“how to get out of a rut”
Summary of results
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Change Your Routine
- “Change your pace. Do something different. You could go on a vacation or join a hackathon.” This suggests that introducing new activities can help break the monotony.
- “Start with small changes, preferably ones you can walk back.” This implies that even minor adjustments can have a significant impact.
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Identify and Address Causes
- “Figure out your goals... and write them down.” This involves setting clear objectives to work towards.
- “Look for objective causes... diet, sleep, exercise, and social connection.” Identifying controllable factors can help in managing the rut.
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Take Action
- “The first step to getting out of a rut seems to be... taking any first step.” Initiating action, no matter how small, can create momentum.
- “Make a list of all the things that are interesting to you.” This can help in finding new directions to explore.
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Self-Reflection and Acceptance
- “Recognizing that you are in a rut is a start.” Acknowledging the situation is crucial for change.
- “Embrace the rut. Understand that we people are not machines.” Accepting the natural ebb and flow of life can reduce self-criticism.
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Seek New Experiences
- “Do something with your hands... pottery classes or woodworking classes.” Engaging in hands-on activities can provide a fresh perspective.
- “Move to a foreign country, go into a new field of work.” Drastic changes can sometimes be necessary to break free.
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Focus on Health and Well-being
- “Try going to bed early every night for a week.” Improving sleep can enhance overall well-being.
- “Exercise, drop the drugs, ensure you have some part of your identity unrelated to work.” Maintaining physical health and diverse interests can prevent burnout.
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Mindset and Motivation
- “Action leads to motivation which then leads to more action.” Taking action can generate motivation rather than waiting for motivation to act.
- “Reclaim your power and focus on the positive actions you are taking.” Focusing on positive steps can shift the narrative from being stuck to being proactive.
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Social and Emotional Support
- “Spend a week focusing on making your loved ones' lives as happy and easy as possible.” Helping others can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
- “Talk to a career counselor, a therapist... who often help people in your situation.” Seeking professional guidance can provide new insights and support.
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Avoiding Complacency
- “Stepping away from something you think you're good at is the only way to break the cycle of any complacency.” Challenging oneself can prevent stagnation.
- “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.” This highlights the importance of taking action to avoid long-term complacency.
Hi inarut2023,
Recently got out of my rut and just want to share a quick and short advice: change your pace. Do something different. You could go on a vacation or join a hackathon. The whole point here is that new changes, even if ever so slight, can help inspire us in a different way. Hopefully you'll find back your fire soon, and stay in a rut only for 2023, no longer.
Cheers,
a fellow dev excited for Mondays
It's time for a change. It's scary, but don't be scared. If there's anything else you have ever wanted to try, now is the time to do so. The rut at work is not going to fix itself and doing nothing will only make it worse. Don't wait for your colleagues to notice. Take time off and sit with your thoughts and feelings, the answer will come.
Here's what gets me out of ruts / pits of despair.
1. Figure out your goals / objectives / musts / things you want and write them down (1-3 things).
2. Write down things that you dislike about your current situation (environment? job? a teammate? a spouse? whatever).
3. Write down tasks you can do starting today to begin chipping away at #2 and lead you closer to something from #1.
Once you have clarity, you just need to execute.
Recognizing that you are in a rut is a start. You’re already there.
Some time ago I realized that there is a long-term rhythm and cadence to my life. The ruts are part of that. I learned to look for signs that show that I am getting into a rut, or out of one.
I do things to help myself get out of a rut. At the same time I realize that this is not fully under my control. I give myself room, and am patient.
First thing I do is look for objective causes. Often these are things that are out of my control. Health issues of family and friends. Political situation. War. Others are more under my control. These are usually the basics: diet, sleep, exercise, and social connection.
I try to affect the things under my control. It takes significant effort, but it usually helps.
For the things I can not control I make sure to notice when the issues pass. I make a concrete mental note to no longer let it affect me, since the thing changed. And also, I try to accept the things I can’t change, recognizing that they will affect me nonetheless. This also seems to help.
No silver bullets. Key thing is to make sure the rut does not become self-reinforcing. Self-love and acceptance are a part of this.
Good luck on your journey.
Start with small changes, preferably ones you can walk back.
I was in a rut and in sessions with a therapist became convinced that it was all my wife's fault. Now I don't have a wife and there's no hope of going back. A nebulous rut related to not having enough purpose or socialization in life has been replaced by a deep depression and crippling loneliness.
Don't worry about the grass on the other side of the fence. Watering your own lawn is often better than moving on.
My advice on how to dig yourself out of a rut - Spend a week focusing on making your loved ones' lives as happy and easy as possible. Removing a stressor from someone else's life will make you feel better about your own stressors. Making someone smile on the outside will make you smile on the inside.
Keep trying, it's hard but not impossible. You might have to take a job that is not the ideal one but that will give you a re-start and get you out of the rut.
The first step of getting out of a rut is knowing that you are in a rut, so you're already half way there.
When this happens to me I delete Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Podcasts etc. from my phone and spend more time talking to real people, reading books or just doing jobs around the home.
That may give you the mind space to slow down and consider your next actions and find something meaningful for your life.
You have to consistently want to get out of the rut long enough to climb out. This length of time is (at least) proportional to the extent of the rut itself.
I get into ruts like this several times a year. Luckily with age I learned that before i start questioning myself too deeply I try these things first.
- Try going to bed early every night for a week. Going to bed early simply means early enough so you can wake up at 7.30 in the morning without the need of an alarm.
- Find a form of exercise you like and do the absolute minimal amount of it needed to get some noticeable positive benefit. I have done 20k runs at a decent pace at various occasions, but I find that I can get 90% of the health benefit by doing a light 20m jog. The trick is making it so untaxing, and so easy to simply do that you can manage to do it repeatedly without relying on too much motivation or inner drive.
- Try and give some extra attention to what you ingest into your body. Make some time to cook a meal for yourself (and some friends) and enjoy it.
- Spend some time thinking about the things you take pleasure in and engage in those things. Have a glass of wine, smoke a cigarette and find someone interesting to talk to, put some music on, whatever it is just don't overthink it al so much.
With some time you might find you forgot all about this rut, and if it persists, maybe it's true you are not pursuing the right things, but hey that's also just part of the journey of life and you are a student so you should be examining these things right now.
This is only what I noticed about myself: the first step to getting out of a rut seems to be... taking any first step.
What I mean is: usually when I end up in a rut, it's because I had been getting into one for a while and only finally noticed. At that point, the rut is usually starting to get baked into a daily/weekly habit. To get out of it means refocusing on things that matter to me: fulfilling personal relationships, family, personal health/growth, intellectual curiosity, and career growth, not in any particular order, and usually I have a decent idea of where to start, but the rut keeps me from starting.
So getting out of the rut involves taking that first step. The second step becomes easier, then the third becomes easier, and so on. It takes extra willpower but I find that it works as long as I remind myself it's worth it.
I see a rut as an ebb in this life, but it's important to ride it even though the way you ride it will be different than normal. It's also important to note that tons of folks feel this way because it seems like we're all just hoping for some precedented times...
Small changes in a few different areas, and at the same time, could spark something. New routine (sleep/wake time), a t-break (stepping away for a few weeks always helps me), a new hobby (a bike and some time to ride it), and even something as menial as cooking yourself a few meals can drive some fulfillment. Hopefully it can spark some creativity elsewhere like your game and your job. If anything, it will create a fun sort of experiment that you can move through and pick up small wins.
Fear sometimes helps. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
More positively, basic life management may provide a way forward. Make a list of all the things that are interesting to you. Whenever you are bored or without direction review the list for opportunities. That may mean entries in the list itself or any entry there. Most of the time there is some avenue for exploration and value generation that you already know has potential and also fits the mood and moment.
The best thing you can do about a rut in my experience is to get back on the horse immediately. “I’ll do it next week” quickly spirals into months and years.
When you set the date for getting back on the horse do it no matter what. But give yourself permission to do the bare minimum and suck at it.
Ruts are largely fear based.
A really easy start would be to listen to Andrew Huberman's work on Dopamine. Realize that you're stuck in a rut-—accept it. Then start racking up tiny wins. I mean infinitesimally small wins. Then slowly you will work your way out.
Don't despair. Everyone goes through this from time-to-time.
Getting out of a bout of apathy or lack of motivation can be difficult. Sometimes it can slowly go away on it's own, but I have found that it helps to make yourself do things that you don't want to do. You want to get out of the rut, so use that little bit of motivation to force yourself into doing things you may not otherwise want to do.
Options are fewer with COVID limiting social interactions, but within your own risk tolerance, force yourself to do something social, even if if you're going to be bored and uninterested. The change of scenery alone can help shake your mind out of its pattern.
Or if you can't bring yourself to that point, take your laptop-- or just your phone if your computer isn't a laptop-- to another location and do there whatever you would have done sitting at your desk. That can be as small a change as another room in your home, or the lobby/commons if you're in a dorm, whatever other location you have available.
The main goal is to gradually introduce changes to your current routine. It's not a silver bullet fix, but it's a small step that can help you get started.
stepping away from something you think you're good at is the only way to break the cycle of any complacency you may have developed
Been there and there is no easy answer. Personally, I’ve tried switching jobs, doing new hobbies on a side but it was not enough. I’ve burned out much deeper than 1-month vacation or a new job, doing essentially the same, could fix. In the end, my whole life needed changing. Now I’ve cut my costs a lot, work a lot more on my own projects, take on freelance work, and spend A LOT of time doing other shit that I want to do. It feels crazily unproductive at times and I’m missing out on a lot of money and career improvements. But I feel fucking alive.
I think to get out of the rut, you actually need to do significant changes that feel scary but those are the only ones that will shake you and get you out of the rut. It’s actually really simple but also not easy. In a sense, we crave for that rut and familiarity of what the next day brings but that’s also what kills us. Need to shake up things periodically, try to discover other parts of yourself you didn’t know or forgot about. That will do the job.
I've been in ruts before. Something helpful which has gotten me to the other side of the most recent one is telling myself repeatedly "I'm just in a bad time". The last word (i.e. "time") is really key here. It's imposing a temporal structure of transience on the situation. In this way, I can conceptualize the "end" of the "bad time" as sone (unknown) future point in time which is inevitably approaching, even though I'm not sure when it will be.
The notion of a "rut", by contrast, imposes a physical structure on the concept (think is a person who is literally stuck in a ditch in the ground) which doesn't lend itself to your thinking of it as "inevitable" for you to ever get out of it.
I'm a believer in inertia. When you're at rest, getting going is hard. When you're in motion, staying in motion is easy.
So what I do when I'm in a rut is literally anything. Take on a hobby project, learn something new, do volunteer work, anything. I just force myself to do something. The important thing is to get into a state of motion. Exactly what that motion looks like isn't important. Once moving, you can change directions.
how patronizing
you'll get out of your rut, OP. it's normal to not like your job.
My take is this:
1. Have long term goals, so you always have something to do to reach them.
2. Embrace the rut. Understand that we people are not machines that can efficiently run our program 24/7 and reach a goal. Some times you get bored and demotivated. Accept it, don't be hard on yourself. Play a game, have a beer with a friend, pick up something new, lie in your bed and stare at the ceiling. It will pass sooner or later.
I always thought that motivation leads to action. But it's actually the other way round: Action leads to motivation which then leads to more action. So just do anything to get started, and then the motivation from doing something will hopefully kick in.
A rut is a vicious cycle, and the only way out it is to actively break it by doing something that goes against it.
As someone in a "rut" recently, one of the things I realized was I needed to stop telling myself the story that I'm in a rut, because describing it as a "rut" focuses on a lot of externals I can't control.
When you get a flat tire you can catastrophically repeat over and over to yourself that "I've got a flat!" and point at it and run circles around the car and wonder what you're going to do and "omg I've got a flat this is terrible", or you can start telling yourself the story of the actions you're taking to fix the flat: 1) I'm finding the jack, 2) I'm loosening the lugs 3) I've got the spare ready, 4) you get the idea...
Reclaim your power and focus on the positive actions you are taking as minute as those seem in the moment. Meditate deeply on those, maybe even journal them daily so you force your brain to stare at the evidence that while you might feel like you're in a rut you are logically taking good steps through this rut experience.
Btw, don't underestimate the impact of the stresses of coming fatherhood, you've got a lot going on unconsciously that's less a "rut" and more like your entire biology reconfiguring itself for a new daily role. You do need to make some changes, ideally make a list of what your brain is telling you to change, but you'll be OK man.
Whenever I've found myself in a rut, doing something with my hands has been helpful in shaking me out of it! If you're in a big city consider googling around for "pottery classes" or "woodworking classes", or "sailing classes", or "jewlery making courses".
1. Leave your apartment/house. Don't think about work, programming, anything. Just leave your house, go outside, go for a walk, maybe a restaurant, meet people, do things.
2. Stop smoking weed. At least stop smoming regularly and during the day.
3. Think about taking a vacation.
You need to shake things up. You need to just live life. Some outside stimulus will help invigorate you, might even help with creativity. At least you know you're in a rut, the way to get out is to sharply steer away from it.
As for ADHD, in my experience, people who are diagnosed as such do well doing many different tasks and having lots of stimuli. They get bored doing one thing. So do many things.
Anyhow, the way to get out of a rut is to do completely different things.
Edit - I also missed some of the question, how did I get out of my rut?
I'm old enough to have been in a few so have been there. And the advice above is more or less what I did.
- I took a long vacation in Europe (I'm Canadian) where nothing was planned so everyday was an adventure.
- I left a toxic relationship and didn't date while trying to work on my own problems
- I eventually moved to a mountain town.
- I make sure to make time for being outdoors, physical exercise plus coding side projects and work. It sounds like a lot but it's easier to do many things when you're motivated than to even just get out of bed when you're stuck in a rut. The more things I plan in a day the more things I accomplish.
Not going to say everything in my life is 100% but I'm accomplishing personal goals and am happy, if nothing else. Have a (non-toxic) partner and we're expecting a baby any day now, making good money, there's progress on a side business I've been thinking about doing and even though I'm busy I'm not stressed or burnt out.
I know that stressed feeling and I know how it feels like it’s never going to end but believe it or not this is a big opportunity. You were in a rut and now you’re going to dig yourself out of it! But, you’re going to need to think differently. First, you need to face the truth that you matter infinitely more than your employment status, debt burdens, and past mistakes. Second, you have a lot to offer the world in ways that right now would surprise and amaze you. Third, you’re going to have to fundamentally change your strategy so you need to seek really specific advice about your situation with someone who can connect you to the right resources. Maybe tap your network for appropriate gigs, talk to a career counselor, a therapist at a local charity e.g. some Catholic Dioceses have free therapy charities, talk to a local Priest or Pastor who often help people in your situation and will know resources in your area. Digging yourself out of this rut is your new full time job, you’re the most qualified, and I believe in you! Good luck!
One of the techniques for escaping a rut is scoring a goal. Achieve something. Say "I made this!". Solving someone else's problem is a perfect opportunity to score.
If you have 0 motivation, it could mean you're just getting bored or saturated or stressed out or simply overwhelmed. In any case, do NOTHING for a day or two, don't feel guilt (that's KEY), tell yourself you're taking a break, play games, go ride your bike, walk in a forest, go to a restaurant, whatever suits you. Make yourself feel good. Take a break. Then the next day start by doing something very very simple. If you're working on a very hard problem then run a simple experiment to validate a case, corner case or not. If you feel like you don't feel like it, then just do some silly 5min task, it may be enough to get you restarted and just feel better. Feel good, enjoy life, then get back to work. Changing Job may do the trick too. Or take some vacation, the idea is to just break the cycle.
This tells the OP what they could be doing instead, but not quite how to get there out of the rut they are in. Apathy or lack of motivation can be difficult to shake. Don't get me wrong-- they are great ideas, it just seems like going from A to C without addressing the issue of a vehicle, B.
I have a rut, too. I am not in the rut, because I promised myself a long time ago that I am not going to allow the environment[1] to dictate my state of being.
People like Jocko Willink put this much more eloquently with philosophies like Extreme Ownership (GOOD.), so maybe check that stuff out.
1. The environment being things happening around me. Note, I don't use the term "to" me, because I believe that's victim mentality, and in the grand scheme, challenges are happening to me because I messed up (didn't do something in time), or because they are happening in spite of me (acts of god, house burns down, etc)
I don't think the problem is how you narrate it to yourself. I agree you have to stop saying you are in some kind of rut at some point to start acting to get out of it but the reason why that difficult to do when you are in a rut is because unlike in case of "I've got a flat", the end result is not in sight.
Changing a flat has been done a million times so it a known blueprint you can follow, its easier to do such things even when you don't feel like doing it as it requires very little (mental)energy to do something you are instructed to do without the burden of responsibility, consequences and the certain nature of conclusion from it.
Whereas when it comes to your own life, vague steps are given and each of your action leads to some consequence which you have to tackle.
You could face uncertainty in every step.
You can lay down the steps other people take to get out of rut but you can be certain your path and your journey will be different from theirs which is scary and likely to add more stress.
So your point of claiming your power and focus is the real key imo, you gain that which gives you to confidence and the will power to handle uncertainty even when you are scared.
I apologize if this came out very confusing as I feel I could write a blog post about it with my scattered thoughts so its hard to condense my thought process into a smaller message.
Getting out of your own way.
More or less I feel somewhat in a rut, feeling not productive enough. I am curious what things have worked well for others to become more productive in their lives.
Try spending some time outdoors, things like kayaking or going car camping over a 3 day weekend. It really works wonders for me by giving me the space needed to reset my frame of thought when I'm in a slump.
I just finished a project where I was in the same situation. Stuck, I ended up in the same place every night that I started at. Began writing down a plan as detailed as I could, made a plan for every day what I wanted to achieve and maintained that to the end of the project. Got me out of a slump.
If your anything like me, stop thinking about it and make changes to better your life. Stop rationalizing away the blockers.
I mean this in the most generous, caring way but lower your standards. Find ways to break out of the cycles you are stuck in, sometimes this means readjusting your expectations. It's painful and awful but for the first time in a long time I feel some progress happening. It's never what you want but you have to seek ways of looking at things positively, they will never find you on their own.
Find where you spiral and focus on changing some of your attitudes to remove the cycles of spiraling.
An example of spiraling is:
1. “I should be achieving <unreasonable expectations>”
2. Shame about not being productive enough to achieve those expectations.
3. Numbing your emotions by getting distracted on web forums.
4. GOTO 2
To break this, don’t imagine you’ll go cold turkey. You’re human and will stumble. Instead, have ways to break the cycle and stop it from starting.
1. Have more humility. Don’t compare yourself to others especially characters on a stage like Jeff Bezos.
2. Give yourself power over your negative emotions by putting a label on them.
3. Use your body to process feelings. Specifically when you notice yourself feeling shame, do some pushups while imagining children playing on you like a jungle gym.
4. Do something you’ll feel grateful for having accomplished.
A lot of comments saying you should find new opportunities. Another path in case thats not what you want:
Consider taking a step back. It seems like your worry about becoming complacent is what might prevent you from doing that. If you stay in your current role, try to anyways. Channel your drive into a hobby or personal project or ... Take a month off in order to reset baseline expectations with your org.
Well put. I personally like the steps you mentioned
1. find ways to dig out
2. find hope and passion again in your pursuits
this answer might seem off topic, but it really isn't. your problem isn't really architecture here - it's getting stuck in an unproductive mental rut. do you agree?
if you do agree, then the solution is something along the line of avoiding the rut in the first place:
1. strengthen your resolve to think things through before committing to them - is it worth the risk?
2. get a second opinion - talk to your social network (in person preferably), about your idea, your concerns about it, and ask them to check up on you a quarter of the way through - if it seems like it's not a good idea, it's often easier for others to spot it in our behaviour.
for the first one, you could consider things like mindfulness meditation/reading Stoic literature - these help you build the mental skills to step back and ask questions instead of being dragged around by what is ultimately an emotional excursion.
Feeling stuck in a rut is quite common and most people would at some point have felt that and mostly rightfully so. You’re young enough, potentially with little responsibility in the way of family obligations etc. given that you don’t mention any. Evaluate whether you’re doing what you love. If yes, there are things to enjoy in your evolving relationship to your subject. Things are not always perfect, for some of us never. You learn to extract satisfaction from the little that is good rather than the many that you expect or anticipate. I failed most of my dreams but reality is much better than I thought it would be. Don’t overestimate the value and eventual relevance of your plans. Follow them for the journey.
—they call me the king of the cliché—
Exercise, drop the drugs, ensure you have some part of your identity unrelated to work.
I was in a rut for years because my work was my identity and I wasn’t where I wanted to be (thank you effective altruism for the identity crisis lol). When I moved out to California I quit drinking (for a while, quit again more recently), focused on exercising, and set a goal of not seeing my whole identity as a software developer. It helped so much with my physical and mental health, and in turn that helped me with my work life.
Honestly if you just view work as a source of income to do the things you want to do, and get out and be a bit more active, you could get out of the rut pretty quickly.
And if you don’t care for any of these suggestions - just stay positive these things are temporary and you’ll feel better in time anyway :) We all have these moments.
Stuck in a rut? Sick of scrolling through mediocre self-improvement articles with clickbait titles? Here’s one simple trick to break out of the slump and get moving again:
- Make and ship something in two hours.
- Make and ship something in a day.
- Make and ship something in a week.
If you’re still not ready to start your big project by this point, then make and ship something in a month.
First, practice gratitude. Yours are definitely first-world problems. "I can't get motivated" is a much better problem to have than "I can't get food/medicine/shelter" or "People are trying to kill me". Really meditate on what gratitude is. List the things in your life that you are thankful for. You feel "stuck", but you probably have roller skates on while standing on a paved road.
Second, you clearly want to believe in something and have something give you joy/meaning. But you can't just sit around and wait for something to pop into your life. You have to make meaning. You have to decide for yourself what will give you a reason to get up and go through drudgery. What do you want to do with your life? What would you like your purpose to be (at least for the next 20 years)? Where would you like to go? You could keep the same job but use it to achieve some larger purpose, or change jobs. Or not have a traditional job; it's a big world out there!
Third, consider that fear may be keeping you in that rut of mindless entertainment. Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of missing out, fear of effort, fear of failure, fear of success even! You know you're not happy; so what will make you happy? Or what would you like to try that might make you happy? Or content, anyway? First decide on that, then build your courage, then go get it.
And remember that you also don't have to do anything interesting or fulfilling or exciting. You can just be a regular person with a regular job and regular friends and not seek anything. But do recognize the good things that you have and appreciate them.
Been in a rut and burned out. Here's what has been helping
1. Exercise, keeps my energy up.
2. Wake up at the same time (helps me fall asleep at night)
3. Make a plan the night before for 1 thing I want to accomplish the next day.
I also found the book Feeling Good by David D. Burns MD helpful. He has several ways to retrain your inner voice to recognize when you're self sabotaging.
If you feel stuck it means you need new habits because the old ones are not serving you well!
Program your environment, set up commitment devices to lock in your future behaviour that is positive and effortless.
Do not ever set goals, they are high-risk low pay off mental bets that will eat you if you fail (odds are against you).
An issue here is that the title says "rut", but the description sounds more like apathy. Most of us would interpret "in a rut" to mean being stuck with the same schedule every day and being tired of the schedule, and that's different than not wanting to do anything.
Many of these suggestions, which I endorse, are referencing the description, and the answer to that is simple: Let yourself do nothing"productive". Force it even. Time for a vacation, maybe even a bit of a lengthy one. Your brain and/or body is trying to tell you something. This is basically the final phase before full burnout. Take it seriously.
And sometimes the answer is just to actively do nothing "productive" for a couple of weeks or months. Do nothing until you can't stand it anymore. Very few of us are built to go go go every day for years on end. As much as I like the civilization I live in, no previous civilization in history has even been able to do that much, or expected it of very many people. You aren't a bad person if you just stop for a while.
And if it feels bad... bear in mind, one way or another, you are going to stop. You can stop in a controlled manner, take a break, and come back refreshed and functional, or you can stop when you are a broken human being. We do not generally have a "just push through and don't stop" for this kind of work.
There isn't a specific "middle step B" because the idea here is specifically not to have one.
I think maybe it’s easier to get stuck in a rut, go on autopilot, rely on what you know and then end up feeling like there’s no novelty in the world any more as you get older and comfortable.
Maybe you can fall so deeply into it that you can’t even tell you’re in a rut any more and just think that that’s how the world is, which is a puzzling perspective to those outside of the rut because the complexity and novelty of the world really is literally everywhere.
Not that endless novelty seeking is the be all end all, but it’s there if you want it.
It sounds like a rut! From the looks of it most people have touched on a lot of possible solutions. I might suggest doing something crazy and uncomfortable. Move to a foreign country, go into a new field of work, etc…
I am in a similar headspace but at 31, but the truth is that life is just beginning in the 30s. You have experience AND money, which can open so many doors.
I find that sometimes there is just no motivation, there's even a big reluctance. It's very weird how or why this happens now and then. Maybe it is a natural protection mechanism kicking in, or maybe it is just a chemical imbalance of hormones involved in the reward system.
'Just do it' (tm) does not work in those cases.
After a while i just google 'how to get out of a rut' and that works after some undefined amount of wasted time.
Another trick to fall back onto, is changing jobs.
If you need to resort to such silly gimmicks, maybe there is something else that's wrong? Maybe you are depressed and you should seek help? Maybe you are not motivated because you are not in a career you enjoy or you don't like the major you've chosen in school or a family member is sick? If you take a step back and assess the situation rationally, something must be terribly wrong in your life if you need to "create a positive feedback loop to become motivated".
There's a potential well of habit that you have to climb out of before you start getting a benefit. If you don't put in the energy to try it for a while, you'll slide back down into the well.
Bury yourself in applying, that's what I usually do. I'll just pivot to being up-beat about all the cool opportunities that are out there. If I didn't do that, I'd be in a funk for sure as you say
Take out time for yourself. Try to understand what is good in you and work on to make it even better.
If you want to turn around, you have to identify your bad and good habits. We all have high frequency habits e.g. failure suppression, poor communication, avoid difficult situations, be aware of your high frequency habits and slowly make a habit to improve them.
I think it has become your habit now to work for so many hours and still unsatisfied with the results. I am also a victim of working long hours with a break for months. In my case, it is my fear of doing nothing that does not allow me do anything else but work, it is my insecurity that tells me to fill my time by working.
My suggestion is to be more courageous, take risk, make mistake and jump into uncertain territory. Things are not as bad as we think they are.
You're overthinking with hypotheticals that aren't relevant.
It isn't lapsing for a week if you were in a rut in the lead up.
Staying in that rut isn't a healthy way to live either. The alternative is to get out of the rut. Blaming fear as a roadblock is a separate issue, entirely.
You have to get out there and try different things with different people.
That “wall of apathy” is knowing that that thing you’re interested in is actually not that important to you and you want to conserve your energy for the things that actually are important to you.
Starting a business may bring that fulfillment, but be careful because it can also burn you out (especially if you think you’re in a rut now).
is there any way out if you find yourself stuck with a couple years of wrong experience?