How To Get Out Of A Slump In 7 Days

Lately I have been waking up spending an extra 30-90 mins laying in bed.

The sheets feel as if they weigh 100kg and the chill of the air holds me beneath.

As I lay there looking up at the roof I mentally go through all the tasks to complete in a day.

The writing to be done, the workout i've been putting off, the clients to care for, the food to be made and the relationships to water - along with needing to clean my car and room which I've said ill do for past 2 weeks.

The resulting feeling for me has been overwhelming, I don't feel the same lust for life I'm sure i did just a few weeks/months ago, where did it go? what has happened and what needs to change?

These are the questions I found myself asking just last week.

If you found yourself in a similar position then you understand the feeling I had was that of a rut.

When we seem to not be making the progress we desire and the to do list looks like an insurmountable wall.

These periods happen for various reasons and at different moments in our lives.

Maybe we have been in a job or relationship too long?

Are we unsure of what we are working towards and why we are getting up in the morning?

Is it just cold as fuck and we would rather be curled up in bed or on the couch watching Netflix?

Ruts suck, they are easy to fall into and can seem impossible to get out of.

So here is a simple step by step method on acknowledging and addressing this phenomena so you and I can both get our mojos back!

So are we in a rut/slump?

For any change to occur there must be an acknowledgment of the issue/challenge at hand.

I cant answer this question for you, all i can do is ask some questions that may help find your answer.

So, do you think you're in a rut? has life lost it's joy? have you been just going about your day to day life having the days blur into weeks, months or maybe even years?

When was the last time you stepped out of your current routine? Is your current routine leading to an enjoyable day to day life?

These aren't easy questions to answer so take your time with this, be as honest as you can with yourself because you are the only one with the answers to these questions.

I often find that the key indictors for me being in a rut is struggling to get out of bed in the morning, my car and room becoming messy, my self care slipping off, not going to gym/minding my diet and a lot of phone scrolling or mindless entertainment.

Maybe these are some of what you struggle with maybe not, and thats okay. My struggles are not yours much as yours are not mine.

Don't beat yourself up!

Let's imagine 2 people here, both are in a slump.

One person thinks "how did i let this happen, i'm failing myself, I need to be doing better"

Fulling their change with self hate/anger in the hopes to improve their situation, they are being a tyrant to themselves.

The other thinks to themselves " I really haven't been taking care of myself lately and I'm someone that deserves to be cared for by me"

The second person is in support of themself, they want to see them win.

Now ill let you decide which one is more likely to stick to change long term or get out of their rut.

The importance of a vision.

One of the most stressful moments in modern life is being in a new area and our phone dying leaving us without our precious maps. We are suddenly left without a way forward and have to find a way to get to our destination.

We are left with two options

1. Find a way to charge our phone and swallow the internal embarrassment of our poor directional awareness

2. Go forward like our viking/traveling for-fathers and brave the open seas/roads in search for a landmark we know.

Both result in the same outcome, a sense of direction.

With this sense a new feeling of confidence and calmness is restored within us.

Having a clear idea of where you are heading or what you are wanting out of life is calming for the mind. It gives us the direction we need to navigate this chaotic world and lays a path for us to move forward.

So take the time to develop a destination in your minds eye that will give you the clarity needed to move forward.

Some basic questions for developing this are

• What do I want to be doing? - (Your goals)

• What am I currently doing? - (Your situation)

• What am I enjoying in my life right now?

• What am I not enjoying in my life right now?

• What may I need to stop doing to achieve my goals?

• What don't I want to give up in the pursuit of my goals?

Take the time to do this and you may find that your actions will begin to lead you out of a rut as you have now told your conscious mind what you want and your subconscious mind will begin to aline your actions in a manner that get you to where you want to be. This is a form of what neural linguistic programming (NLP) is, we will go further into the topic of developing a vision and NLP next week.

Now what can we do right now to exit our ruts?

7 Steps for getting out of a rut.

1. Go for a walk

   Preferably in nature and without your phone, spend some time with yourself when the world doesn't have so much access to you. let your mind wander - do this as much and as often as you need too, the answers for most of your problems are within you, you just need to quiet the noise to hear to them.

2. Get good quality sleep

   Everyone knows the feeling of not getting enough sleep, it sucks and we are way more likely to be a moody human if we don’t sleep enough. So do yourself a favour and get some rest to set yourself up for the day.

   A few helpful suggestions to aid in this area. Journal, mediate, read, limit blue light and electronic exposure 2 hours before bed (you can use blue light blocking glasses to help this), have a hot shower before bed, drink camomile tea.

   Most people wills spend time developing a morning routine, do the same for winding down at night and develop a sleep routine.

   Clean your room/Car

3. You spend a lot of time in these environments, if they are messy your thoughts will be as well.

4. Hydration and eat good food

   Stop eating bullshit and make sure you hydrate yourself, you’re not a cactus, you need more than a glass of water a day! Most brain fog issues and a lot of emotional ones can be solved by addressing these areas. Start paying attention to how you feel after you eat certain foods, what meals lead to a happy tummy vs a grumpy one?

5. Develop a vision/re focus

   As we spoke about above when we don’t know what we are aiming at our life becomes chaos, you don’t need to know exactly how to get there but just by having a vision you will find that you will start acting in a manner that gets you closer to it.

6. Make time to have some fun

   You are not a robot.

   Take time to have fun, play that video game, go out with your friends, get into your sport, go out and watch a movie, have some sex, dance to music.

   You don’t have to suffer your way through life endlessly, I know you want to fix everything right now but taking time to enjoy yourself without beating yourself up for it will lead to you not falling into ruts as often because you are intentionally spending time doing things you enjoy in life!

7. Don’t rush/take time to rest

   This will be a hard one for most of you as it is likely that if you have been feeling like you are falling behind then you will want to quickly catch up. I’d encourage you to take the time to reflect on how and why you got to where you are and look at life in years and decades not just this week or month. great things take time and you want to try and make the process of creating your dreams enjoyable so you stick at it and don’t throw your hands up in the air saying fuck this its too hard. You’re right where you need to be, trust the process.

Remember life happens in cycles.

There will be both fun and hard times in your life.

You will have moments of great progression and moments of stagnancy.

Nether is good or bad, they just simply are.

This is easier said than practiced, but it is important to remember that life does come in waves. Sometimes you'll be riding the high of it and other times you will be buried by it's crashing, but there will always be another wave to catch.

So go easy on yourself, do what you can to bring yourself closer to where you desire to be and treat yourself kindly.

I hope this letter helped.

Next week I will be discussing developing a meaningful vision, if you would like to be notified when this comes out put your email in bellow.

Thank you for reading my letter - Talk soon.

Ryan