6 Steps to Pull Yourself Out of a Slump
Learning December 9th, 2008Plan An Escape
If you find yourself in a slump and don’t want to stay there the first step to getting out of that slump is to plan an escape. You need to look at what can be done to turn things around. You need to be careful not to just accept the same thing as what led you there in the first place. It’s all too easy to keep on doing the same thing and that will typically lead you right back to the same results so know that you need to do something new. Plan some changes to several areas at once to ensure you eliminate more of the factors that are holding you in the slump in the first place.
Take Action
A good plan is nothing without some action towards achieving it. Put some of those steps in place that are needed to complete your plan and look to tackle them. Don’t let yourself get demotivated if things are harder at first, after all that is how you got stuck in a rut in the first place. Just continue to look for progress and measure yourself for those successes, ignoring other factors as you especially don’t want to make a slump look any worse than it is.
Do Things You Love
Your attitude is going to suffer no matter what if you are in a slump. Turning this around can get difficult when progress is slow or non-existent. However, you can at least enjoy yourself a bit more by picking to do the things you love. Latch on to your hobbies, your past times and the relationship you truly enjoy. Even in your work, you can try to spend more time on the things you like to do and less on the tasks that just are not much fun. Doing this can help to keep your spirit up and a more positive attitude. Of course, this is useful anytime in life but it will seem even more powerful when you are in a slump.
You’ve Turned Things Around Before
Sometimes when you’re in a slump, you don’t feel like you have the drive or ability to get out of it. Everything seems to be against you and you start to loose site of any positive outcomes. It’s a cycle that just makes things even worse if you don’t look to turn it around. You can do this by ignoring your situation and instead focusing on a time where you have gotten out of a slump before. Any situation, any type of slump will do. Think about what you felt and how you behaved to finally get out of that one? As things turned around, you would have started to have some confidence just as things began to look more positive and the same feelings and reactions can be applied again. I read about this technique in this article about being more confident and I think that confidence works the same way here. You need it to get out of the slump and to get it, you can pull it from past experiences and focus to act and feel the same way to pull yourself out of a slump.
Don’t Give Up
If you give up, things will get worse and you will loose control of your actions in a negative time. Continue to push towards your goals and just keep working to get out of the rut. Persistence here is key even if you have failures, expect them, look past them and overcome them.
Faith
And finally, the one things that I think is the most important of all is to have faith. Faith in knowing things will change and will improve, faith in the fact that you can make it through tough times, faith that there are others who know the same troubles and will help you through it, faith that your actions and attitude will make a difference, faith that you can and will persist no matter how long things last, faith that there is something to be learned by all your struggles, and finally, faith that there is a God with grace and an open heart waiting for you to lean on him to develop a relationship and find your purpose and reasons to continue. Faith in this may lead you in new directions, unexpected places and potentially even other hardships but the rewards by service to others and God will always come to fruition. When that occurs, however, is not up to us.
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December 9th, 2008 at 6:39 AM
These are great points Mike. There will be peaks and valleys as we go through life. A big one for me, to fall back on, is faith. Faith in knowing that I’ve been there before, and that I’ve always emerged from a slump just fine. And in some cases, knowing that a slump was just what I needed to really get things jump-started in a new direction.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:29 AM
I am interested with ‘do things you love’ point.
If we do things we love, no matter how difficult the problems are, we will not give up.
I tried to earn a living with a job that I don’t actually love. I quit the job after a while.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:10 AM
Thanks Lance and Arswino. I always love how different people value different items from other people’s ideas and writing. Lance, your point of sometimes “needing” the slump in order to then move forward in the right direction is excellent. I didn’t think of that point about it at first!
And Arswino, jobs are one of those things that unfortunately most people think they are quite limited in so they often do things they don’t enjoy. It just doesn’t make any sense to me and I think is driven more by the love of money than by any other interest even though the other interests have a much greater impact on a person’s happiness and life in general. That’s great you quit a job you didn’t enjoy and I hope you have found something you do now!
December 10th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Mike,
Yet another great article! For the past couple of weeks I’ve been in a slump, and I was freaking out. Just yesterday, I calmed myself down, regained my self-confidence, and focused on the times in the past I’ve previously picked myself up out of a slump. I also did exactly what you said and shifted my focus back onto things I love to do.
Thanks for this extremely useful article!
December 10th, 2008 at 11:50 PM
Hey thanks Rahul. I am so happy my article timing worked out for you. I have had the same experience several times with blogs I read and it has always helped to quickly reinforce that topic when it seems more relevant!
December 12th, 2008 at 1:31 AM
Hi Mike.
The two points I would resonate with are “Do things you love” and “take action”. When in a slump, switching gears to do something that is more enjoyable is a time-tested fixer. It gets a bit tougher to do those things while the slump stays in the back of your mind, and so the other item that may be worth more to partake in is “taking action”. Taking action at the base of a slump, to directly counter the cause of the slump, is an aggressive way to move forward quicker than individuals that let the slump get in their heads. In fact, letting it be described in one’s own mind as “a slump” is probably the main item to avoid.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:26 PM
Hey Armen, thanks for your added comments. Yes, there is a bit of a concern with the whole idea of a “slump”. I think that recognizing it as “a slump” is OK as long as you know to quickly come out of it. I wouldn’t think a slump is very long personally, so it’s not a dangerous thing to be in. And if action is taken like you suggest, no big deal then since you can turn it around.
December 13th, 2008 at 3:07 PM
Ah yes, I have these times also.
My great escapes
– I can get lost in my work and have several times.Best year I had was when I broke up with the “ex- BF” couldn’t sleep for close to a year so I worked my tail off. You might say now,that breaking up with him has brought me to where I am today.
I run , love to cook,write & do yoga to unwind.
I think each individual has to find the right balance in their life.Recognizing the triggers that leads to a slump would be part of the balancing act.
Sometimes it is totally necessary to get out of your usual space.Spend a whole day outside of your residence.
There are plenty of museums and things to do that you don’t have to spend money on.Occasionally you just need to clear your head.
We have a home office so we are basically together 24/7.We use to work for the weekends only so we could catch up on our sleep.Sundays were spent watching movies cuddling on the couch.
Let me tell you spending a Sunday like that is long over due.
Even a Tuesday “Sunday” would be great but he is so bogged down with work and deadlines.
But really Mike define Slump for me.
Is it when you aren’t productive?
When you are drowning in self- pity ?
Bouts of depression set in?
Have drained all energy because you have been working to hard?
Seriously I love the article !
December 15th, 2008 at 10:22 AM
I really liked this article. It’s too easy, when you have high expectations and ambition, such as many of your readers, to get down once in a while when you are not moving toward your goals as quickly as you would like. It’s ok to rest a while, but then turn it on again, and keep moving in the direction of our goals.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:13 AM
Thanks for all the added comments and personal examples Bunny! I’m glad my article had some impact for you!
And Steve, you are so right about the ease of a slump. Luckily it’s quite normal to occur, it’s just best if you can keep moving in the right direction like you point out!
December 17th, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Oh Mike,
in more ways then one.I am recovering from total exhaustion and I should have taken your article as a “heads Up” .I will be mentioning you so keep a watch out.
Cheers
December 25th, 2008 at 12:07 PM
You know.. having lived in slumpville for many years now, I’d have to say there are different levels of it. The lowest being when you don’t feel like doing anything and have a very hard time making decisions about simple things IE) what do I want to eat?
There have been phases of semi-productivity and growth, but overall you just know the slump continues, year after year no matter how positive the brief highs are there will always be “slumps”.
Chalk 2008 up as another bad year… and no, medication is not the answer.
December 26th, 2008 at 11:49 PM
“Don’t give up” is the hard one for me. When things hit a slump, I’d rather scrap a project and start something new. I’ve become a lot better at it in recent years, though — instead of scrapping something, I simply try to change its nature.
January 4th, 2009 at 10:34 PM
Hi Mike,
I liked the way you went straight into the points without the preamble that most writers (myself included) indulge in. I’ve featured your post as an Editor’s Pick in the latest edition of the Carnival of Personal Development (Edition 3). Great post!
January 4th, 2009 at 11:10 PM
Hi Mike, I don’t really get what you mean by “slump”. Gosh I’ve jut read half of the article and confusion of the exact definition of “slump” stop me. I could really use some introduction here.
-_-“
January 4th, 2009 at 11:58 PM
Isaac, a slump is a period of time when a person performs poorly, feels bad or in some way is below their normal self. It’s when things are not working well for you, a string of bad luck or any other period of time where you might be unproductive or just feeling like you are not able to perform like usual.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:07 AM
Ah it’s clear now. Thanks Mike.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:13 PM
Over time the symptoms of depression got easier to handle as I developed an understanding of the disease, and tireless work on my self from a bunch of angles reaped enormous benefits. Would you agree with this approach?
February 6th, 2010 at 12:11 PM
Hey Mike! I like your 6 tips, especially #2 on taking action. I often tell my coaching clients that there is nothing more empowering than taking action on what we love. I’ll like to add on a tip #7, which is simply to take a break. I was in a slump a few months ago (I wrote about it my blog (http://celestinechua.com/blog/2010/01/why-we-have-slumps-and-how-to-get-out-of-them/) and I realized it was because I had not given myself proper rest. Many of us, myself included, have the tendency to go on and on without resting which leads us to fall into a slump. Even though we know we shouldn’t be driving a car continuously without stopping for fuel, for some reason we do it to ourselves, and that leads to a slump. Rest and rejuvenation is definitely needed to walk the longer road ahead!
.-= Celestine Chua´s last blog ..12 Dating Facts About Me =-.
December 14th, 2011 at 11:32 AM
Great suggestions. It is hard to get out of a slum and sometimes the only option is stepping away and shutting down for a bit.