Why It's Good to Get Stuck
Embrace the stuck.
Here’s the truth about my writing:
I don’t wake up every day with something interesting to say. I do a good job sometimes of stretching the insights and experiences I have into weeks or even months of writing, but the truth is that I’ve kind of boiled down my life philosophy to a few key principles.
A devotion to mastery. An obsession with being better than I was yesterday — almost to a fault. A non-attachment to my own success and failure. Balance in and out of my work. Family. Resilience. These are the things I really believe in.
The thing is, sometimes it’s the day I have to write the newsletter and I don’t really want to talk about those things. I don’t feel like it. I get tired. I worry about sounding more like a preacher on a soapbox than a grappler who’s trying to think on paper.
I sometimes feel like stopping would be easier than continuing.
I get stuck.
Today, we’re talking about embracing the stuck and how to unstick yourself the right way.
You’re stuck because you multi-task.
When I get stuck, it’s a terrible experience.
Stuckness — thinking about too many things — leads to:
Insomnia
Writer’s block
Anxiety
Irritability
A general sense of being “in my head”
It’s unpleasant. It’s fragmented. It’s disconnected from how I want to be.
I am “stuck” because I am thinking about too many things. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that I can keep up with any of the stuff I do without breaking down. My schedule is busy with constant training, traveling, competing, writing, and teaching.
I sometimes fantasize about living on a farm, milking cows, and driving a tractor. Running away to a vineyard in Italy and selling fermented grape juice for a living. Becoming a small-town librarian.
When I’m stressed, all these things sound more pleasant than trying to make a living with words and ideas and martial arts.
But that’s not what I’ve chosen. These fantasies are fragments of the distracted mind. The mind that runs wild at night and keeps me up is the same mind that makes it difficult for me to think.
That is stuckness — it’s trying to do too many things at once. It’s trying to do anything more than what you’re doing right now.
How could “stuckness” be a good thing?
What I’m referring to as stuckness today is the same as being sidetracked, unfocused, or distracted.
But it’s not a peaceful distraction like me and my girlfriend going for walks at night or watching a movie to unwind on the weekend. It’s the feeling that you’re supposed to be doing something but you can’t because you can’t hold proper focus long enough or well enough.
This stuckness is like pain, but I believe pain is a good thing too.
A few weeks ago, I had a health scare I was in the hospital for 3 days. At the time I was in the hospital, I didn’t care about writing my newsletter, writing content, training, hitting a new max in the weight room, or getting ready to compete. All I cared about was getting healthy enough so that I could go home.
I was extremely present on the one, most important thing.
In the days after I got out of the hospital I had the best sleep that I’ve had in months. I was extremely productive. I was happy. I was very grateful.
Pain is good because it makes you appreciate pleasure and even just neutrality.
Stuckness is good because it makes you appreciate the flow you find when your mind is on just the thing in front of you.
How to unstick yourself.
This is all nice and romantic, but when you’re actually stuck in a spiral, it can feel like there is no escape.
When you’re up at night because you can’t stop your mind from spinning, you don’t feel like you can escape. When you’re trying to write an article but have no idea where to start, the first sentence is the hardest. When you’re on a losing streak on the mat, getting that one small win is the hardest thing you can imagine.
I still struggle with this even after all my experiences.
Writing is a weekly struggle. Competition is a struggle I experience every few months. Plateaus in my business are constant struggles. Insomnia is something I deal with every few weeks and months.
I get stuck.
But this is I think the truth of stuckness:
To unstick yourself, you must take a tiny step, not a grand one.
Overcoming writer’s block is not about writing a piece, it’s writing a sentence. Winning a match when you’re on a downward spiral is not done by winning a tournament, it’s done by winning an exchange. Getting past anxiety is not done by becoming a monk, it’s by slowing your breathing down.
You don’t need a mile, you need an inch.
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.” — Aldous Huxley, Island
Closing Thoughts
The quote above is from a book called Island by Aldous Huxley.
It’s the last book Huxley ever wrote and I think my favorite.
Most people know Huxley for Brave New World, one of the world’s most popular dystopian novels. Island is the response — it presents a utopian society full of mindful people.
Their lives our very different from our’s in this utopia. The birds on the island presented in the novel have been taught to say “here and now” or “attention”, reminding people to put their attention on the current moment above everything else. Stuckness does not happen on the island the same way it happens for you and me.
This is not a prideful way of living, but it is a peaceful one. It’s a solution to the chaos of modern life.
And look, I’m not saying that you should drain your ambitions, sell your property, and become a Buddha. I’m just saying that in those moments where you feel stuck, in those moments where you feel overwhelmed, and in those moments where the world’s caving in on you, remember what the little birds in the book say:
“Here and now.”
In time, you will come to appreciate the stuckness and you won’t resent it anymore. That’s how you’ll get past it.
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week we're joined again by Tum Energia! Thomas Voorn, better known by his nickname Tum Energia, is a BJJ black belt and the founder of Energia Martial Arts.
In this episode, we discuss the evolution of Jiu-Jitsu digital content toward short-form content like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Stories.
We discuss the implications to BJJ content creators, how practitioners can learn from content of different types, and the ethics of short-form content on our attention spans.
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