Be Happy – Fight Against Stagnancy Bravely (Part 1)

Sometime it happens with us that when we are in the journey of growth, when we are growing delivering our best, when we are endlessly driven and motivated to get our goals, we feel that we are getting stagnant, we get nervous, and we are keeping procrastinating on our plans. Often, we solve one problem, only to get back into another one. This is called stagnancy.

Stagnancy may mean inactivity, being stagnant; standing still; without current or circulation, without any chance of progressing ahead. We feel stagnancy when we experience chronic procrastination on our goals, when we feel that we are no doing anything, when we keep turning to sleep, eating, games, mindless activities and entertainment for comfort, when we know that we should do something, but yet we keep avoiding it, when we do not achieve anything new or significant for last 1month, 2 months or for long period or when we have a deep sense of feeling that you are living under your potential

When we face stagnation in life, it’s a sign of deeper issues. Stagnation is a symptom of a problem. There are many reasons we have for our stagnancy. All of us have goals like losing weight, earning more money, finding a life partner, setting up our business, achieving performance targets, being fitter, and building better relationships, so on. Some people seem to have no problem achieving their goals. Some, on the other hand, don’t seem to be able to make any progress. At the end of the day, if you feel that you could not achieve what you had decided for the day, it may be possible that your failure may be due to any of the following reasons:

You are procrastinating very frequently.

You keep putting things off. You talk about how you want to do something but you don’t act on it. You are like the dog who keeps howling because it’s sitting on a nail. However, he refuses to get up from the nail. Because it’s not painful enough. You procrastinate on taking action because the situation is not painful enough for you yet. However, the times when it does become painful enough are often the times when it’s too late to do anything. Either you start taking action, or you give up for ever. Either that or you waste a lot of time every day on low value activities.

You are lazy.

Thinking and planning are great but it is action that leads to success. It is only by doing things and doing the right things that you change the world. If you have clear goals but are not making progress towards them then look at your activity level. If you are a writer are you writing enough? If you are a salesman are you selling enough? If you are a leader are you leading enough? Great sportsmen and musicians practice for hours each day. Picasso painted over 20,000 pictures. Persistence pays dividends. How high is your work rate? And how much time do you waste on activities that do not advance you towards your objectives?

You underestimate your goal.

Achieving a goal is about getting from point A to B. From point A, you create an action plan that gets you to point B. It sounds foolproof, except the action plan isn’t 100% valid. That’s because you’re setting the plan from point A. You haven’t even been to point B, so how do you even know if it’ll get you to B? At most it’ll be help to bring you closer to point B, but it’s not going to be 100% accurate. Almost all the time, people fail because they underestimate what it takes to achieve their goals. What should you do then? Over-commit your resources and review your progress constantly. You must adjust your plan of action and adapt accordingly.

You spend more time defending your problems than taking action.

You complain how you are not getting the results as you expected. When people try to give you suggestions, you spend more time justifying why their suggestions will not work and defending your lack of results than brainstorm with them on how to get out of your rut. Spend less time talking about your problems and use that time to think about solutions. Then act on them. You’ll get a lot more results this way, and you’ll be happier.

You’re too enclosed in your own world.

You don’t venture out beyond your normal routine. You do the same things, talk to the same old friends, act the same way, circle around the same issues. It’s no wonder you stagnate. Open yourself up – take active steps to grow. Get to know more people – people who are driven, positive and focused. Get new, refreshing perspectives. Read new books. Add new blogs to your subscription. Ask for feedback on how you can improve. You may go through this blog again and again. You may find something appealing to you.

You’re not working smart.

You do the same thing over and over, even when you don’t get results. You apply brute strength to your goals, without strategizing how you can apply this strength more effectively. If you are not getting what you want, it’s a signal it’s time to change what you have been doing. See how you can do this in a different, smarter, more effective way. Look at people who have achieved the same results before, and learn from them.

If you know you have a weakness, you have to find a hack to get around it. Compensation, if you will, would be a good way to describe putting this old truth into action. If you know you are poor at organizing, go shopping for the easiest filing tools that will force you to be more organized. People who don’t have time to read books can listen to audio-books while commuting. There are endless examples for this concept, and all it takes is just a tiny bit of creativity.

You avoid taking action due to your fear.

You avoid taking action because some of the things you have to do intimidate you. You rather delay the process as much as possible. Unfortunately, results are not going to come automatically from delaying. Results come to people who pay their dues, not people who avoid the work. The fear isn’t going to go away by waiting it out. Face the fear and do it anyway.

You’re easily distracted.

You get distracted by things thrown in your way. Your attention gets diverted from your goals. Your ability to stay focused is instrumental to achieving your results. Be clear of what you want and stick to it. Don’t let anything (or anyone) distract you. These are the obstacles to see how serious you are about getting what you want.

You over-complicate situations.

Common among the neurotic perfectionists. If you are a neurotic perfectionist, you blow the situation out of proportion and create this mental image that’s so complicated that it’s no wonder you don’t get anything done. Things are usually simpler than you think – be conscious when you are adding unnecessarily complications for yourself.

You give up too easily.

You give up before you even get anywhere. You settle for less, forgetting the goals you once set. That’s bad because then you are just stifling yourself and making do with what you have – and this isn’t who you are meant to be. You have to first reconnect with your inner desires. If you cannot fail at all, what would you want to do? What are your biggest hopes and dreams for your future? What is the future you want to create for yourself? Reignite your vision and don’t ever lose sight of it. It’s your fuel to your success.

Be Happy – Fight Against Stagnancy Bravely (Part 1)