On the afternoon of 18th Jan 2018, and many afternoons before and after, i was seated down working on a project. For two hours i kept staring at my computer screen can't tell you what i was thinking, i was just seated there...

You know that feeling....

Source

What is a rut?

In short its the lack to generate an idea or lack of muscle memory to do our daily tasks,or tasks that will affect our immediate future and life skills (Hope that makes sense).

Procatination leads to inactivity, True or False?

So how do you bust a rut? (like this...)

I feel like quoting Jedi but nothing comes to mind...sigh!!!!

Step 1 : Identifying what kind of rut you are in

Ruts can be classified into three:(Together lets shout!!!)

1. Short-term ruts
2. Mid term ruts
3. Long term ruts

1. Short term ruts

Ever realise how you use the same report, presentation format, if you are artist using the same colour pallet or design? Looking at them they daily repetitions and usually manifest as a series of unconscious choices that actually lead to the same results.

Busting a short term rut

1. Become a pattern hunter.
Ever mapped out something as simple as your morning routine? Do you wear your shirt first or pants? or go all superman and wear your drawers on top of your pants. By just changing small things you do on a daily basis can bring a new lease to how you do things and think, try it and see.


2. Get handy
By this i mean, how many doodle? Yes like a kid! When you taking a call at your desk what are you doing with your hands, doodling, sketching gets your creative skills going, who knows you may just draw yourself out of a rut.


3. Get out
If you have access to a garden or a place to relax, go there, stretch your legs, take in nature, lie on the grass. It helps, i do it at times.

2. Mid term ruts

You have attended a really powerful and insightful seminar and you are all pumped up to take action to improve on what you have learnt or take up a new skill. You have the goal in mind,and how to start right?
You start and somewhere along the line it's like... ummmm i never thought these through in detail, most often than not we miss that middle part.

Busting a short term rut

It involves setting both goals and strides. How?

1. Become a student again
Learn something new, something you have always wanted to. It can be at the local community college or an online course, one steemian @cryptoctopus is learning how to be a developer to better serve the steemit community, his journey is just inspirational and you can follow it here: My Learning Path To Go From Complete Newbie to SteemDev
If an 80 year old man can start over from Grade 1, you can too become a student.


2. Get lost in a passion project
This may be something you do after your 9-5 job, a baking class, pottery. Something you will gain a skill and can teach as well.
The reason is love #homesteader and #steemiteducation here on steemit is for the passion they have for their projects


3. Get a posse
This was well covered in day one of the #dolphinschool challenge, finding people and groups you have common intrests with. It's as simple as searching tags you are interested in -> Finding top trenders under those tags -> Befriending them and learning from them (Not Spamming).

Heck!! even the #dolphinschool challenge is helping deal with short term ruts, think about it?

3. Long term ruts

10, 9, 8, 7, 6.... **HAPPY NEW YEAR!!** Resolutions! Resolutions! Resolutions! A thing about resolutions

They are easy to set but difficult to keep why?

We rarely (am guilty of that) set a plan in place to achieve these goals. So how do we/i make resolutions stick i.e how do you move from your "wish-list" to the "to-do list"?

Busting a long term rut

1. Get moving

"Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly-Robert Schuller"

All masters were once armatures, so get off that behind and start. You cant wake up with 20,000 followers, you have to take steps, work and get those followers, so chap! chap!

2. Do something difficult
Most of us are afraid of the difficult stuff, things that will get us out of our comfort zone are a big no,no. But know what, if Elon Musk thought these guys don't want Electric cars, they value muscle, would we have Tesla. He made the hard choice to enter the EV market, it's paying off now right ??


3. Find your wisdom bearer
Not Dumbledore wise, but if you can well and good. I mean find someone who is experienced than you in something that you are interested in, you will learn. Right now people are learning so that they also can share with others who want to learn.

Conclusion

We have seen the three types of ruts, a brief of what they are and busting them and finally we dance!!!!

How do you deal with your ruts? What works for you? Lets Share!!