in the brain\u2019s prefrontal cortex<\/a>, disrupting your ability to complete tasks<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve been in a drawn-out situation where you felt you had no way forward, you\u2019re not alone. Alter reports that, in a study he conducted, three out of four people could easily point to a time in which they\u2019d felt trapped in a rut<\/strong>, often for months and sometimes for years. (Shortform note: One study found that 61% of Brits<\/a> felt trapped in a rut. Although this number is lower than Alter\u2019s figure, it still shows that more than half of people feel this way\u2014an indication that it\u2019s a common occurrence.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, says Alter, respondents underestimated <\/em>how many others had felt the same way. This is because of survivorship bias<\/a><\/em>\u2014the media is full of stories of success<\/a>, but we rarely get to hear tales of struggles and failures. When others\u2019 successes follow a long road of struggle, we view their hardships through rose-tinted glasses while casting our own failures in a negative light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Stories, Bad Perspectives<\/strong>

In The Art of Thinking Clearly<\/em><\/a>, Rolf Dobelli points out an additional negative aspect of survivorship bias\u2014namely that by studying success stories before taking on a difficult project, you\u2019ll overestimate your chances of success while underplaying the difficulties ahead. This also draws upon a mental heuristic that Alter doesn\u2019t cover\u2014story bias<\/a><\/em>. Our brains use narrative to make sense of information, preferring a good story over mere boring facts, which leads us to give success stories more credence than they sometimes deserve.\u00a0

Likewise, when you\u2019re stuck, that feeling is also rooted in the kind of stories you tell yourself<\/a>, such as that hard work never pays off or that attempts to change end in failure. In myth, this is the tale of Sisyphus<\/a>, forever condemned to roll a boulder uphill, only to have it roll back to the bottom, forcing him to start over again. Identifying the story that\u2019s holding you back<\/a> can guide you toward reframing your personal narrative in a way that will be more productive<\/a>.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Long, Winding Road<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are times when it feels like you\u2019re going nowhere simply because the path to your goal is so long that you can\u2019t see the beginning or the end. Accepting the sheer amount of time it takes to achieve anything important in life is the first mental barrier you have to overcome. Alter explains two aspects of this problem\u2014the slowdowns that occur in the middle part of any task and the disconnect between reality and how you imagine <\/em>your progress should occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alter writes that one pattern holds constant throughout any long-term project or path\u2014we\u2019re all energized when we start something new, and we\u2019re energized again when the goal is in sight. In the middle, whatever drives us slowly becomes a dull routine, especially once the novelty and our initial excitement fade. Like a road trip where every billboard looks the same, there\u2019s always a point where your progress becomes so incremental you can\u2019t see it anymore<\/strong>. It\u2019s here that you may find yourself flailing around for any way to \u201cget moving again,\u201d when in fact your lack of progress is merely an illusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: According to B.J. Fogg, author of Tiny Habits<\/em><\/a>, the ebb and flow of motivation is more complicated than Alter suggests. In addition to your motivation being highest near the beginning and the end of a task, your motivation levels fluctuate throughout the day and even, for certain goals, throughout the year. To further complicate matters, you may feel different motivations pulling your focus and energy in more than one direction. Fogg recommends taking control of motivation by applying it to specific objectives rather than abstractions, such as telling yourself you\u2019ll exercise today for at least 30 minutes, instead of saying you \u201cwant to work out more.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, sometimes your lack of progress is real. You may be training for a race but your times stop getting better, or you\u2019re cramming for a test but your retention hits a limit. This may be due to what Alter describes as the plateau effect<\/em>. You hit a plateau when the strategies and techniques that jump-started your progress become less effective.<\/strong> This happens because you grow accustomed to them\u2014your body grows used to your athletic program, or you\u2019ve repeated a mental technique so many times that it no longer helps you learn anything new. These plateaus occur when the tricks you employ are aimed at short-term progress rather than the long view, and it\u2019s time to reevaluate them when you reach their limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits<\/em><\/a>, James Clear provides a different way of looking at Alter\u2019s \u201cplateau effect,\u201d which Clear characterizes as a valley of disappointment between your expectations of progress and the reality of how slow progress can be. For any new behavior that you expect to yield results\u2014such as regular exercise\u2014it takes time for your efforts\u2019 cumulative effects to become readily apparent. Clear calls this period the \u201cplateau of latent potential\u201d and says that you have to push through it for your progress to become readily apparent.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to adopt a long view toward success because, when you start working toward an ambition, success is easy to imagine. Nevertheless, your dreams can take years to come to fruition, and even modest goals can often take months. Persistence is key to staying on track, but Alter remarks that we tend to admire persistence more in others than in ourselves. Since our culture is so success-oriented, you\u2019ve probably been conditioned from childhood to view roadblocks as something to be ashamed of<\/strong>, not as a call to redouble your efforts. This counter-productive attitude may lead you to mishandle the inevitable problems you\u2019ll face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Though it\u2019s not the only source, the negative conditioning that Alter refers to is deeply rooted in traditional education. In Limitless Mind<\/em><\/a>, Jo Boaler explains that most of us were penalized for making mistakes in school, and as children we developed the belief that struggling with a subject meant we \u201cweren\u2019t good at it.\u201d To the contrary, studies now show that having a hard time learning something is good for brain development. Like Alter, Boaler says that a positive attitude toward periods of struggle is crucial to unlocking your potential for growth, both in the field of learning and\u2014more broadly\u2014in relation to any other goal you\u2019re working toward.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitfalls in Your Path<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One thing that\u2019s certain is that, no matter what your goals are in life, something will always get in your way. Though unforeseeable circumstances are, by definition, unpredictable, you can predict that something <\/em>will go wrong and prepare yourself so you won\u2019t get stopped indefinitely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alter cites the work of Bruce Feiler, who studies the crises that occur in our lives, from minor jolts to catastrophes. Feiler has found that there\u2019s no schedule or pattern to the chaotic events that interfere with our plans, but he\u2019s determined that most of them are sudden and that about 10% of them are life-changing\u2014such as the death of a loved one<\/a> or the loss of a job. It\u2019s important to recognize that unplanned turmoil will enter your life, and you have to stay mentally flexible to deal with whatever comes your way<\/strong>. The hard part is judging how much energy to devote to dealing with life\u2019s stressors so that your long-term goals don\u2019t get lost amid the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wrong way to deal with life\u2019s messiness is through denial.<\/strong> Alter points to two forms of denial that make things worse\u2014believing that a problem is too small to matter and mistakenly judging that a problem is so far away it\u2019s not an issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cF\u201d Word: Failure<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Handling obstacles poorly and not persevering through difficult times will set you up for failure, not success. However, certain types of \u201cfailure\u201d that we\u2019ve learned to stigmatize are actually crucial stepping stones along your path<\/a>. Alter suggests some new ways to approach failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coping Tactic #1: Redefine Success<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Alter begins by suggesting that many of our concepts of success are too extreme<\/strong>. If you\u2019re a struggling musician with your heart set on a Grammy or a young romantic looking for your perfect soulmate, failure is almost guaranteed. However, if you set more realistic expectations<\/a>, such as turning your musical hobby into a career or strengthening an imperfect relationship, then success will be hard but achievable. Even those people we perceive as great successes\u2014geniuses, billionaires, and award-winning artists\u2014experience many failures in their lives. What matters is how they build upon failure and readjust their courses of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coping Tactic #2: Learn From Failure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Alter writes that education research has shown failure to be a vital part of learning. Students who have an easy time in school actually perform more poorly later on than those who struggle and work harder to do well. Alter explains that failure makes you re-examine your approach<\/a> and try new strategies to reach your goals<\/a><\/strong>. If you never fail and never question yourself, you don\u2019t push yourself<\/a>, and you blind yourself to opportunities that can only be found by straying from the easy path. If you find yourself failing too often, then maybe your goals really are too ambitious\u2014but, if you don\u2019t fail at all, you\u2019re not stretching yourself<\/a> to meet your potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coping Tactic #3: Look Beyond Failure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that many of us see failure as the end of the line. This is wrong. Alter writes that since failure is a necessary step toward success, you have to reframe your attitude toward it<\/strong>. Choose not to beat yourself up<\/a> when you fail. Simply look at your failure and figure out what it can teach you. Meanwhile, look at all the progress you\u2019ve made. After all, if you \u201cfail\u201d and feel your progress has stopped, it means that you\u2019ve been making an effort, and you\u2019ve probably come a long way from where you started. When you reflect on the progress you\u2019ve made and learn the lessons that failure can teach you, you prime yourself to climb out of your rut and break through whatever wall is holding you back<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you feeling stuck in your life and career? What are the mental barriers you must overcome to reach success? A problem you’ll probably face in life is hitting a wall, whether it’s in your career, an important relationship, or a creative endeavor. Adam Alter breaks down some common characteristics of this experience, from the inevitable slowdowns in the middle of long-term projects to the traps that can sabotage progress. Let’s look at the factors that are keeping you stuck in a mental hole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":124723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,42,9],"tags":[1426],"class_list":["post-124622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career","category-motivation","category-psychology","tag-anatomy-of-a-breakthrough","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nFeeling Stuck in Your Life and Career? Here's What's Causing It - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everyone experiences blocks at some point. What's causing yours? 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