Anyone worked their way out of a rut

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Because sometimes scapegoating the Kulaks for your problems get tiring.

So I find myself in a rut, where I feel there are a dozen or so aspects of my life that are not to my liking. I am sure tons of other people have gone through the same thing, and am curious as to their feedback on a variety of areas.

  1. How do you identify what is actually causing the feeling of a rut, and how do you act on it so you do not spend all your time on less important things?

  2. What about self acceptance vs changing your situation

  3. What about the negatives of the new situation after you change it
    So to expand:

  4. For this I was just considering making a list of everything which I think bothers me, look for common threads, then make a list of everything I can do to change it. Then research more ideas, and try to keep an updated list of everything I did each week to bring about those changes.

But how do you determine what ‘really’ is bothering you? It isn’t always apparent. A woman who is obsessed with her weight may really just be lonely and on some level assume losing weight will make her desirable (and by proxy less lonely). But losing weight won’t fix the real problem.

I guess introspective questioning and therapy are necessary to get to what a person really wants and needs so they do not end up pursuing less important or abstract goals.

How do you determine what you ‘really’ need to change vs. what you ‘think’ you need to change? After you do that, what methods do you use to enact that change?

  1. The hedonistic treadmill basically states people are constantly discontent on some level, and always thing fixing or buying XYZ will solve their problems and make them happy. But certain ideologies like Buddhism state the real solution is self acceptance. To be able to be aware of all your flaws, failings, humiliations, setbacks and still feel like a whole and complete individual anyway.

So part of me wonders how do you distinguish the two? When is it best to work on changing your situation vs when is it best to work on self acceptance? A problem like being in an abusive relationship, or being stuck in chronic poverty, or being addicted to something sounds like an issue that needs to be changed if you can change it. But what about changing careers or jobs?

My point is I am not sure if/when it is best to pursue change vs self acceptance to deal with feelings of discontentment. I wouldn’t recommend a person in an abusive relationship practice Buddhist self acceptance to make peace with the situation. But I wouldn’t recommend a person who is extremely neurotic about money or looks try to improve their financial situation and appearance and instead probably work on their underlying insecurities which drive that behavior.

  1. Even if you do change what you feel is bothering you, it usually just opens up a whole new set of responsibilities, discontentments and problems. Sometimes better than the previous situation, sometimes worse.

Anyone have experience with this?

So all in all, who has not quite hit ‘rock bottom’ but still reached a point where they feel the endless discrepancies between who they are vs. who they want to be are hard to ignore, and made concrete efforts to change?

How did you determine what was important to change vs. what was not? How did you get to the core issues and not dance around with surface issues (ie if you feel insecurity but that insecurity is expressed via money or dating or appearance, address the insecurity instead of the surface issue)?

2

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3

Since I’m the only respondent, I should explain what happened there:

I explained at length how I got out of my rut, then realised that it wasn’t that relevant to the OP.

In my rut, there was no doubt that my life was in a Very Bad Place.

And my advice was that introspection is not that useful IME. Plenty of times I’d frankly listed out my problems and felt the lump in the throat as I resolved to change, but such fix-everything-in-one-go approaches haven’t worked for me.

What’s worked for me is just trying new things, taking risks and mixing with new people. The world seems a very different place to me than it did even as recently as six months ago, and now if I introspect my conclusions are better informed than they would have been then.

This isn’t quite relative to the OP, because you’re asking when one should be satisfied and when one should push for more. I’m inclined to say “push for more” but I certainly don’t want to advise you to change jobs, say, when you’re not even sure if you want to.

4

Just do something different. It doesn’t have to be big, just something you can change on a consistent basis. And then see how you feel. If it helps, keep doing it until it’s a habit. If it doesn’t help, do something different again.

Last semester I started graduate school and I got stuck in a series of very unhealthy patterns that just compounded the stress. I felt like I wasn’t growing in the direction I wanted to grow. I was tired all the time, had low self-esteem, chronic depression and was gaining weight as a result of my hours and hours spent on the couch doing coursework.

So I decided to spend 15 minutes every day doing some form of exercise. 15 minutes is easy, even on your busiest day you can squeeze it in. (In fact, the ‘‘15 Minute Rule’’ works for most things. I’ve used it for cleaning, meditating, and many other things when I wanted to make a behavior change.)

So every day for the last 30 days I have exercised a minimum of 15 minutes daily. Some days I just have time for that 15 minutes, but I exercise for far longer at least 3x per week. Now every day, no matter what kind of stress is happening, I know I’m going to get at least 15 minutes all to myself.

This has reduced the depression significantly and it has given me more energy, which has allowed me to change other things, again, in that small, measured way. For example, I still do my schoolwork, but I get up and move around for a while every hour or so. I break up the long stretches with other activities. I eat lots of healthy fruits and veggies and whole grains. That gave me even more energy, which allowed me to throw myself into a lot of extra-curricular work I really care about rather than making excuses for why I can’t get involved.

All of those small changes are adding up to significant lifestyle change.

Another thing – ‘‘Self-acceptance’’ is not the same as ‘‘tolerating abuse’’ or ‘‘refusing to change things that don’t work.’’ You can extend compassion to yourself for your inevitable imperfections while at the same time working to make your life better. Self-acceptance will still be there, reminding you when you don’t quite hit the mark that you’re doing the best you can and that’s all anyone can expect of any human being. Self-acceptance is the thing that allowed me to go to bed on time even though I had unfinished reading from this absolutely crazy week – because I am not perfect, and this week was crazy, and good enough is good enough.

5

Fidn a way to make yourself of use to others. Volunteer or something. This will give you the sense of fulfillment and self-esteem you need to make the other changes your equire. It will also give you the necessary perspective to demand more of your life.

It worked for me, anyway.

6

I have worked my way out of a rut many times. First put the car in reverse then lightly step on the gas pedal. Release the gas pedal and quickly put the car into low gear. Continue switching between reverse and low gear to get the car rocking back and forth. Eventually you will get enough momentum to work your way out of the rut. Of course sometimes you will need a tow truck.

7

Then why are there abandoned cars on the side of the road?

8

I did say that sometimes you will need a tow truck.