How To Overcome being “stuck” in life
Untethering yourself from learned helplessness
I always hated Mondays, although ironically, I was born on a Monday, not because I hated the day’s activities, but because of the feeling of being stuck in an endless loop for the next five days. I felt like I was in invisible shackles. Like many people, I woke up to the same problems and worries as the previous night. If I miraculously had a good morning, early morning emails, doom scrolling social media or anxiety-inducing news would put me in my default emotional state.
If, like me, you wake up to the same anxiety-provoking stimuli or interact with the same people, say classmates or colleagues or coworkers who also tend to push the same emotional buttons every single day, then you are reliving the same day, every day on a loop.
Exposure to the same experiences shapes our thought patterns and attitudes. Over time, if we perceive our experiences as negative, our thought patterns can lead to negative tendencies and worst of all, learned helplessness.
The concept of learned helplessness was coined by Psychologist Martin Seligman after experiments with dogs. In his studies, he administered shocks to dogs and the dogs which received electric shocks they could not escape from, eventually stopped trying to change their situation, even when presented with an opportunity to escape.
This behavior of “giving up” after repeated exposure to aversive stimuli is called learned helplessness.
Although we think that we are different from other animals, psychologists have learnt a lot about human behavior by studying the behavior of animals.
As demonstrated by dogs, people also become helpless when they perceive a lack of control over a situation, especially if it occurs over a long period or when multiple attempts to take control result in no yield.
In some cases, the learned helplessness is justifiable when people attribute negative experiences to forces beyond their control such as external factors, global/political issues, and unstable circumstances. But for many people, learned helplessness can arise from subtler and psychological causes that make us feel “stuck” in life. Failure to address this can take one down the rabbit hole into the bellies of depression and self-neglect.
The self-fulfilling prophecy of not trying
What is sadder is that the more we continue living this way (with a sense of being stuck or in an endless loop), the more we memorize a given set of behaviors, emotional reactions, unconscious habits and hardwired attitudes. It is essentially a negative snowball effect that eventually traps us in a vicious psychological prison.
When you think you can’t change, you don’t even try — analogous to Seligman’s dogs giving up and accepting their fate.
Helplessness robs us of one of our best chances of turning things around- our self-efficacy — the belief in our ability to act in ways that can influence or counter challenges ahead of us.
While some structural constraints are real, attributing all outcomes to external causes overlooks personal agency. By assuming the inability to influence change, we guarantee the inability to influence change through inaction.
So the question arises, how can you initiate the process of change in a life that seems to be on a loop?
Disengaging the gears of learned helplessness
From a psychoanalytic point of view, the subconscious mind, which stores most of our unconscious habits, hardwired attitudes and emotional reactions, has the upper hand. It is for this reason that any attempts to suddenly change can be met with a lot of resistance by the subconscious mind in the form of defense mechanisms.
Hardwired habits and emotional reactions shape your mood, which over time changes your overall attitude, and that in turn, eventually changes your character.
Albert Einstein supposedly said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting different results. To change, we should find a way to break these cycles. To disengage the gears of learned helplessness. This requires recognition of these patterns in the first place.
Many people swear on meditation as a way to bring the unnoticed tendencies into the light from the shadows. I rely on solitude and introspection to bring unconscious thought patterns into my active awareness. Journaling can also enable one to spot these behaviors and thought processes. Whatever works for you, the goal is to cast into the light, the puppet masters lurking in the dark. You cannot change or confront what you don’t know.
It is a human tendency to resist change and many sadly, consider change after a crisis befalls them. After all, ‘known territory is better, however painful.’
Finding a way to look beyond the mountain ridge may give you an idea of the greener pastures on the other side. This can be through listening to or watching people who made it to where you wish to go. One can also look beyond current circumstances through visualization and meditation.
We like to think that we are rational creatures but just visualizing the future is not enough. We should not only visualize the future but also the feeling of living the way we want. Feelings and emotions are the language that puts the body to work, rational thoughts are not enough. Unless you are a conscientious person, you know there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
The Secondary Gains From Feeling Stuck
Learned helplessness is by no means suitable but it is also an adaptation strategy. From an evolutionary perspective, it can help one conserve resources and use them in other areas where there is a higher chance of success.
Therefore to develop self-efficacy as a strategy of becoming unstuck in life, one has to consider the secondary gains of being stuck in a situation. These gains can unconsciously influence how you try to change your circumstances.
Like many physical systems, we like equilibrium or what is familiar, hence the adage “better the devil I know.”
For example, getting stuck in a relationship or employment that drains you mentally and socially but is stable and secure. Knowing secondary payoffs can allow us to consider new ways in which we can get the same secondary gains, without getting stuck in harmful ways of living.
I would not recommend leaping spontaneously from one situation to another such as a job to alleviate the feeling of being stuck. Understanding these gains would allow us to seek better ways of achieving them while also thriving.
Taking small steps towards personal agency
It is no secret that the best way to change behavior and identity is stacking undeniable evidence for the desired identity through actions. As James Clear put it, each action we take is like casting a vote for the kind of person we want to be. The more votes we cast in our favor, the higher the likelihood of winning the election.
To get unstuck in life, we should do simple daily actions to experience efficacy. If one door seems closed, search elsewhere for small ways to influence outcomes, however minor, through effort.
Noticing opportunities to exercise voluntary control, even in trivial matters, can begin to rewire neural pathways etched by past helplessness.
I am personally not a conscientious person but I always find ways to make the actions I take influence outcomes, especially personal outcomes rather than external outcomes. It is even better if you can stick to habits over a long time.
With continued application, feelings of being perpetually stuck can give way to the empowering belief that ‘we possess means for positive change’.
Beware: The pit-fall of self-criticism
One of my favorite adages is Hofstadter’s law– it states that “it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take this law into account”
Developing self-efficacy through effort takes time and it is important not to beat yourself up after a lifetime of conditioning.
self-criticism often backfires by damaging self-esteem, motivation, and well-being — perpetuating the very stuck patterns we seek to overcome.
Treat yourself with compassion to shift the ingrained scripts of self-deprecation that lock us into cycles of negative self-fulfilling beliefs.
Concluding thoughts
Looking for opportunities every day to prove to ourselves that we can at least influence part of our circumstances can fortify us overtime against our deeply held beliefs of failure and helplessness.
Micro efforts and compassion along this journey give us a longer runway to rewrite the scripts of perceived helplessness and soar into the skies of unlimited potential.
Remember, getting unstuck starts with choosing to try.
