One of the frustrations that we often experience is the feeling of being stuck. We repeat the same patterns, day in and day out, forming habits that we seem unable to shake. From unhealthy eating, exercise and money choices to self-sabotaging social media, phone and relationship habits, it’s easy to find ourselves living a life that feels stuck in time.
As most coaches will tell us, it’s because we have blindspots to the choices that keep us stuck. We can see that we’re stuck, and we can see some of the obvious bad choices that we’re making, but we can’t see the stepping stones, or triggers, that keeps us in the cycle of bad choices.
We all have blind spots, and by definition; we can’t see them. And because we can’t observe them, we can’t change them.
If we want those different results, we need to learn to observe our blindspots. In fact, before we can even observe them, we need to acknowledge that they exist. Otherwise, we will be totally uncoachable when it comes to dealing with them.
If we truly want to make changes in our lives, then, we need to stop doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different outcome. As Albert Einstein once said: insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The solution is to be coachable. We need to find, and then listen to, other people who can see our blind spots.
So – if you’re feeling stuck in any area of your life, you need to ask someone you trust to help you look for your blindspots in that area. Then, when we identify them, and here’s where most of us get lazy, we need to write them down.
This helps us observe the patterns in our lives so that we can then choose to change the ones that we’re not happy with, or that we can trace to unhealthy outcomes. Keeping a journal also helps us track change, and this can be a significant motivator to keep on moving forward in a healthy direction.
This applies to every area of our life, it doesn’t just have to be a food journal or a financial budget. It can be an emotional journal or a memory journal; depending on the work we’re ready to do to bring about change in our lives, journaling helps us observe our blindspots and our habits so that we can regain our power to choose them or release them. Everything is connected and the moment we start to break down and rebuild one area of our lives, we’ll find it starts to open up more opportunities in other areas too. And, the more we can observe, the more we can control.