How to quickly get out of a rut
In this 10‑minute coaching video, certified high‑performance coach Sean (Shawn) Buttner explains why productivity ruts are habit‑driven and offers five concrete strategies to break out of them. He frames the problem as a mismatch between two core rhythms – work output and personal energy – and argues that aligning and protecting these rhythms restores motivation. The five tactics are: (1) establish a reliable work rhythm with regular deliverable deadlines (the "show must go on" mindset); (2) build an energy rhythm through daily movement, sunlight, sleep, yoga, meditation and other wellness habits; (3) surface what you’re avoiding, probing whether it’s fear, lack of clarity, or loss of relevance, and decide whether to act, clarify, or release; (4) create behavioral momentum generators – the smallest viable actions that get you in front of the work and trigger a flow state; and (5) apply the three‑second rule, counting down and acting immediately to prevent over‑thinking. Buttner also notes that deeper personal issues (grief, injury, etc.) may require professional help and invites viewers to a free one‑hour coaching session. Throughout, he uses personal anecdotes (morning yoga, calendar discipline) to illustrate each point and emphasizes that consistent habits, not magic solutions, are the key to quickly escaping a rut.
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We all have times in our lives where we don't feel motivated or we don't feel like we're living up to our full potential. And sometimes we call these ruts. And it's a natural part of being a high performer, of having maybe earlier in the month you were super productive and now you're struggling with distractions or trying to keep on track with your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, or those things that are most important for you out in the world. So if you are in a rut or you're thinking, what causes these gluts and ruts in productivity, it's going to be your habits for your energy, your. Your habits for your outputs, Work outputs. How consistently and committed you are to those two rhythms will really impact how you recover from ruts or those brief points of unmotivated behavior and or not. So the good news is it's your habits. The bad news is it's probably caused by your habits. So I got five ideas for you to think through to make sure you don't get caught in ruts or you don't get stuck in a rut. Now, if you can figure out this is the magic of high performers, where we all know that maybe you'll start to feel like you're getting unmotivated or starting to struggle with your productivity. But again, it's these habits that help you get back on track quicker. So if you're at the top of your game in business and as an athlete in any other area of your life, it's probably because your habits support that productivity and that high level of output. Here's what we're going to do. For me, it all comes down to what I've been thinking about in my business is rhythms. When am I releasing my podcast? When am I releasing videos like this? When am I releasing my newsletter? And as the showbiz quote goes, the show must go on. No matter if you're ready with all your bags packed to get on the train or you're just running to barely making it in the doors, the show must go on. You have to commit to that production and you also have to commit to your health in the same way during the week. I recently started a habit of doing yoga and meditation in the morning with some ab work, some core work, just to wake up the body and get a little bit flexible to help with energy throughout the day. And it's those types of habits that we schedule and that we're able to hit with discipline or consistency that ultimately will make the difference. And, and I started These habits because I found that when I didn't have things on the calendar, I didn't have things planned out like that, that I was at the whim of my emotions. Did I feel creative today? Did I feel like communicating that I think I could communicate and connect with people and it's something I still struggle with. But being required to show up and being required to have the energy to do that is a challenge in itself. But it's also very helpful as we go forward. So I have five ideas for you to really think through when you're not feeling motivated or in a that rut as we've been talking about. And as we go into these, I just want to first call out that this isn't a cure all for everything. If you had a traumatic brain injury, you might have some executive function things you might need to see a doctor for. Right. Everyone's situation is different. There could be particular things to your situation that might not that might be causing this dip in productivity. If you've ever had a family member pass away that that's a heavy thing to deal with. And grieving can really hit your productivity and that's a human thing that. Absolutely. Okay. And you should go through and deal with those feelings. So like I said, this isn't a you can always be productive 100% of the time, but your habits and this idea of committing to maintaining your energy and your work outputs can help you get back in the game sooner when it's not useful anymore in that grieving situation. Maybe. Yeah. So just a little caveat here and before I also go into if you are having problems with your productivity or showing up at work or trying to figure out how do I get excited about what I'm doing to get to that next level in my career? Sometimes it's really helpful to talk to a coach. And so I have a free one hour strategy session you can schedule with me. I have a couple spots open. Hit the link below this video, fill out the application, select your time, we get on a call and we build you a high performance plan unique to you, personalized to you using this most advanced high performance process with habits and tactics for you high performance habits for you to get in the game and to find that next level for yourself. If you're interested, check out that free one hour session and if not, enjoy the rest of these topics. All right, first idea for getting out of a rut or keeping out of a rut or finding your motivation again is what is your work rhythm? Do you always have a status Report that goes out on Monday. Do you always have to have your code ready to go into production or testing or production or whatever by Friday? Do you have have to have social media posts by Wednesday? Or, you know, what are those tangible work items that you're delivering every week and when those due dates are and do you have then time to work on that schedule? So that's the second part, because again, the show must go on no matter what. You're going to be delivering financial report, you're going to be delivering the code, you're going to be delivering your social media marketing stuff and determine that rhythm, commit to that rhythm and plan and schedule that rhythm. Right. On the flip side, point number two is how are you energizing yourself through the week? Again, from what I'm currently working on, I'm doing yoga and meditation and ab workouts in the morning and we try to work in a walk every day. Sometimes it's shorter than others. And so that's part of my rhythm is morning workouts, getting out in the sun every day a little bit, trying to manage my sleep is a whole other thing. But we get into that in a different video. But how are you maintaining your energy? And what are the habits that will make you succeed? And then again, are they on your calendar again? Are you committed to making sure that that happens no matter what every day? And with working out and stuff, if you're like, I'm struggling to get my runs in, maybe it's time to dial it down a little bit so you have some momentum, give yourself a little bit of a rest, a little bit of grace before you get back in. And you might plan it to be like this week, this next two weeks, what I'm going to do is half of what I plan on running just to make it fun and easy again and then start wrapping it up in two weeks or a week or whatever it is for you. But you do have options there that I wanted to share that with you. The third thing, if you find yourself in a rut in your career or in life, is to bring out the old dusty journal and ask yourself, what are you avoiding today? What are you. Why are you not doing the things that you need to do? What are you avoiding? Is it because of fear? That fear that it's gonna be tough and you don't have the time for it, or it's something you just don't want to manage with? Or is it the fear of you're not sure if it's worth the effort, so you could go through all the work, but the outcome isn't going to be great. Or is it? You're going to be giving up something by taking on this new task or starting this new thing. These are all fears that we generally have. We talk about a lot in my, you know, coaching work with my clients. This is a big part of the conversation. But being clear on if you're avoiding something because of fear is super important. And if that's you, the thing to do is to ask yourself the question is, what do I gain by taking action here? And sometimes that reminder of, oh, if I start this project, it'll lead to another line of business for my company or for myself, and that'll be financial abundance for the family and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes that reminder is enough to get your back into action. What do you gain by doing the thing that you're holding back on? The other reason, though we don't start is sometimes they're not clear. You might have this big, grand vision to grow your YouTube channel, to grow your podcast, to finish the album. The next step is not clear. And so you spend a lot of energy in the moment being like, what do I got to do next? What's going to be the most impactful? And if you guess wrong enough times, right. So sometimes people can be like, what do I gotta do? Oh, yeah, I gotta lay down the bass track and the guitar track and the vocal track and the drum track. Right. And sometimes with experience, you just know if it's not natural to know what to do next with whatever you're doing, it's worth again, bringing out the old journal and thinking about, what are the steps that get the big goal? Right? How do I finish the album? They have to write 12 songs. How do I write 12 songs? Start with one. What am I going to do for this first song? And then go from there. Um, so, you know, that's getting clear on the actual next steps, the concrete steps towards your goal. The third thing that to think about is if you're avoiding something is maybe it's not important to you in your life anymore. And that could be a little harsh. And I've done this in my life for sure. Where you hold onto projects way longer than you need to because you're emotionally attached to it or you made a commitment, but you're going to do it. I had a business years ago where I was writing ebook. The business stopped. It took me an extra year to write the dang thing. And then I'm like, oh, now I have to market it and do all materials around that. And that was rough. But it's at that point when I finally finished the thing and oh, now I have to do all the marketing. I had already started working at Apple, had already been thinking about, oh, I want to do more coaching, I don't want to do student debt stuff that I was writing the book on. And so having permission to say, you know what, my life changed, my priorities changed, I can let this go. It was one, working with my coach that, that helped me realize that. But two, like that permission or that awareness that there, there are certain things that are worth hustling and sticking through and seeing to the end, and there are things that just aren't serving you anymore. That is a weight off to let go. So what do you need to release? What weight do you need to let go of in order for you to get back in the game? And that could be super helpful. And that could be. If you're an executive, what are the things on your calendar that you don't need to do personally, that you could delegate to somebody? Like, it could be that type of. This isn't important to me personally. It might be important to the organization. I don't particularly need to do this. Maybe it's time to highlight a junior member in the organization and give them something to, to step up to. To build leadership is a potential scenario, but it's getting rid of the things that are not important in your life and either delegating it, deleting it, or finding a different way to perceive it in order to connect with it. Yeah. What are you avoiding? Is it fear? Is it cause they're not clear? Or is it because it's not important? The fourth idea is to think about what are some behavioral momentum generators. Or I've called it the smallest viable action in that if you have a big project that you need to tackle and is it just the initial success metric is do I get my butt in the seat in front of the computer with the thing open and I'm staring at it and I put a timer on for 10 minutes and whatever happens, right. Most people could sit in a chair and look at a screen and that's not a huge lift, right? And the psychology behind that is, is if you can set up these behavioral momentum generators or the smallest valuable actions, you'll naturally continue, right? If you're like, oh, I'm here, I'm in front of my work, I might as well just do one sentence, right? And you do the first thing and you start jamming, before you know it, an Hour's gone by and you're like, what happened? It's, oh, you got into momentum through a small action that almost doesn't seem important, but it's the first thing you have to do to push the domino through productivity. And so it's important to be thinking about that. So if you've been putting off or avoiding a task or you're not feeling motivated, maybe it's putting on your work clothes and going for a walk, or maybe you go for a while, take a shower, put on your work clothes, get in your day. It could be that these behavioral momentum generators are super important. And the fifth idea is the three second rule is to not leave time to overthink. So if you have something on your schedule and you know you have to do something, instead of being like, what do I want to do here? It's like, how do I get into action? Three, two, one, go. And it's okay, I need to do a video. 3, 2, 1, go. Start the outline, get in front of the camera. And here we are. As someone that tends to overthink things like this 3 second rule is super impactful, super power powerful. With that all said, guys, again, the five ideas are, what is your work rhythm? The show must go on. How energizing. How are you energizing yourself through the week? So what's your workout movement? See the sun schedule? Three, what are you avoiding? Is it fear because you're not clear or it's not important? Four is what are the behavioral momentum generators or the smallest valuable actions to get you some momentum on the task at hand, the things that are important to you. And then the final rule is the three second rule, which is just a three, two, one, go and do the thing instead of overthinking it. That can super serve you. Really. Again, these ruts or these moments where we're not feeling motivated or we feel content, but we feel stuck and want to move forward are part of life, but they're also a result of our habits. So again, if you have your content rhythm, your energy rhythm, if you have a concrete idea of what you got to do, what you're avoiding, and those behavior mental momentum generators, it will make a difference for your productivity and for your sanity if you're like me and need to be making progress and stuff. So that's it, guys. I'm Sean Butner, certified high performance coach, and we'll see you guys in the next video. It.
