Feeling Stuck? 5 Tools to take that First Step

You're not unhappy. You're not in crisis. You're just... stuck. Stuck in a job, a relationship, a season of motherhood, or a life that looks good on paper but feels off.

Here's the truth most of us miss: we're not stuck because we don't know what to do. We're stuck because we're waiting to feel ready, waiting for certainty, waiting for the path to magically light up. And while we wait, months turn into years.

In this episode, I'm sharing five things you can actually do to get unstuck — not five things to think about, five tools to use. We'll name what's really stuck, face what you've been avoiding, find the smallest possible next step, stop waiting to feel ready, and build a "proof list" of the hard things you've already survived.

Whether you're driving, folding laundry, or hiding in the bathroom for one quiet minute, you'll walk away with a real plan. Because getting unstuck was never one giant leap. It's one small decision, repeated.

Your next chapter is waiting for you to take the first step.

Transcript

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I remember thinking there would be some magical moment where I suddenly knew exactly what to do. A sign, a perfectly laid out roadmap. But instead, life works differently. You take one step and then another and another, and eventually you look back and realize you've built an entirely different life. One decision at a time. Welcome to This Is Common, Life Beyond the Baby. The podcast for moms who've outgrown diaper bags and milestone charts, but still wake up feeling like they've lost themselves somewhere between the carpool and the kitchen sink. I'm Jamie, your host, founder of Common Moms, and this space is for the women asking, What now? You're raising bigger kids with bigger emotions all while navigating your own. This isn't a parenting podcast. It's a permission slip to say the hard stuff, to take up space, to stop trying to be who you were before the baby, and start figuring out who you are now. You're not too much, and you're not alone. You're just a mom in the middle, and that's more than enough. This is common. So let's talk about it. Welcome back to This Is Common. Today we're talking about something I think almost every woman listening has felt at one point or another. Stuck. Not not unhappy, not in this crisis mode, not falling apart, but just stuck, not knowing what's next. Maybe it's a job that used to light you up and now it just fills the hours in the day. Maybe it's a relationship that's becoming more logistics than love. Maybe it's after divorce and staring at a blank page where the next chapter is supposed to go. In motherhood, where every day is the same beautiful, exhausting loop. Or maybe, and this is the tricky one, everything looks good on paper and it's supposed to feel good, but something still feels off. And here's what's strange about feeling stuck. It almost never is dramatic. It's not rock bottom. It's not, it's not a crisis that you could point to or just say it's this one thing. It's quieter than that. It's the feeling of standing in the same spot for so long that you've worn a groove into the floor, like your favorite spot on the couch. And here's the thing I've learned. The thing I really want you to sit with today. Most of us aren't stuck because we don't know what to do. We're stuck because we know that there are a hundred things that we could be doing, and we're terrified of picking the wrong one or where to start or how to do it. So we wait. And we wait until we feel ready, we wait until we feel confident. We wait for some magical morning when the whole path lights up and certainty arrives. And while we wait, those days turn into months and months turn into years. I know this because I've lived it. I've researched instead of moved. I made pros and cons lists, like the right column would suddenly grow an answer. I've asked everyone I know what they think, their thoughts, should I make this decision? As if clarity were something that somebody could just hand to me one day. Clarity doesn't come from thinking, it comes from movement, taking one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. You don't think your way into a new life, you move your way into one. So today I want to give you five things to think about. Five things to do. And whether you're driving or folding laundry, walking the dog, or hiding in the bathroom for a minute, listening to this podcast for one quiet moment of the day, I want you to walk away from this episode with an actual plan. Okay? Let's go. So the first thing is name what's actually stuck. Because my life feels stuck is just too big. It's just too big of a blanket, and you can't grab at that. So get specific. What exactly feels stuck? Your career, your marriage, your money, your health, friendships. Pick one. Because here's what I've noticed when everything feels stuck, it's usually one thing quietly leaking into all the others. One real problem wearing a hundred different disguises. So grab your phone, open up that notes app, and finish this sentence. The area of my life that feels most stuck right now is blank. Fill in the blank. You can't change what you won't name. So name it. That is step one. Number two, ask what you've been avoiding. This tool is like a mirror, and I'll be honest, it's not the most comfortable one. Ask yourself, what have I been avoiding? Because most of the time the answer has been sitting there the whole time. The conversation, the appointment, the budget you won't open, the app, the boundary you keep meaning to set, or the decision that you keep almost making. Here's the truth that took me years to admit. We say we're confused when actually we're afraid. We usually know what needs to happen. We just don't want to face what comes after it. If that's you, you're not alone and you're not behind. Naming the fear is the move. Sometimes just saying, I'm not confused, I'm scared of blank is enough to break this spell. Number three, find the smallest possible next step. It does not need to be this big grandioso move. It just needs to be one tiny step forward. You don't need a five-year plan. You don't need the whole staircase, just one step at a time. Send that email. Book that appointment. Open the page to the course that you've been putting off. Go for the walk. Have that hard conversation. Make it so small, it almost feels embarrassing that you were putting it off. And that's the point. Those tiny actions can create momentum. And momentum is the thing that creates movement. And movement is the thing that creates a change. Every woman I know who's transformed her life didn't do it in one giant heroic leap. She did it in one very unglamorous, very mundane step at a time. And number four, stop waiting for everything to be in place. Stop waiting to feel ready. This one is for the perfectionist who's listening, and I see you. You are not going to feel all the way ready. I know that's not what you wanted to hear here, but I'd rather tell you the truth than keep you waiting. We've got the order backwards. We think confidence comes before the action. It doesn't. Confidence is what comes when what after. It's what you earn after. Think about the hardest things you've ever done: becoming a parent, starting something, leaving something, starting over. Did you feel ready? Absolutely not. You did it scared, and then you figured it out. But you did it well. And that's not failure, that's growth. If you're waiting to feel ready, you could be waiting for the rest of your life. Do it shaky, do it unsure, and like Nike, just do it. And number five, the final one, make a proof list. This is one where you are going to look at it and feel even more confident. Write down five things, five hard things that you've already survived. Just five. A divorce, a loss, maybe a diagnosis, starting from zero, a baby, a business, a season of anxiety that you genuinely didn't think that you would get through, or that you genuinely didn't know how you were going to do it, but you did. Write those down because when we're stuck, we tend to forget about all these amazing things that we've already accomplished. We treat the thing in front of us as if it's the first hard thing that we've ever faced. It's not. You have a track record, you have proof. And on the days that the fear gets loud, that list is the evidence that will come through for you, and you can do it again. So if you take one thing from today, let it be this: you do not need your whole life figured out, you don't need a five-year plan, you don't need certainty, and you definitely don't need anyone's permission. You need one small act, one small step, and one little bit of courage. Just one. So before you go back to the day, pick one thing. Send that email, make that appointment, start that conversation, do the one thing that you've been putting off. Because getting unstuck here was never this giant leap. Those small decisions repeatedly. And a year from now, your whole life could look different because of one single choice that you made today. So if this episode resonated with you, if you felt that you can take that one teeny tiny step, or you know somebody who just needs that push to make that one little step to make that change, share this episode with them. Comment on it, like it. And if you're feeling stuck right now, hear me on this. It does not mean you're staying here. It just means your next chapter is waiting for you to take the first step. That's it for today's episode of This Is Common, Life Beyond the Baby. If today's episode hit home, or had you ugly crying in the car, or laughing so hard you had to cross your legs, I hope you'll hit subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with the group chat. Because this mess, this stage of life, it's common. And it's exactly why we're talking about it here. If it feels like a lot, it's because it is a lot. But you don't have to do it alone. I'll see you in the next episode.