Step One to Pulling Yourself Out of a Rut

You can’t be on top of the world all the time. Me personally? I spend half of my life at the bottom, trying to climb back up. Somewhere in between are those pestering phases that keep us from being completely happy and fulfilled, while also not relegating us entirely to rock bottom. This is what we all commonly can identify as being “in a rut”.

Here’s my personal timeline for how I’m currently wrestling the rut that I’m stuck in.

• Realized I was in a rut
• Wallowed in self-doubt and self-pity over numerous things in my life
• Didn’t want to go to work ever
• Took a personal inventory of all the things I didn’t like about my life
• Did absolutely nothing to fix it
• Felt worse
• Holed myself away from the world to play video games
• Avoided all social interaction and leaving the house in general
• Eventually got sick of feeling this way
• Decided to volunteer at an animal shelter
• Actually showed up to orientation
• Felt slightly better about doing something to help others
• Stayed off video games all night
• Had a semi-productive evening, accomplishing little things around the house
• Already planning my next move. Perhaps a class to learn a new skill or fun thing? Up the ante on my language-learning? Both??
• Outlined the various routes I am going to take to connect on more job opportunities
• Reached out to friends about spending time together
• Came up with several small-scale video ideas to do with the equipment I have (who needs a big budget or actually decent prosumer equipment? I have a Canon Rebel DLSR that hasn’t been used in awhile!)

So in short, the first step is realizing you are in a rut. But the real, actionable first step is to do something. Anything. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Making an effort is one of the hardest things you can do (it is for me especially). I made the choice to get out of my head and my home and that seemed to have a snowball effect. Anything to connect with something outside my own head an opportunity to rejuvenate myself.

I hope I look back one day and see this as just a small speedbump on the way to a bigger, brighter day.