Why You Lose Momentum or Feel Stuck and What to Do About It

Welcome to a new episode of Soulfull Sound Coaching! Each month, l’ll be answering your questions about anything related to healing and transformation, connecting with yourself, discovering your gifts and practical strategies on sharing your gifts with the world, or… any burning question you have and sense that I’m the right person to answer it!

This episode answers a question from Paul.

While building my business, I sometimes find myself losing momentum or feeling stuck when doing tasks. How do I get myself back in the flow?

There are some common reasons why people lose momentum or get stuck when taking action and so what I’ll do is touch on those here so that you have a few things to practise. Whether you’re building a business or not, these tips will help you get through those moments when you feel stuck with a project, or just in general when dealing with having to do, be or have more and needing to take actions to support that change.

My approach with most things is an ‘INSIDE OUT APPROACH’. Meaning that if something isn’t working, I look not only at what’s going on around me, but also what’s going on within me.

Whenever someone says they’re stuck, the first thing I ask is, “What are you resisting?” Resistance is like building a dam which stops the flow of water so that we’re not flooded! And in the case of having plenty to do, flooding can cause overwhelm and stress and who wants more of that? 

Resistance is mostly caused by a genuine desire to feel secure. 

It often appears when something we have to do, be or have is not aligned with what our unconscious mind deems as safe.

Bear in mind that change is not comfortable and that our unconscious mind doesn’t see change as safe. So, when building your business, creating something new and generally upleveling your life, more often than not, you’re likely to feel some resistance until you can push through it. So, when it comes to losing momentum or feeling stuck, you want to move through the inner resistance first and adjust the outside to reflect that.

Here are some tips to help you navigate through resistance:

Reconnect with your why

This is a big motivating factor. When you’re working on important tasks, you may sometimes feel resistance or as you have mentioned, feeling stuck. As long as your actions are aligned with your goals and your goals are compelling enough, you will find it much easier to take action. When it feels like you’re doing something and you’re not clear why, go back to your big why.

What are the rewards for building your own business? Why did you want to start a business in the first place? What is important to you that makes you want to achieve your goal? 

When you remember you WHY, it makes taking actions so much easier because you attach purpose to your actions.

For example, with this podcast I will always have tasks around creating and delivering content. If I ever feel stuck or like I’m losing momentum, I go back to my why!

“I am creating this content to offer value so that I may be of service and make an impact (no matter how small) in someone else’s life.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Remember as I mentioned earlier, change is uncomfortable and so you need to see your actions as an exercise. Something you just need to do consistently and steadily so you can reap the results. Surrender and let go of the need to know outcomes, because in truth you can’t really know how things will turn out exactly and all of your actions count toward the growth of YOU and your business. So just start by taking smart action for taking actions sake and eventually it will become a practice.

Once you have begun to find your way through the internal resistance you need to also address the external elements:

Have defined processes or systems in place to support you.

This is important so you can complete tasks and things don’t begin to pile up. Otherwise this can often lead to overwhelm, which we know doesn’t help you to get things done efficiently.

• Have systems in place for everything: your emails, accounts, client/customer records and all the parts needed to run an efficient business.
• Delegate when needed/possible – there are somethings you absolutely need to do yourself and then there are others that someone else could help with and in some cases do better than you!
• Take bite sized, consistent action – Set big goals yes, at the same time they need to realistic time wise. Don’t stress yourself with taking on too much for the timeframe you have.
• Prioritise. Even with clear and detailed goals in place, you need to know where to start. Take actions according to what’s most important to complete first. Ask yourself this, “If I could only complete 3 things today, what would they need to be?” and start there.
• Reduce Distractions – Research shows that it takes approximately 20-25 minutes to refocus after being distracted. So, it is crucial to your productivity to avoid distractions. Turn off the volume/notifications of all your gadgets and let others around you know not to interrupt you unless urgent. 

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Looking internally first and getting through the resistance and then looking at the external environment.

So, Paul, and for all of you who have had similar experiences of feeling stuck sometimes when taking actions to build your business, put some of these tips into practice and please do let me know how you get on!