Are You in a Slump? Here’s How to Break It!

Have you ever been in a slump that you couldn’t understand, let alone break?

By slump, I mean any time when you’re not satisfied with the return on your efforts whatever they may be and you’re not seeing the results you want.

I’m pretty sure we all have been in one at one time or another. Back when I was playing tennis in college, the condition was also famously known as being in a slump. Take my forehand for instance, I would go through stretches where the harder I worked on it, the worse it got. And when you’re in a slump, you can’t seem to win a match no matter what you try.

Once my coach even said to me, “When you put your mind to it you can lose to anyone, can’t you?”

It was an absolute curse for me when I was in a slump.

My most recent one hit me in the second half of last year. I felt like I couldn’t finish writing a single post. Over twenty starts and only six finishes. I could start them, but I couldn’t finish them. I couldn’t tie most of my attempts together enough to make a worthwhile read in exchange for your time.

Meaningful writing—the kind that challenges you to think differently, provides a useful tool, or entertains—is what’s necessary before I can click that pesky ‘publish’ button.

Our natural response is to dig in and push through.

There might be times when digging in and pushing even harder is exactly the right answer.

One of the best bosses I ever had was during my dotcom experiment. When we encountered a thorny problem, he’d say,

You keep finessing it and I’ll come in and apply some Brut Force if you need it.”
—Ron Day

As a Huey pilot in Vietnam, he knew how to get away with it. And for him, it usually worked. The not-so-obvious lesson is that he recognized the power of finessing a problem toward a solution.

Enter the Hustle Culture formula—use all your waking hours.

If you’ve been reading LifeUntucked® for long, you already know I’m no fan of the hustle culture. As far as their solution goes—work all available hours—if that doesn’t solve the problem you can always sleep less and work more.

Until you can’t!

Of course, there are outrageously hard paths to success. Of course, there are examples of people who have succeeded through grit, brute force, and death-defying heroism. They pushed their boulder up the steep hill through sheer effort. It’s heroic. And heroes make for great stories.”
–Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism

It’s just that 99% of everyday life doesn’t require acts of heroism. Life more often requires taking a deep breath, some time to recover, and letting our natural rhythms run in the background.

Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break so you can recover.

Rather than trying to force those elusive solutions, think about letting your foot off the accelerator and coasting to a moderated speed through a few stoplights. It’s a radical idea, I know.

Here’s how I was finally able to break out of my slump. As a life coach, I have a lot of life coach friends I like to keep in touch with. And many of these friends had noticed that I was in a writing slump.

“Hey Jeff, what’s going on with your writing? I haven’t seen much from you in a while.”

I knew it, but I didn’t know why.

I had been sharing my struggles with other writers and coaching friends for several months. But in three different conversations within about a week, three of my coaching friends shared observations that helped me realize what’s been driving my writing slump…

“Just think about it for a minute. You made it through COVID. You sold your house and moved across the country. You’ve been finding your way around a totally different city. You built a new house. Now you’re working on settling in and making it your own. Who knows what else? These things are hard!”

“I think you’re exhausted! You need to give yourself some grace, stop pushing so hard, and let yourself recover.”

It turns out they were exactly right.

The message from my experience was the reminder that…

Attempting to force an outcome rarely, if ever, works.

The answer was simple once I had help seeing it. I needed to stop pushing. Every shortfall was a disappointment. And every disappointment was exhausting me.

I used the word reminder above because I believe we already know the relative effectiveness of trying to force the events and outcomes of our lives, especially when we’re in a slump.

So, here’s a question to think about… Is there anything that you might be pushing too hard trying to force a particular outcome right now?

If there is, try taking your foot off the accelerator for a while. You’ll know how long. And getting back on track will be much easier.

Give it a shot.

Be untucked.

p.s. I hope you’ve noticed that I’m back on my writing rhythm. If you found this post helpful think about sharing it with a friend. That helps LifeUntucked® find its way around cyberspace.

p.p.s. Huge big gratitude to my life coaching cohorts Aree Bly, Laura Donnelly, and LeeLee Genovese for helping me break my writing logjam!