Stuck isn’t an actual term for an emotion. Yet, we can all visualize the emotional connotations behind the word. To me, “stuck” creates an image of somebody trapped in a pool of honey. Like, yeah—the honey tastes really sweet, and it’s sort of comfy to stay there floating in it, but at the end of the day, it is still a trap. Albeit a very yummy one. 

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When we feel stuck in life, we’re often confused. We can point out the various things that society considers “good” in our lives—the high-paying career, the loving spouse, the 2 amazing children, the house on the hill, and the unlimited PTO with frequent trips to tropical locations—but something still feels…off. 

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Most days seem to have a haze of “blahness” covering them. Things may feel easy, but not energizing or exciting. We’re not unhappy to wake up each day, but we’re also not hopping out of bed brimming with passion and ready to receive what life will deliver. Things are just sort of, well, meh. 

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If you can relate to that feeling, please keep on reading to get my take on what stuckness is, and what it says about the state of our lives. 

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But before we get there—let’s be honest about how feelings work

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I think a lot of coaching articles and literature can make it seem like negative feelings such as “stuckness” are things that must be eliminated from our lives ASAP. That feeling bad is some sort of personal failing that you must remedy within yourself, and by reading my advice, you’ll be prepared to exorcise the demon of emotional blandness from your heart forever and in perpetuity. 

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Let me dispel that notion real quick.

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It would be a lot more lucrative for me if I sat here and told you I had “1 Simple Formula to Eradicate Stuckness Forever,” but I am not that kind of coach. I’m here to be honest with you— not to sell you something catchy. 

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All feelings are valid and ok and are not signs of personal failure. Let me repeat: literally any feeling that you have is valid and ok and should be accepted simply because of the fact that it showed up here, in your heart, in this moment. That, obviously, includes feeling stuck. 

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Ultimately, we do not control what feelings appear in our hearts moment-to-moment. We can certainly take actions that influence which feelings appear, (e.g., thinking about everything that can go wrong in your life tends to do a great job at making anxiety appear) but we do not have the power to chase certain feelings away, or make other ones stick. If you think that’s a controversial or untrue opinion, please check out my other article on the illusion of control. 

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So, before we get deep into it: you’re not broken or wrong for feeling stuck. You didn’t consciously “do” anything that made this stuckness appear, and we do not work to eliminate or exorcise our feelings. The inner work we do is meant to tenderly transform your own inner, emotional baseline over time. 

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Now that that’s out-of-the-way, let’s dissect what’s behind “stuck.” 

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Another name for “stuck” is “unfulfilled” 

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But “unfulfilled” can feel like a dirty word to some of us, especially those that have, objectively, achieved and earned a lot. 

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But therein lies the first lesson this feeling has for us. Fulfillment does not come from material achievement, wealth, or possessions. It comes from living a life that is in alignment with your personal values. 

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Now,  you might splutter at this. “That’s not true Mike—I felt so alive when I saved my first million dollars. Or when I got into the Ivy League. Or when I married my partner, had my first kid, or got that job I really wanted. Those things made me feel good!” 

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I’m not denying that they made you feel good—of course they did! But what I’m prodding at here is the actual source of that good, fulfilled feeling. On the surface, it appears like the thing itself transmits the feeling, but when we look deeper, that’s obviously not true! 

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If it were true that having a child, for example, was a universal source of fulfillment and joy, postpartum depression would not exist. Yet, clearly, it does. 

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If it were true that making a million dollars was a universal source of fulfillment and joy, there’d be no sad millionaires out there. Yet, clearly there are. 

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Herein lies the second lesson of stuckness. The feeling of fulfillment—and in fact, every feeling you’ve ever experienced—does not originate from anything in material reality. It originates from within you, often as a response to what unfolds in material reality.  

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Wait, you’re saying I create all of my own feelings? 

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Yes! You are at the center of this feeling of fulfillment or stuckness. The circumstances of your life provide provocations for the feeling to come out, but ultimately, you are both the creator and the originator here.  

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If this seems trivial, I encourage you to look deeper. I’m telling you that nothing in material reality has ever made you happy, depressed, angry, or anxious— it has only provided the circumstances for you to produce that feeling within yourself. 

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A strawberry milkshake tastes good to me because I have a conditioned, internal preference to view the sensations behind that flavor as pleasing. Give it to someone who prefers chocolate, and they will have a very different inner experience—maybe even disgust. The object itself is never the source. 

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This is a major topic and is probably worth an article on its own. I totally understand how this claim can seem ridiculous at face value. How, for example, is something like grief not directly caused by the loss of a loved one? Or pain not directly caused by getting punched in the face? I promise you the same formula holds for all these examples, but for the scope of this article, just trust me on this one for now ;). 

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So, I mentioned preferences above. And that is a key factor in this equation of stuckness and fulfillment. But in coaching, we tend to work with a smaller, more atomic component of a preference. 

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We call these little atoms values. 

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Your values are the gateways to your inner experience 

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Here’s a simple scenario. A friend cancels plans on you at the last minute, and you immediately feel a swell of anger. I slide into the restaurant booth next to you (or wherever you tend to go with your friends!) and ask “hey, what’s making you so mad?” 

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You say “uh, my friend just canceled on me at the last minute—that’s obviously what’s making me mad, dummy!” 

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I go, “Oh, but remember the lesson we just talked about a minute ago? About how external reality is never the actual cause of your inner emotional landscape? Tell me again—why do you really feel mad?” 

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You wind your hand up, preparing to slap me across the face for being so annoying, but then, you’re hit with a sudden burst of insight! 

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Ok, I’m getting carried away here, so I’ll just get to the point. You’re actually mad because you likely have an inner value around something like “punctuality” or “commitment” and your friend canceling at the last minute violated this inner value. The emotional result of  value violation from someone else is often anger! 

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Don’t believe me? Imagine your flakiest, most non-committal friend in the scenario above, assuming you have one. If you don’t, imagine a small child or something. If someone canceled plans on them at the last minute, do you think they’d react the same way? I personally have many friends who would just shrug their shoulders and move to a bar seat if I canceled on them like that. 

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Again—it’s always you creating your own inner experience of reality, albeit often instantaneously and subconsciously.

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And this is why it is absolutely essential that you, as a human, know and deeply understand your top core values. Much of what a coach actually does is help you sort through your core values and help you understand what parts of your life currently do or do not fulfill said core values. 

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If I asked you what your top 5 values were, could you name them in a few seconds? What about if I asked you to stack rank those values? What is THE most important value in your life, and what is important, but compromise-worthy? 

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Most people honestly cannot do the above activities, and that’s to be expected. Society doesn’t teach us much about values. It just tells us that they are things we “should” theoretically, have. 

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But, to bring it back home to stuckness, I want to offer you a theory. That theory is that when stuckness (unfulfillment) shows up in your life, it is because your current life activities have not satisfied one or more of your core values for an extended period of time. 

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Someone that deeply values novelty but hasn’t tried something new in 6 months is going to feel stuck. 

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Someone that deeply values routine but has been on a business trip every other week is going to feel stuck. 

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Someone that values stability, independence, and travel, but who has been laid-off for months is going to feel a lot more than stuck. They are probably going to feel completely anxious or even depressed. 

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A lot of our emotional unrest can be prescribed to a mismatch between our core values and the reality of our lived experience. 

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So when you feel “stuck,” look to your values

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Maybe you worked with a coach like me to discover your values, or maybe you did the inner work independently on your own. Hopefully, you have a little note posted somewhere that lists out what these top 5-10 values are so that you never forget them! 

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And when you notice this feeling of stuck permeating your life, first and foremost, you are accepting and forgiving to yourself. You didn’t “make” this stuck happen consciously and the work is not to “solve” it or “make it go away.”! Think of “stuck” as a little, loving message from your inner, highest self that they want you to take a closer look at how you’ve been living in comparison to your core values. 

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Then, with your coach or on your own, go down your list of values and identify the current behaviors you do today that fulfill these values. It is essential that you focus both on behaviors (things you literally do in reality) that are actually happening or not happening. Goals, outcomes, or aspirational ideals like “I’ll feel strong again once I have my six-pack back” do not count here.

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Because, again—the actual, only thing you get to control is your behavior in response to reality. Everything else is life’s whim! 

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And as I said, if you’re feeling stuck, I bet you’re going to quickly identify a few values that you haven’t been giving some love to lately. Once you’ve got those identified, it’s time to work with your coach (or on your own) to figure out some key actions you can start taking that will start to satisfy these unloved values. 

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My final piece of advice to you about this part of the process is to be open to many possible behaviors that can fulfill your unloved values. Often, we’ll find the unloved value, and then immediately identify a familiar past action that used to scratch the itch and want to jump back into it. 

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For example, one of my core values is revelry, aka partying. You can imagine how the COVID-19 pandemic made me, and people who shared this value, feel! If I had said “well obviously the action I need to take is to just go to a big party again,” I wouldn’t have gotten very far—there were no (legal) parties to be had! 

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Instead, I had to be open and willing to try new things to see if they activated the same value within me.  I tried Zoom dance parties, but they felt too cringe and forced. After a few attempts of not getting that nice, gooey fulfilled feeling, I considered that experiment a failure. 

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But 2 experiments I eventually tried were successful! 

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The first was getting to-go drinks and standing outside on 9th avenue talking to people with masks and some social distance, which was briefly legal in NYC for a period in 2021. That behavior felt obvious because it was similar to partying. 

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But the second successful experiment was more unexpected. It was getting back into video games after having not played them for a decade!

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How are video games revelry, you ask? Well, back when I was a kid, “partying” involved playing a new RPG (role-playing game) on my PS2 and then pacing around my house listening to its soundtrack because I was so amped up from all the action. Turns out, that child still lives on in my values, because the second I started playing Final Fantasy X again on my boyfriend’s PS4, he came back real fast. 

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The point here is: be open and willing to experiment with how you might satisfy your unloved values. 

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Sometimes, there will be a simple and obvious thing to do. But other times, depending on how your life circumstances have shifted over the years, it may not be as easy as going back to what used to work long ago. 

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If you want a partner to explore your values, valued actions, or that nagging sense of “stuckness,” reach out to me today! I’ve got a few coaching spots left in my roster and would love to work with you.

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