How to get unstuck
It All Begins Here
Hi friends,
It’s only January and I heard from many of you that you’re already feeling a bit stuck: long to-do lists, too many projects, not enough clarity.
If you’re the curious, nerdy analytical type, your default response might be to think harder, plan more, or improve your productivity systems. But this seemingly logical approach can actually make you feel even more stuck.
This week, we’re exploring a different approach: the science of using the body to change your cognitive and emotional state and help you get unstuck more quickly.
How to Get Unstuck
When we’re stuck creatively, productively or intellectually, we often tend to frame the problem as a lack of ideas, discipline, or motivation. So we try to push, to think harder, or to optimize our tools and systems.
But “stuckness” is rarely a thinking problem. It’s a nervous system state, which can be regulated much more efficiently through the body than through effortful thought.
Why thinking harder doesn’t work
Cognition doesn’t operate in isolation. It’s continuously shaped by signals from the body, whether that’s your posture, movement, breathing, muscle tension, or other sensory input. These signals all modulate arousal, attention, and threat perception before conscious thought even begins.
This is why small physiological changes can have surprisingly large cognitive effects. A slight change in breathing pace, a brief bout of movement, or a shift in posture can alter how clearly you think and how flexible your cognition is.
Somatic regulation is the practice of using your body to change cognitive and emotional states instead of relying on top-down thinking alone.
Somatic Healing versus Somatic Regulation table
Somatic regulation treats bodily signals as useful inputs, creating the conditions for movement – mental movement included.
Practical ways to get unstuck
There are many ways to feel stuck. Rumination, avoidance, and perfectionism… These loops tend to persist because there’s a mismatch between what the task requires and your current physiological state. Change the state, and the loop often loosens on its own.
Here are three ways to get unstuck, depending on the kind of “stuckness” you’re experiencing:
1) Creatively stuck. Creative work benefits from variability. Changing posture – such as sitting to standing, collapsed to upright – or changing location can be enough to introduce new sensory input. A short walk outside without additional stimulation (no phone, no podcast) can also help when you feel creatively stuck.
2) Productively stuck. Difficulties with being productive often reflect an arousal mismatch: your energy may be too low or too high for the task. Brief, gentle movement such as stretching, swaying, or light dancing can help bring your arousal level into a workable range. So get up from your desk, put your favorite song on, dance like no one’s watching, and then only get back to work!
3) Intellectually stuck. Deep thinking relies on working memory and a sense of safety to give the task your full attention, both of which degrade under stress. Slowing the breath slightly, especially by lengthening the exhale, can help reduce stress and give your nervous system a cue of safety before returning to the problem you’re trying to solve.
After the state shift, reflect to notice patterns. What kind of stuckness was this? What changed after adjusting the state? This simple metacognitive practice doesn’t have to take a lot of time. One or two sentences in your journal or note-taking app.
Over time, these field notes will become a personal map of how different states interact with different kinds of work and tasks.
Getting unstuck is rarely about better ideas or stronger discipline. It’s about restoring movement – first physical, then emotional and cognitive. When you feel stuck, start below the neck. Change the state first.
BTW THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING IN OUR WEEKLY YOGA CLASSES AND IN OUR UPCOMING RETREAT. WE FOCUS ON OUR SOMATIC EXPERIENCE THROUGH MOVEMENT, BREATH, AROMAS AND TASTE! We often finish with a journaling practice, right there, when your mind is free.
Why discipline is overrated and the secret to performance is: pleasure!
It All Begins Here
Discipline is overrated
Most advice about consistency sounds the same: try harder, be more disciplined, push through resistance. Discipline is often seen as the difference between people who succeed and people who don’t.
And if you fall off, the explanation is usually moralized: not enough willpower, lack of grit, laziness.
But many people don’t fail because they don’t try hard enough. They fail because the system they’re operating in makes sustained effort too costly.
From discipline to pleasure
From a scientific perspective, discipline is the ability to apply self-control to override impulses in service of longer-term goals.
Decades of research suggest that self-control does predict positive outcomes. But it also shows something more subtle: self-control works best when it’s used sparingly. When people rely on constant “effortful inhibition” (forcing themselves to act) their performance degrades over time.
That’s because this kind of effortful inhibition activates brain networks that are metabolically expensive and sensitive to stress and fatigue.
Instead, research finds that people who appear highly disciplined are not constantly exerting more willpower. Rather, they tend to rely on habits, routines, rituals to maintain their wellbeing.
This is where pleasure becomes a more useful tool than discipline. Making your desired activity (workout, meditation, focus at work, eating healthy) a pleasure will increase considerably the like hood that your stick with it!
I will start a diet vs I will learn to cook delicious dishes that I LOVE with local fresh vegetables.
I exercise 3 times a week vs I signed up for a workout/sports club with my friend in a place that I love.
I will meditate every evening vs I will light up some candles and take some time for myself in the evening.
That is why my motto for this year is: Presence vs Performance, ease and flow is a possible way to make 2026 a year that WE LOVE!
Presence versus Performance
It All Begins Here
2025 hit me like a bulldozer. There was no amount of reading and research that could have prepared me for this level of intensity, and I want to start this annual review by saying thank you.
I’m grateful to my body and brain for mostly holding up. I’m grateful I have access to spaces and tools such as breath-work, ecstatic dance, Yoga, Gym Sessions, Friends and entrepreneur retreats that have helped support my mental health throughout this journey.
Most of all, I’m grateful to the people in my life – my family, friends, colleagues, and this community – who all showed up in wonderful ways this year.
So much happened, but here’s a quick bullet-point overview before I dive in:
• I want to start this year not focusing only on the goals of what I want to improve (performance), but on expanding on the positive, on what worked, on my strengths (presence). Whatever we focus on, expands! Lets expand our best selves in 2026!
Presence vs Performance, ease and flow is my motto to win in 2026
Best of 2025 - what really worked for me
BEST BOOK: MINDSET TRAINING
This book is my support on how I approach work, business and love. I read it over and over and completed a coaching certification by PQ Institute in 2023.
I will be sharing about Positive Intelligence for Business Success in our upcoming retreat!
Positive Intelligence (link to book)
BEST HABIT: MORNING MOVEMENT
I am still struggling to win back my mornings as I have a new leadership position at work. But I can see how my facia, mood and mindset are at best when I have at least 15minutes in the morning to move and meditate!