Many people get stuck and keep themselves stuck for whatever reason. When they find themselves unable to move forward, they stay where they are and continue doing the same things they were doing that got them stuck or is keeping them stuck. They’re called ditch diggers. They’ve dug themselves a ditch and can’t find their way out. If you find that you’re a ditch digger, the quickest and best way to get unstuck and to get out of the ditch that you’ve dug yourself into is to get into movement because when you get movement in your body, you release energy that’s stuck. Learn more about what you need to do to get up and move from wherever you are.
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Are You Stuck?: The Ditch Digger’s Quick Tip Out
I want to talk about something that happens to me and I’m pretty sure it happens to everybody. It’s how we get stuck and keep ourselves stuck. For whatever reason, I find myself that when I can’t move forward and I feel like things are moving like molasses, that I stay where I am and I continue doing the same thing I was doing that got me stuck or is keeping me stuck. I recently read somewhere that we’re ditch diggers.
We’ve dug ourselves a ditch and we’re sitting there, we can’t find our way out. What we always see are the sides of the ditch that we’re in. We just continue to do the same things, the same habits. Instead of getting ourselves out and taking a break, I’ll sit at my desk for hours on end being less than productive and just plowing through when that’s absolutely useless. I don’t know what it is and why I can’t drag my butt off my chair to get out and go for a bike ride or do something else.
I work for myself but somehow my butt is still glued to my chair. I just wanted to share this with you because even though I am working with some of the best strategies to drive myself forward with productivity, I get stuck from time-to-time too. It flabbergasts me, my own psychology of behavior, and luckily I think that I’m in a place where I catch it relatively quickly because I’m attuned to being more aware of what behaviors I’m practicing and getting stuck in.
I listen to my language and then I go, “Why am I saying that? Why am I doing this?” Then I can break myself out of that pattern. It’s so unfortunate because I’ve conditioned and trained myself to see it faster. Before I’m that frog that actually gets boiled, I feel that it’s warm and I say, “What’s happening here?” and to get myself out of the pot. I want to help you to do that too.
Maybe you find that you’re a ditch digger and that you just keep digging. What are some strategies that can help you get out of the ditch and to stop and reflect and to get out of the current situation? A lot of times to help people get perspective, I use a Rubik’s cube. That Rubik’s cube helps them to see that when you’re in the problem and you’re one of the colors of the sides, you’re part of the problem. You can’t see all the other colors or perspectives that are available to you because you’re part of the problem. You have to get outside of that.
When we take a look and hold that Rubik’s cube away from us, then we can see all the different sides and perspectives and cultures that are represented there. Each side, each color can represent a different client perspective, can represent a different employee perspective and can really open you up to different circumstances in the marketplace that can help you see things in a different light.
[Tweet “We can’t get out and solve the problem with the same level of thinking that created the problem.”]
In order to do that, you have to shift your way of thinking. That’s what Einstein said, is that we can’t get out and solve the problem with the same level of thinking that created the problem. How do we do that? The quickest and best way to get unstuck and to get out of the ditch that we’ve dug ourselves is to get into movement because when we get into movement in our body, we release energy that’s stuck. It seems so simple and so easy, and it really is. That’s all you need to do is to get up and move from wherever you are. Get up and have a walk, get up and move around. You can even just switch your chairs from one desk to move to another desk or go into a standing position and take your computer to another area in the office.
Change your environment. It’s getting that movement into place that’s going to help you to be more efficient and effective in anything that you’re doing. That’s why the new Fitbit’s, they will buzz every 45 minutes to an hour because they’re telling you that you’ve got to get up and move. It’s that movement that is going to help you to be more productive, to create greater energy, to bring more creativity, and also to create greater clarity and focus. That’s the simple strategy for now is get yourself into movement. On a regular basis, many times a day, move. That’s as simple as it is. How does it go where they go, “Move it, move it?” That’s your strategy, is move it. Take care.