82. No personal growth? 3 tips to escape from a stuck situation!

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset, the channel for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible. There are always situations or moments in life where everything feels a bit stuck. You’re not really making progress, whether it’s at work, where you’ve been doing the same thing for a while, you feel like you’re not advancing, you’re not making any career leaps, you can’t take on new positions, or maybe you can’t find a new job outside the company.

Then there are situations in relationships where you feel like you’re not really making progress with your relationship, with that person. You don’t even know what to change. It’s somehow stuck, or it’s the same in sports. You train a lot, or you want to train a lot, but you’re not getting the results you want. There are always situations and challenges in life where you feel a bit stuck and don’t really know what you need to do to get out of that rut.

That’s exactly what I want to talk to you about today. Personally, I also have regular breaks, you could say. There are situations where I just can’t make any progress with the topics I’m currently working on. I have a good example of this. Take my podcast as an example. I started it a while ago. And of course, there are always huge leaps forward that I make. But then there are also moments when I get the feeling that I’m not really making any progress.

Three perspectives for new orientation

What I do next is construct a kind of framework of three competing situations, which I then mentally visualize to give myself some orientation. Where am I, really? Am I actually stuck? Am I truly stuck in this situation and unable to move forward? Or do I simply have the wrong perspective on my current situation? And I think this mental framework—I’ll call them competitive situations—is what I’d like to talk about in a moment.

This can really be applied to all areas of life. For example, I’ve been talking to many people lately about wanting to change jobs. They often don’t even know why. Whether it’s the economic climate, or their own skill set. I’ve noticed that many people are trying to change jobs but aren’t making much progress. The first step when I feel stuck, when I lack direction, is to compare myself to the version of myself I was a year ago, a week ago, or a few months ago.

Recognizing your own progress in the podcast

It’s relatively easy to do this with podcasting. I look back at the old episodes, listen to them, and see how I structured the podcast back then, what kind of quality I had from my perspective, where I made mistakes, and what I did particularly well. And that gives me a pretty good sense of direction when I compare myself to my own progress. Where was I a year ago, and where am I with the podcast today?

And of course, there’s a lot I can learn from that. I try to identify patterns in the things I did well and the things I didn’t do so well. Or, for example, I also get feedback from others. Hey, in the last podcast episode, what did you particularly like, or what didn’t you like so much? Another thing I do is regularly review my equipment, my technical gear. Have I improved anything there? Have I improved my skillset in terms of how I record something?

Editing software and so on. Video editing software. Did I improve anything there? Did I learn anything new? And so I have a pretty good sense of whether I’ve improved or not. The disadvantage, from my perspective, is this initial competitive situation that I’m essentially creating in my mind. But even then, I don’t know if I’m moving in the right direction. I can only say that, from my perspective, I was better than yesterday. In this particular example.

Reflecting on career development

You can do something similar in your job. Where was I a year ago in my job? What skills did I have then, and what skills do I have now? Have I actually developed professionally, or have I simply been doing the tasks that were assigned to me? And I haven’t learned much from those tasks either. So, I can actually start thinking about whether I should perhaps take a training course? Or whether I should gain a bit more experience in this or that area?

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So, where are the problems I’ve potentially discovered, what have I done wrong or not well in recent months? And how can I improve on them? That’s my first thought process regarding the competitive situation. I’m comparing myself to myself. The second competitive situation is much more interesting to me. I’m comparing myself to my peer group. That is, to people with similar skills to mine, perhaps even slightly better skills, so that I actually have a kind of benchmark against those I’m above.

And I’m not even sure if you’ve noticed. I also regularly have other podcasters on my podcast, where I interview them. Of course, I do this to learn from them. I want to get to know the person, but I do it intentionally. Choosing my peer group is a deliberate decision. I know for sure that there’s someone there who’s even better than me. And we’re probably on roughly the same level.

And I can still learn a lot from that person. For example, I had Frank Joungda from the Halbe Kartoffel podcast or Junior Sommer from the Made in Germany podcast. It was incredibly valuable for me to make comparisons with my peer group in the podcasting field. Where do they stand? What do they do? Which methods do they use? What kind of technical equipment do they use? How do they structure their stories in the podcast, and so on? It’s incredibly helpful for me to learn from experienced people how they do it, so that I can improve too.

Positive competition instead of envy

The term “competition” (or “competitive situation”) might sound slightly negative. But here it’s actually meant in a positive sense, again relating to the topic of abundance mindset, which we also discussed in a previous podcast episode. Just because I get better at podcasting doesn’t mean someone else will get worse or have less reach with their podcast. So, it’s really about abundance mindset. Just because I get better doesn’t mean someone else gets worse; quite the opposite, in fact.

I’m happy that I can exchange ideas with my peer group, that I can learn from them. And that certainly doesn’t mean that either of us will leave here feeling like a loser. In a professional setting, I can definitely imagine something similar, where, for example, you have a certain role within a company, and you build your peer group there, or even outside of your own company. The question, of course, is how do you connect with similar personalities who, let’s say, have a similar role?

There’s a tool I really like to use, it’s LinkedIn, you’re probably all familiar with it. You can just message people who have similar tasks, similar positions, and make a small reach-out. Hey, hi, I saw you do this and that at such and such a company. I’m so-and-so, and I do this and that. Let’s connect here and try to learn from each other about how you’ve built your career, what I’ve done, and what we can actually do to move forward.

Benefit from exchanging ideas with like-minded people

From my perspective, that actually works relatively well. I’m also active in certain networks from time to time, where I notice an exchange among like-minded people. There, people try to learn from each other. There isn’t a huge difference in terms of qualifications or level within the company or the company itself. I find that incredibly valuable—learning from peers. The third competitive situation I occasionally put myself in is when I’m actually competing with someone who is much, much, much further ahead than me.

I have a very good, vivid example of this. My last podcast episode here. That was episode number 81. I hosted a dinner at a castle. That was episode number 81. For me, that was really on a different level in terms of coordination, especially the moderation, the choice of topics, bringing the guests together, and the technical equipment. It was truly on a different level. I had been thinking about this a while ago: how can I, as a podcaster, reach the next level?

So, regardless of how I might say goodbye as a podcaster, I recently started thinking about how to take my podcasting to the next level. I mean, independent of the podcast’s quality and reach, and also the skillset I need to keep going. And for that, I looked to someone who’s much further along than me. I can even tell you his name. It’s Philipp Westermeyer from the OMR Podcast. He hosted a podcast dinner a while back, which I found incredibly interesting.

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I thought he did a really good job overall. The moderation, the questions, the guests—everything was very cohesive. And that made me think, wow, it’s about time I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something new to help me progress with my own podcast. So I decided to spontaneously host a podcast dinner. I learned an incredible amount from it. It was a quantum leap, you could say, for me as a podcaster. Of course, it’s something I won’t be doing regularly, or even can’t do.

The effort involved was simply far too great. It would be best if you checked it out and gave me some feedback on what you thought of the last podcast episode. But for me, it was further proof that you should occasionally look upwards, in terms of level and qualifications. And every now and then, you should try something new, something you know you’ve never done before. And hey, maybe I can actually learn a lot from it. In your career, to bring this up to another example, it certainly doesn’t hurt to look upwards either.

If someone is in my network, I might not even know them personally, but only from LinkedIn and similar platforms. What has this person visibly done from the outside? What have they apparently done to get where they are now? Can you look at whether they’ve engaged in any kind of personal branding, for example? Have they posted regularly on LinkedIn? Have they started their own podcast? Are they a thought leader on a particular topic?

Learn concrete steps from role models

Have they developed certain skills in that area? What did they do to get where they are? You could also try reaching out to this person. “Hey, would you have time to chat sometime?” If that’s not possible, just look at what they did to get there. And can I develop in that direction myself? Can I create a 5-6 month plan to get my qualifications to where they are?

There are many different possibilities. And for me, this is the third competitive situation that I regularly consider. What are people doing who are much further along than me with the topic they’re currently working on? And what can I do to get there too? As I mentioned earlier, “competitive situation” might have a slightly negative connotation. But I don’t mean it negatively at all in the examples I gave. Of course, there are situations where there’s only one winner and one loser.

I think about this especially in sports, for example. I absolutely love playing basketball and I also enjoy kickboxing. And I remember once when I was kickboxing. I had a sparring partner who had several years more experience than me and was really much better. And after the fight, he basically used me like a punching bag. After the fight, I thought to myself, wow, that wasn’t so great. I was totally demotivated.

Leave your comfort zone with a sense of proportion

This is perhaps one of those situations where I say, okay, you don’t always have to push yourself so drastically out of your comfort zone, to overestimate yourself. In this particular case, in sports, because it was obviously also linked to injuries. But I think in most situations, where there isn’t necessarily a winner or loser. And I think with most things like jobs, careers, and so on, it doesn’t mean that if I win, someone else loses, and vice versa. It’s also very important for me to mention the topic of abundance mindset.

I am absolutely convinced that just because I win doesn’t automatically mean someone else loses. And I live by that principle. I also love sharing my experiences with other people. If someone approaches me and asks, “Hey Risa, how did you do this or that?” then I’ll tell them. I don’t keep it a secret. I would recommend everyone proceed in this way, because it’s the only way to truly internalize this abundance mindset. Great, everyone! Today I wanted to talk about the personal constructs I’ve implemented in my mind.

The three comparisons at a glance

When I feel a bit stuck with my issues, like I can’t quite connect with them, I put myself in a competitive situation. I compare myself to my past self, for example. Or, in the second case, I compare myself to my peer group. Or, in the third case, I compare myself to someone who is much further along than me and look at what I can do to get there too.

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