Step in the Right Direction - Release Yourself From Stuckness

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise, connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company, I'm Espresso Sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You too can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you're listening to the podcast One Life Step in the Right Direction. You want to move forward with whatever category or area of your life, but you feel stuck. You don't know which way is north, which way to go. You feel like any direction you go is just going to be a wall. And as a result, you spiral around in your mind, literally running in circles. If this sounds familiar to you, I want to give you some ease to know that there is a way out of it. In this episode, I'm going to share an experience that I have been dealing with, and it's something I've been dealing with for literally the last 13 years of my career. But I'm also going to share with you how and what I am doing to get out of that. So let's get clear first. Like what is first? What is the vision you have? What is it that you're moving towards in the first place? You must always start with the end in mind, because if you're not starting with the end in mind, how do you know where you're going to end up or where you're going? Yes, it's true that in life nothing is guaranteed. Things pop up. But if you're going in that general direction of where you want to be, the likelihood of you getting there in a place that you're going to enjoy will be much greater. So where do you want to be after you've decided that? I want you to just ask the next question is, where are you stuck? Where are you getting hung up? What are the belief systems around that? And lastly, what actions have you taken in the past to try to get unstuck? Speaking from experience, you can stay stuck in that area thinking that you're doing some kind of work to get yourself out, but really what you're doing is you're just spiraling around in your head. I'm going to share an Experience from my own life, from my business. My business has been probably my greatest teacher because it's making me stretch in ways that I never knew or could imagine. Lately, I had been feeling very, very stuck. I've been feeling like my business was taking over my life. Now, if you know me, you're probably like, oh, come on, Donnie. You travel three times a year for literally a couple months I'll spend traveling. But some of it is me wanting to just experience more. And there have been trips in the past where literally it's been escapism, where I'm taking the trip because I just want to get away from everything. I want to get some peace of mind. So back in the business, you can go somewhere, but when you return back home, you go into your old habits, your own routines, your own patterns and ways of thinking. So I came back, and I'm looking at everything ahead of me. I have my cold room espresso, which is doing extremely well. All this opportunity, like creating courses and doing all this great stuff, but something doesn't feel right. Something feels like I'm building something that's going to be like my cap door. And so when I came back, I was literally looping, going around, feeling very, very anxious, like I had no control, like my business was controlling me and dictating the next actions and steps I would have to take. Looking at this, I realized that there were a lot of beliefs around who I had to be, what it meant to be in that industry, and things I had to do. And what I want to tell you is that you can be in the same place, but it is not, and it doesn't have to be that way. What I want to tell you is I'm going to share with you what I am doing to get through this, to get more clarity, to move in the direction I want to go. The first thing is exactly what I started with was knowing where you want to go, what is it that you want to do? I'm going to give you an example for my business. But you can use this for any area of your life. Your body, your relationships. Where is it? What's the destination? What is the end goal? When I was looking at my business, I realized that the business I wanted was being around people more, having the freedom to travel, not in the sense of taking these small breaks from the business, but the ability to work from anywhere. And it's not to say that I want to spend all my time, like, abroad, that would be pretty freaking cool. But it's not to say that I want to spend like, oh, let me go to Lisbon, let me go to Italy and just stay outside the country. No. Traveling gets tiring. But I want to have my base and to be able to move around the world meeting new people, because that is what fills me up. So the next thing is, all right, well, how can I get clear about the business model? As I said, there were so many conflicting beliefs around what it meant to have a coffee company as well AS 1 in CPG Consumer packaged goods between the cold Roman. It was not something I had planned. It was something that happened by chance. It was a great thing to happen. But all of a sudden, now my career path is going in a direction that I didn't intend it to go. Now I could turn back and I could say, okay, well, let me hit the brakes and let me skedaddle the hell out of here. Or I could look at it from a different perspective and say, okay, this was a gift. How can I make this gift work for my lifestyle? That is what your job, that is what your work is for. You want to enjoy your work, but your work is there to give you the things you want out of life. So with that being said, you know the direction you want, you know what's going to make you happy, you need to seek out new answers. As a result, I started talking to different consultants. I'm going to a beverage event where I'm going to be around other beverage entrepreneurs and some again, more consultants. And I'm just going to have a conversation. Because the conversation, by getting new knowledge, it'll open my mind to seeing something that didn't see. Uncovering disempowering beliefs about what I feel like I have to do, especially the disempowered, the belief that I have to do it alone. Nobody does it alone. Plus makes it not enjoyable if you do it alone. And the last step is taking the action, getting feedback and understanding what is the path forward that's going to be aligned with you. And then just taking some steps. They don't have to be big steps. In the past, I would get stuck on. I mean, in the past, I'll be honest with you, even now, right. I would get stuck on thinking that the step I was taking that I wasn't progressing. But yet there's all these little steps. If I was honest with myself, right? If I take a step out and I get outside my body and I look back at me and okay, did I make progress? Am I learning something? Am I getting new insights? Whatever it may be, yes, I am. So I Was being extremely critical and hard on myself. And it doesn't really didn't feel good when I was doing that. And I still always have to monitor and catch myself, but now taking new steps, taking new actions based on that. I spoke to a consultant on who does consumer packaged goods specifically in the production side. And I am going to move forward with that. The entire time my mind is shouting, no, no, no, get the fuck out. Literally in those terms. But I've been conscious of my mind over, just monitoring over the last week when all these different opportunities come up that I was excited. All of a sudden the mind would chime in and tell me all the reasons why I couldn't do the thing I wanted to do. That's when I realized it's just all bullshit. It has nothing to do sometimes with whether or not you want the thing. It's just the mind chatter. In moments like that, you have to check in with your heart and feel what is the right decision for you. I did that. And I know the path is forward, but it scares the shit out of me. I look back to the 13 years I've been doing this beverage. For 13 years I've been stuck on, well, almost 13 years I've been stuck on the same thing. And what that means is that I need to retool, I need to learn new skills. I need to look at it from a different perspective, realizing that it took that long to figure out what I needed to do or where I need to put my focus. It's a hard pill to swallow. But it reminds me of the quote that says, when is the best time to plant a tree? 10 years ago. When's the second best time to plant a tree? Now? So I don't know where you are in your life, what you're doing, where you're stuck. But I want to invite you to just start to get some clarity as to what it is that you want, what that vision would look like most of all. How would it feel if you had it? The emotions are what are going to pull you and connect you. Secondly, where do you. What knowledge do you have to attain? Like who can you talk to to get some new insights? Likely you are feeling stuck or you feel like there's no path forward because you're limited perception. You don't know if, for instance, using myself as example, I've been in the beverage industry for some time. But there's a whole other side to it in terms of team building. All these things I don't understand. And as a result of that, I'M creating this story, this belief in my mind as to how it's supposed to be, when that might not necessarily be the truth. What stories are you making up? How are they holding you back? After you've gotten some new information and you see a new path in front of you, the next step is just to take some action, some small steps. Maybe the small step is contacting a consultant or a personal trainer just to have a conversation, right? You don't have to commit to anything just to have the conversation. Take write down a few small steps. It can even just be something looking online, doing a search on something just to start to get ideas. Because as a result of getting new inputs, it's going to change your perspective. You're going to start to open your eyes and see new possibilities. This is all about creating a life that is aligned with your values. A life that you are doing by choice, not by chance. And I want to add this one last piece in. It is easy to beat yourself up, right? The weak thing to do is to beat yourself up for not being a certain way, not doing a certain thing. But the strong person progresses. The strong person moves forward regardless. Because all this stuff is temporary. All you're doing the entire time is learning, making mistakes and learning. Yes, it is going to look really, really messy at times, but that's life. The important thing is that you just keep going. So I want to encourage you. Just keep going. You deserve to live a life that you love and I hope that you will just give yourself the permission to go find and seek out that life. That is all I've got for you guys today. Hope that you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please subscribe. Please give it a thumbs up. Share it with a friend whom you believe will benefit from hearing this message, who may be going through a tough time where they feel stuck and don't know what direction to go. So if you want to subscribe, you could do so by visiting my podcast www.donnierous.com again www.d o n y ra com there. I encourage you just click the the first thing you'll see is just sign up for the mailing list. When I do events about getting clear on your life, you will be the first to know and it's coming up soon. You can also ask questions there via the website. So again, www.donnierouse.com I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Remember guys, it is your life. You get to decide. You are in the driver's seat, so decide. What kind of life do you want to live? Because you only get one life. Live it. God bless and I will see you again soon.