If you can tell by the title, this is about what to do when you’re feeling stuck, which is very relevant to my most recent Instagram post that I posted this week. It was an Instagram post that went semi-viral. We’re at over 42,000 views and over 100 shares on this Instagram post. Instagram reel about a client of mine who came to me last year, back in July of 2022, feeling extremely stuck in his life. He didn’t like his job. He had no money. He was abusing drugs—in this case, cocaine—a few times a week and wasn’t going to the gym. He had a terrible mental health problem, was struggling a lot, and was experiencing a lot of challenges in his life. And he came to me and said, Hey, Zach, do you think you can help me out? And after having a few conversations with him—two or three conversations before we started working together—it came down to the fact that he needs to get clean. And we discovered that together. I did not give this person advice. I did not tell them what to do. I simply asked the right questions to uncover what he wanted for himself over the next six months, over the next year, and over the next 50 years of his life. And he wanted money. He wanted to travel. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to feel secure and safe; he wanted to feel inspired; he wanted to be ambitious; and he knew he could accomplish more. But there were a lot of things that were holding him back, and he felt stuck. And the biggest factor that was holding him back was his use of drugs. 

This is a problem, guys. It is an epidemic.

We do have a drug problem in America. We have a drug problem in the country and around the world. And it’s not just cocaine, fentanyl, and heroin. I mean, there are a lot of people who are addicted to marijuana. There are a lot of people who are addicted to alcohol. There are a lot of people who are addicted to caffeine. There are a lot of people who are addicted to vaping. And even though vaping doesn’t really change, your mindset, it is extremely detrimental to your health. 

So when this client came to me and we discovered together that the most profound and blaring issue in his life was his drug problem, we decided to get clean. And the first thing he did to get clean was get rid of his paraphernalia. The second thing he did to get clean was text me every single night, email me every single night when he was going to sleep sober, and fast forward the clock ten months. He has been sober for over 275 days. He has erased a lot of his consumer debt. He has saved up a good amount of money in his savings account, and he just landed his dream job in the dream city that he wanted to move to. He’s lost over 50 pounds. He is extremely healthy. He’s in the best place of his life he has ever been. And it didn’t take much to make that change. All it took was one small pivot, putting 1 foot in front of the other, and doing that day in and day out consistently over time, because those small wins stacked consistently over time amount to massive results. 

Those small wins each and every single day is going to amount to the results you’re after

So I want you to think about the one thing that you could either stop doing or that you can start doing that will change your life or pivot your direction in a better way. And if that’s going to the gym every single day, if it’s stopping smoking cigarettes, if it’s stopping drinking alcohol for a month, if it’s starting that business, starting that podcast, picking up the phone and calling a friend to pick up the phone and asking for help to schedule an appointment with your therapist. Those small wins each and every single day is going to amount to the results you’re after. 

So to the reader today, if you’re reading this right now and you’re feeling stuck, I want you to write it down, whether it’s digitally or pen to paper. What’s that one thing you’re going to do today, and what’s that one thing that you’re going to be more intentional about to pivot your life in a better direction? Because this story, this anecdote of the client I was working with and that I’m still working with, is proof that through small steps consistently executed over time, you will reap massive results. 

So how do you know if you’re feeling stuck?

I think it’s pretty simple and user-friendly to understand. I don’t think you have to read a book or watch a video on Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle to recognize when you’re feeling stuck. A lot of us feel stuck a lot of the time, and there are a lot of reasons why we feel stuck. 

We are such a consumeristic society, and we want a nicer car, a newer watch, a newer bag, more followers, and to eat at more expensive restaurants. So we’re always chasing, and craving more things, right? So it’s easy to feel stuck when you don’t have the things that you dream of or believe that you should have. But at the end of the day, those things that we want, those things that we’re after, we have to earn those things. You have to earn a lot of money. You have to earn the ability to go to parties, go to events, and go to charities with extremely successful millionaires and billionaires, okay? You can’t just show up because you think you’re deserving or feel privileged to belong there. You can’t make money out of thin air. You earn money out of thin air. Two completely different things, okay? And in this society, in this day and age, a lot of people live with the microwave mentality. They want to house hack and do zero money down creative financing to build a massive $100 million real estate portfolio. They want to buy the newest altcoin, whether it’s Dogecoin or Shiba Inu, and they want to get rich from that. They want to buy an NFT, flip it, and make $40,000. They want to find a rental, and they want to create this huge Airbnb arbitrage business, okay? But getting rich is not easy. Getting rich takes time. 

So back to the conversation about what to do when you’re feeling stuck. The one thing to do when you’re feeling stuck is the one thing that’s going to make you a better version of yourself next hour than you were this hour. And if that means meditating for five minutes, if that means journaling for ten minutes if that means picking up a book that you said you were going to read last year, the year before, and the year before that, read the first page. Okay? 

Being specific about your goals is very, very important

Now, obviously, I talk a lot about goal-setting. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals are going to help you create the lifestyle you want, and having these goals written down is so key to your success because if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going nowhere. And I feel like I’m beating a dead horse when I talk about goal setting from time to time. But the real reason why I continue to talk about goal setting is that goal setting is so important to me, and I continue to talk about my goals, or, let me rephrase, I continue to write down my yearly goals. My monthly goals, my quarterly goals, and my weekly goals—my daily goals, my morning goals, and my afternoon goals—the more I revisit them, I mean, look, you guys, they’re right up here. Objectives. Make $20,000 a month. Be in the best shape of my life. Travel the world and become a top 100 podcast. Okay? Those are my objectives right now. And then I have the systems in place. What are the systems that are going to get me there? Okay, I’ve got to ask for reviews on the podcast every single day, and I’ve done it twice already. And third, times a charm. If you have not already left a review on Apple, Spotify, Audible, Google, or iHeart, go ahead and leave one now. We recommend five stars. But being specific about your goals is very, very important.

So there are two things to do when you are feeling stuck. That’s going to be the description of this post and the latest podcast episode “Two Things to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck”. Number one, be a better version of yourself this hour than you were last hour, and do that every single hour for a week straight. The second thing you’ve got to do is write down your goals, your health goals, your habit goals, your personal finance goals, your relationship goals, your community service goals, your habit goals, your reading goals, your family goals, your spiritual goals, and your personal finance goals. I don’t know if I said that already, but if I said it once, it deserves to be said a second time. How much money do you want to have in your bank account by the end of the year? Is it $25,000? Good. You’ve got to save $500 for the next twelve months, ten months, whatever the math is, to get that $25,000 in your bank account. Is your reading goal to read four books this year? Good. That’s one book per quarter. That’s literally ten pages a day. Is your goal to lose 40 pounds? Awesome. You’ve got eight months. We’ve got to lose 5 pounds every single month. We have to intermittently fast. We’ve got to stop eating sugar. We’ve got to stop drinking alcohol. We’ve got to exercise every single day. And having accountability, having a mentor, having someone in your corner, whether it’s a coach, whether it is an online community, whether it is a friend, a family member, or someone who you want to call you out, is so important. 

That was one thing I was lacking for a lot of my adult life: accountability. Even though I’m someone who is pretty self-reliant, and very independent, I was getting everything done. I was paying my own bills. I was creating a lot of momentum in my financial journey, in my career, and things like that. I need a little bit of extra accountability. So I went ahead and hired a life coach. I have a life coach that I speak to every Friday at 12:30. Shout out to my life coach; you know who you are. And he holds me accountable for the commitments that I make to him each and every single week. Some of the commitments that I’ve been making recently include getting up at 4:00 a.m. Being at the gym at 4:30, getting right into that cold plunge, and hitting my Iron Man session, and training session. That’s swimming a thousand yards, getting my meditation done, doing my micro-tasks, and hitting my goals when it comes to my real estate career and my life coaching career, which are going extremely well. 

Guys, I had a huge quarter. Sold four houses, did probably twelve plus rentals, and added four or five new clients to the life coaching roster, half of whom have already resigned and one of whom has paid in full for the year. And these people are getting results. One of my clients is down 45 pounds. Another one of my clients has been sober for more than 275 days. Another one of my clients wasn’t working, and the therapists, doctors, and everyone she spoke to—specialists—told her she’d never work again. I helped her start her own business. She made over $900 last weekend. Okay, huge win. Huge success stories are coming from my corner and from my camp. And that’s because we focus on those small wins. We focus on those microtasks that, executed daily, yield massive results. 

So if you’re feeling stuck or like you don’t know where to go, schedule a free discovery call with me. This is a 15-minute phone call where you and I are going to dive deeper into your challenges and your goals, and together, if we seem like a good fit for each other, we’re going to co-create an action plan for you. And that action plan is going to be written down. And I’m going to hold you accountable for those actions. Thank you, guys, so much for reading this. Enjoy the rest of your day. Have an amazing week, and I will talk to you soon. Take care, guys.

the “Live Better Now” podcast with Zach Rance is available on all Podcast platforms

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