In my experience, feeling stuck comes from a lack of clarity about who we truly are and what we really want our life to look like, and from living out of alignment with our true desires and needs. As women, thanks to societal conditioning, we have spent much of our lives putting other people’s wants and needs above our own.

First, we try to please our parents and mentors. We do what is expected of us, rather than following our own unique life path, becuase we want their love and respect, or we worry what other people will think if we choose to go our own way and follow our passions and dreams. So often, our choices are guided by other people’s desires for us rather than our own, and we may not even realize it.

This process continues when we get married and have children. We have a desire to be “a good wife and mother” so we put our own needs and wants on the back burner, even if that means sacrificing what we know we truly want in life.

As a result our lives become far removed from the paths we once envisioned for ourselves, and we end up feeling overwhelmed and confused, wondering how we ended up here. We experience high levels of dissatisfaction and often lose a sense of direction and purpose in our lives, and often have feelings of regret about all of the things that we didn’t do.

We sense that there has to be something more, but we’re so removed from our authentic selves, and so disconnected from our dreams and desires, that we’re unable to identify what “more” looks like for us. We just know that what we’re experiencing isn’t it, so, we feel stuck.

In this state of “stuckness”, it becomes even harder to function, and we get even more confused. Subconscious fears kick in and we begin to feel that life has passed us by, and begin to believe that it’s too late — we’re too old — to follow a new path. So, we end up in a vicious cycle that can be difficult to break free from.

This is exactly where most of my clients are when they come to me — and if you’re reading this article, this is probably where you are as well. Well, I have great news! You can break the chains of this paralyzing circle, get unstuck, and start moving forward so you can regain your midlife joy and move from confusion to clarity.

Here is a sumary of the seven step process that I use to guide my clients out of their stuckness and overwhelm so they can experience more freedom, flow and fulfillment in their next chapter, and live authentically on their own terms.

Step 1: Self-Awareness

The first step to pry ourselves out of the quicksand and get unstuck is to evaluate where we are and how we got there. Life assessment tools can help us quickly identify what areas in our life are going well — where we are the most satisfied and feel in control — and what areas need improvement — where we feel the least satisfied and out of control (aka: STUCK).

This can be the hardest part of the process because it means we have to take a hard look at where we are and how we got there, without judgment or self-loathing, and step out of our comfort zone.

That’s why I created the Soul Sparked Midlife Assessment Toolkit™️. This toolkit helps you gage your level of life satisfaction in eight core life focus areas, so you can easily identify where and why you’re feeling stuck. Then you can focus your energy and efforts to increase overall life satisfaction and get moving again.

Step 2: Get Clear On What You Really Want & Why You Want It

Introspection and reflection are powerful processes that allow us to tap into our inner wisdom (ie: higher self or divine source energy) to gain clarity around who we really want to be and how we want to show up in the world. Journaling and meditation are two of the most effective ways to get in touch with that part of you that knows exactly who you are and what you’re meant to do in this life.

By connecting to this inner source of personal power, it becomes possible to reconnect with our dreams, desires and passions, and discover a renewed sense of life purpose and life direction as we head into midlife and beyond.

You are worthy of everything your heart desires, but you can’t manifest your dreams if you don’t know what they are, and you won’t manifest them if you don’t have a strong enough motivation to push you forward. That’s why it’s essential to not only know what you want, but why you want it.

HINT: We want things because we want to experience the feeling that we believe having them will elicit within us. For example, most of us want more money and financial security, but the reason why we want it is what drives us to actually create it in our lives. We want to feel secure and in control of our lives and have more freedom to live the way we want. Money is a means to accomplish this.

Knowing what our motivator(s) are, allows us to connect with that feeling which helps spur us to take inspired action towards our dreams and manifest the things we desire.

Step 3: Examine & Overcome Any Fear, Limiting Belief, or Resistance That Comes Up

Our dreams, passions, and desires are meant specifically for us, but over time many of us have been conditioned to believe that the things we deeply desire are not possible for a variety reasons such as: we’re too fat or too old, we’re not pretty enough or feminine enough, and women don’t or shouldn’t do x, y, and z.

This type of subconscious conditioning hides deep in the recesses of our minds and may stay perfectly quiet until you decide you want to pursue a dream or a passion. That’s when fear rears its ugly head and that conditioning starts screaming all those reasons what you want is not possible.

These limiting beliefs are deeply ingrained in our subconscious, but that doesn’t mean they’re true. They are just stories that we have been told fueled by the fear(s) of the storytellers, based on what they believe is true. Unfortunately, too often, these storytellers are people with some type of influence over us, so we mistakenly accept their stories as facts without even realizing it. As a result, we give up on our dreams before we’ve even had a chance to find out what’s actually true for us which leaves us feeling stuck, directionless, and unfulfilled without understanding why.

However, you have the power to rewrite those stories and create new truths for yourself. You can use these old false beliefs to identify exactly where and why you’re stuck, and figure out what you actually believe and what’s really true for you, so you can make different choices and finally start moving forward.

Step 4: Set Goals & Break Them Down Into Manageable Steps

Once we are crystal clear on our desires, and have broken through old conditioning and limiting beliefs, it’s time to create a soul map. A soul map is a road map of sorts that identifies our ultimate destination, shows us the best path forward, predicts any obstacles we may face, and keeps old conditioning and fears in our awareness so we can recognize them before we start falling back into old patterns of thinking.

Getting clear on our final destination allows us to reverse engineer the path we need to take to achieve our soul goals by breaking our end goal down into smaller and more manageable steps so that it not only begins to feel possible to achieve our goal, but the entire process feels easier.

Step 5: Make Decisions In Alignment With What You Want

This step is where most people drop the ball and get stuck because it requires us to be totally authentic and put ourselves and our dreams first, before that of our spouse, our children, our parents, or anyone else who has previously had a say in how we lived our lives.

It requires us to override all of our past fears and conditioning, and our desire to please others, and focus on pleasing ourselves and staying focused on our dreams. This helps us make decisions and take actions that support the vision we have for our lives.

That’s why it is so important to know our why. It helps eliminate confusion, prioritize our needs, and make decisions that support our dreams and goals. When we know what we want and we have outlined a path to get it, it becomes easier to establish boundaries and say no to things that do not support our desires, and make decisions in alignment with them instead.

Step 6: Take Consistent and Intentional Action

Once you have your soul map and are making congruent decisions aligned with your goals and dreams, the final step is to take consistent and intentional action. This is easier to do if you have completed your soul map from step 5, because you know exactly what steps you need to take and they are broken down into single, small actions that build on each other to propel you forward to your dream.

If you are interested in creating your own personal soul map, I show you how step-by-step in the Soul Sparked Midlife Design Framework™️.

There you have it. The exact process I follow to get unstuck. I will be the first to admit that it isn’t always easy. We can get tripped up by every single step, and often times we find ourselves moving backward and forward, up and down this ladder, but by becoming more self-aware, and continuing to work through the process, we have the best chance to finally get unstuck and start living the life we’ve always imagined.