On getting unstuck, changing the question, and seeing what you couldn’t see before

]Last week I wrote about what happens when we feel trapped.

Our field of vision narrows. We search harder. We become exhausted. Eventually the world can start looking like a collection of increasingly impossible choices. I promised I would write about how to interrupt that.

Here’s where I would start: Stop asking what will get you out.

I know. That sounds completely counterintuitive. But when someone has felt trapped for a long time, something subtle can happen. We stop trying to solve the actual problem and start trying to make the feeling of being trapped go away.

Those are not necessarily the same thing. Take: “I need to quit.”

Before you do anything with that thought, ask: “What do I believe will stop if I quit?

Answer: I’ll stop feeling dread every Sunday.

Question: What’s underneath the dread?

Answer: Monday morning means another week of feeling responsible for things I can’t control.

Now the problem has changed. Maybe you do need to quit. But now we also know that responsibility without authority may be part of what you’re trying to escape. That’s something we can examine.

Try another: “I need to sell the business.”

Question: What do I believe will change if I sell?

Answer: I won’t have to keep running a company that can’t grow.

Question: And what does running a company that can’t grow mean to you?

Answer: That I’m failing. That maybe I’m not as good at this as I thought I was.

Now we’ve uncovered something else.

The business may genuinely need to be sold. But we’ve also discovered that the decision has become entangled with identity, competence and what this person believes the performance of the company says about them. Those are different variables.

This is where exits start appearing.

It’s not about talking ourselves out of leaving. It’s about engaging the brain differently. When we stop treating the first action that promises relief as the only solution to the problem, we open the field of possibilities. And now the brain has something different to work with. We’re no longer asking it to endlessly solve the same impossible question from inside a narrowed field of focus.

And this is important, because that endless attempt to answer an unanswerable question is part of what keeps us stuck.

Should I stay or leave? Quit or keep going? End it or try harder?

We circle the same question, are blocked by the same obstacles, feel the same surge of threat and urgency, only to conclude again that there is no way out. That’s the trap.

Changing the question interrupts the loop.

Sometimes being stuck doesn’t mean you’re doing nothing. It means you’re moving endlessly around the same question. Changing the question gives you somewhere new to go. Try it with whatever you’ve been telling yourself you have to do: “I need to leave this relationship.”

What do I believe leaving will make stop? “I need to move.”

What am I expecting a different place to change? “I need to work less.”

What, specifically, am I trying to get less of? “I need to get out of this career.”

What am I actually trying to leave?

Any one of those decisions may ultimately be exactly the right one. But before I assume it is, I want to know: What do you believe this decision will make stop?

Because what you want to leave and what you need to change are not always the same thing. And until you know the difference, you can feel completely stuck between options that aren’t actually the only options available. And here’s where it gets even more interesting:

If you don’t identify the difference, you can leave the situation and take the problem with you.

Different company, same overfunctioning. Different relationship, same inability to say what you need. Different career, same equation between worth and productivity. Different life, same operating system.

This is why I don’t immediately try to talk someone out of leaving…or into staying.

I want to separate two things first:

What are you trying to leave?

and

What are you trying to stop?

Sometimes the answers are identical, sometimes they aren’t. And that difference can change everything. The goal isn’t simply to find the fastest exit from an intolerable situation. It’s to understand what is actually creating the need to escape it.

This is where the question changes.

Instead of: How do I get out?

We begin asking: What actually has to change?

And that question usually has a lot more than two answers. This is where the field of vision begins to widen. This is where choices that weren’t visible before start appearing. And yes, sometimes after going through this process you discover that you absolutely do need to leave. But something important has changed.

You’re no longer leaving simply to make the feeling of being trapped stop. You’re leaving because you understand the problem you’re solving. Your brain can come along with you now, instead of staying behind in the same cycle of rumination, threat and circular thinking. You’ve given it new questions to answer. New variables to evaluate. New possibilities to consider.

And perhaps that’s the most important difference: You’re no longer looking for the first available exit. You’re finally in a position to choose one.