QUESTION:

How do you stop yourself from falling into/get yourself out of a 'rut'?

I ask because I really, really want to know.

Do you have strategies/contingencies? Do you recognise a rut and nip it in the bud? Have you been in a rut and tried but failed to get out of it? Have you succeeded?

I am IN one. I see it. I recognise it. I even get how it happened. What I don't know, is how to get myself out of it. It seems kinda impossible. Ruts are somewhat comforting... same old same old breeds a weird contentment. Till you see how deep you've gone and by default, how much you've drifted.

I liken it to something Dyls often says: "Better to have to lose 5 kilos than 50." By that, he means anything ignored... will only accumulate. Till it is daunting. Till it seems easier to just BE than do the now seemingly impossible.

I'm not talking routine- though that is often presented as the culprit. Routines can often be beneficial. (So I hear?) Nor complacency- though this too often cops blame- mostly from me.

It's a different state of being. Knowing you are not in the best place yet persisting in it because you don't know how to be otherwise or elsewhere.

So you try tackling the symptoms... be they boredom, lack of enthusiasm, turning inward, overthinking, feeling whatever mood... (add your own!)

It doesn't work. Not for me, anyways.

My rut- the underlying cause cannot be changed. Nor the symptoms managed. Far as I can determine anyway. So I am looking for strategies.

Got any?