Sometimes you need to do a life inventory and learn how to get your shit together. It’s easy to feel like everything’s gone wrong, but you’re in control!
The new catchphrase sweeping the Internet is “being stuck.” What does being stuck actually mean? Basically, we all get into ruts where we feel helpless and out of control. A normal human response means we sometimes want to sit and wallow in our own pity party. But as the saying goes, “The show must go on.” How? By learning how to get your shit together, that’s how.
You can sit there and wallow, lamenting the fact that your life isn’t how you want it to be. Or, you can do something about it and actually try to make a change.
You see, far too many people assume that life is something that just happens to them, but it’s not!
For sure, life will always throw you curveballs, but you have free will. That means you can shape your life and change anything that’s not working for you.
You just need to learn how.
[Read: How to be an adult – 15 mature ways to grow up and behave like one]
How to get your shit together – 16 things you probably aren’t doing right now
The only one who can get you unstuck is you. If you want to learn how to get your shit together and get back on track, it is within your control.
Stop blaming others or feeling as if life holds you back. You have the power to change things around you. If you take steps to change your behavior, you will instantly see a transformation in your life. [Read: What should I do with my life to make it better? – 16 steps to design your ideal life]
1. Let go of your past
Those things keeping us stuck most often lie in the past. If you want to learn how to get your shit together, you have to let go of your past. It doesn’t matter that your parents weren’t loving, or that your husband cheated on you. All of those things stay in the past. They lose their power to touch or affect you if you don’t allow them to.
Make a commitment to leave the past where it belongs—in the past. Always stay focused on what the potential of the future holds, without clouding it with what you have witnessed or experienced in the past. [Read: The most powerful ways to stop ruminating – 18 ways to leave the past where it belongs]
2. There’s no such word as ‘can’t’
One of the most destructive phrases in the human language is “I can’t.” Sure, there are times when you really can’t do something, like be superhuman or cure cancer on your own.
But if you stop saying to yourself that you simply can’t change, turn things around, or make your life anything but what it is, then guess what? It will always be the same.
Just removing the phrase “I can’t” changes things dramatically. Like a personal roadblock, putting a limiting factor on your life never ends well or helps you to accomplish your goals. It only makes you give up before even trying. [Read: 19 life quotes to motivate you to live a better life]
3. Take hold of the reins
Stop waiting for a catalyst to change if you want to know how to get your shit together. The only thing motivating you to move forward is you. Wake up every day and give yourself a task.
It doesn’t have to be grand like running a marathon; assign something as small as the act of getting out of bed. Once accomplished, you will be able to move on to the next thing. Your goals grow bigger and bigger until you move past whatever limitation keeps you stuck.
4. Clean up your messes
Both physically and mentally, clean up your messes. If your home is a mess, your workplace is a mess, and your car is barely driveable, it is difficult to focus and pay attention to what is important.
Look around, is your life in disarray and chaos physically? Usually, the condition of your environment reflects more of your emotional state. Start to clean up things physically, and you’ll instantly find more attic room in your thought process.
In the same respect, clean up your mess emotionally. If you have issues with someone or something, stop letting them fester and eat away at you. Resolve the things keeping you stuck and vow to make amends with people and situations in your life seeking to slow you down, stop you, or make it tough to find your focus. [Read: How to stop being toxic – 19 ways to stop being bitter or blame others]
It is much easier to get it all out in the open and just deal with it. It’s better than hiding from it and allowing it to fester inside.
5. Think positively
If you are an “Eeyore” from Winnie-the-Pooh type, it isn’t doing you any good in your pursuit of getting your shit together. Sure, some people have worse luck than others, but experiences are only what you make of them.
If you have a tendency to be on the less-than-stellar end of most things, then look at the situation and try to find the silver lining. Even the most drastic and horrible of experiences have something positive to take from them. If you always search for the “poor me” aspect, then you are making a scenario where you expect the negative.
Expectations define outcomes, so unless you start to think positively, you most likely will continue to be confronted with hard times. [Read: How to think positive and reprogram your mind to stay positive]
6. Find new people in your life when learning how to get your shit together
There are people in our lives who are toxic to us. If you are in a relationship that has you anxious, upset, or they generally just don’t make you feel good about yourself, it may be time to say goodbye.
Toxic people drag us down and make us feel hopeless. Being lonely by yourself sucks, but worse still is, being lonely with someone.
If you are with people who aren’t boosting you, then it is time to cut them loose and boost yourself. Then, take the time to head out and meet new people who build you up and make you feel happier. [Read: Toxic people and 25 early warning signs to watch out]
7. Organize your surroundings by prioritizing
If you have 100 things to do, feeling stuck is normal. Being overwhelmed by our responsibilities makes us feel paralyzed.
The best way to tackle too much on your plate, which makes you feel stuck, is by making a priority list and checking things off one by one. Otherwise, you run the risk of falling into the clutches of procrastination.
Once you check off the first or second step, the rest becomes much less challenging. The more things you accomplish on your to-do list, the more confident you feel, and the more positive you will be about accomplishing the rest. You’ll feel you have less baggage left hanging over your head. [Read: How to get your life together – 30 rituals to live your best life]
8. How to get your shit together? Set yourself some goals
If you have no goals, then you have no purpose.
A life without goals is nothing but treading water. Get unstuck by envisioning what you want out of life. If you want to have a successful career, make goals to get there. If you yearn to change something about your life, make goals to do it.
If you want to know how to get your shit together, know that goal setting is one of the best tools to use to get unstuck.
The key is to make the goals realistic, break them down so they aren’t pie in the sky, and stick with the program to get where you want to be. [Read: 28 ways to motivate yourself to do pretty much anything you can dream of]
9. Find the things about yourself you don’t like and change them
We all have things we don’t like about ourselves. Typically, those things cause us the most damage.
Instead of looking outside yourself for the reason things suck, turn it inwards. Do some introspection and see what it may be about you that is making you miserable. Only you can change you, but sometimes you must soul-search to figure it out. Change requires your willingness to acknowledge it exists.
10. Stop playing the martyr
Indulging in a pity party every once in a while is normal. If you constantly send out the invitation and people stop coming, stop wallowing now.
If you want to know how to get your shit together, you need to remember that the world isn’t against you. Recognizing that allows you to reexamine what you might be doing to keep yourself stuck. No one makes you a martyr but you. In fact, that is the whole definition, someone who puts themselves in harm’s way for a specific goal. What is your goal? [Read: The martyr complex – How to recognize the signs of martyr syndrome in you]
11. Focus on the things that bring positive outcomes
If you focus only on the negative, flush feeling hopeful or accomplished down the drain. When you see the positive things in your life and how you are responsible for them, it helps you feel less out of control and more in charge of your own future.
Daily, take a look at the things you did, and how things ended positively. Take stock of what your contributions were to get you there. [Read: 24 steps to a happy, positive and very dramatic life shift]
12. Stop playing the victim card
When you play the victim, you blame other people in your life for what is happening to you. No one can do something to you unless you choose to stay and let them.
When we blame it on someone else, we create a scenario where we don’t have to take responsibility for our own actions. If you stop saying it is everyone else’s fault and you are just an innocent bystander, the control is much more powerful than the blame. It helps you get to where you want to be. [Read: Playing victim – 13 signs and reasons why it always makes your life worse]
13. Get your vices under control
If you use alcohol or drugs to cover up your negative feelings, then you only further foster them. When we self-medicate, we create a scenario keeping us stuck. The same goes for spending too much, compulsive eating, etc.
Drugs and alcohol are depressants only dragging you down further and making you feel more out of control. Stop using vices *get help if needed* to make yourself feel better. Take real physical action to change things in your life.
Instead of merely numbing yourself to things, change them if you want to know how to get your shit together. [Read: 12 simple things you do to make your life much worse]
14. Stop blaming others
It is much easier to blame someone else for what they are doing to you than to stop and recognize you are staying in a position to let them. If your girlfriend constantly puts you down and makes you feel horrible, it is your fault for staying. If you walk away and refuse to be treated that way, sure, you run the risk of losing her. But what are you losing besides abuse and mistreatment?
In the same respect, if you have a man cheating on you, making you feel insignificant, or just not allowing you to be the best you can be, it is time to move on. Being without them helps you get unstuck. They may have been the glue holding you down all along.
15. Take control of your money – A key aspect of learning how to get your shit together
Money troubles not only make you anxious, but they also ruin your livelihood. Take steps to get your finances and your debt under control. [Read: The lazy twentysomething’s guide to saving money]
If you are constantly being hounded, have bills hanging over your head, or just can’t seem to get ahead, then it is time to sit down and figure out a better plan. Ignoring things, especially financial debts, will not make them go away.
16. Stop putting things off
By thinking that by placing your issues to the side means they aren’t going to resurface, you’re only kidding yourself. You create a mountain out of a molehill.
Ignoring things until they are out of control or not fixable only makes them that much worse. It is okay to ask for help to get unstuck, it is not okay to pretend like it isn’t happening or that your problems will magically just disappear. [Read: 15 biggest millennial problems that reveal not all is Instagram-perfect in real life]
Learning how to get your shit together is the route to happiness
Learning how to get your shit together is never easy. If it were, then we would all have our shit together. Staying stuck fulfills the self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to a life filled with hopelessness and despair.
Introspection, self-examination, and honesty are three very difficult things. If you can stop and see how and what you are doing is keeping you where you are, then changing it becomes that much more reasonable and realistic.
[Read: Sabotaging your happiness – 12 ways most of us ruin our own lives]
To learn how to get your shit together, you have to first find out what is keeping you stuck and learn to fix it. Then, realize that only you have the ability to change your future, even if it isn’t easy.
