Sometimes something just feels off.
Your life might look perfectly fine from the outside. You have a good job, people you love, plans in the diary and plenty to be grateful for.
And yet, you still feel stuck.
I hear this a lot in coaching. People often say, “I don’t even know what’s wrong. I just know something doesn’t feel right anymore.”
And that’s OK. You don’t need to have it all figured out before you start exploring it.
Start small
When we feel stuck, it’s easy to jump straight to big solutions.
Maybe I need a new job. Maybe I should move. Maybe I need to completely change direction.
Sometimes that is the answer. But often, it starts with noticing what is and isn’t working.
Ask yourself:
What gives me energy?
What drains me?
What do I want more of?
What am I quietly fed up with?
Don’t overthink it. Just notice what comes up.
You’re allowed to have changed
Sometimes we feel stuck because we’re still living according to an older version of ourselves.
The job you wanted ten years ago might not be the job you want now. The things that once mattered might not feel as important anymore.
That doesn’t mean you made a mistake.
It means you’ve changed.
I’ve had very different chapters in my own life and career, and what matters to me has changed along the way too.
Sometimes we simply need to stop and ask:
What actually matters to me now?
Watch out for the “shoulds”
I should be further ahead.
I should be happy with what I’ve got.
I should know what I want by now.
Those “shoulds” can get very loud.
One question I often come back to is: If nobody else had an opinion about my life, what would I want?
You don’t have to act on the answer straight away.
Just be curious about it.
You don’t need a five-year plan
This is probably the most important bit.
You do not need a five-year plan.
You don’t even need to know exactly what needs to change yet.
Clarity often comes slowly. Through conversations, through noticing patterns, through giving yourself permission to think differently.
So if you’re feeling stuck, start smaller.
Ask yourself:
What feels good in my life?
What doesn’t?
What do I want more of?
What do I want less of?
If nothing changed for the next three years, how would I feel?
That last one is usually worth sitting with.
Feeling stuck doesn’t mean you’ve failed or taken a wrong turn. Sometimes it simply means you’ve outgrown something, or you’ve been so busy getting on with life that you haven’t had the space to conciously check whether it still feels like your life.
And that’s exactly where coaching can help.
I won’t tell you what you should do. My job is to get to know you, understand what’s really going on, ask the questions you might not be asking yourself, and help you work out what feels right for you.
You don’t need to come with all the answers or even the questions.
You can just come with the feeling that something needs to change, and we’ll start there.
