If you’ve never felt stuck because of a mental block, you’re in a lucky minority. Whether feeling stuck in a career, unfulfilled by relationships or discontent with the day-to-day, most people at some point have hit a plateau.
Feeling trapped in a mental block is extremely frustrating and can impact your professional life and even your personal relationships. Many factors can cause you to feel blocked in your thinking, from overanalyzing everything to overloading your plate with too many responsibilities. When you’re stalled by your own mindset, understanding how to get over a mental block can help you finally make progress. What is a mental block, and how can you overcome one? By learning to take control of your mind and emotions, you empower yourself to create forward momentum in your life.
It depends on who you ask. “Mental block” is a layman’s term encompassing a range of experiences related to feeling obstructed in one’s thinking. Depending on who you ask, you might hear terms like “mental fatigue” used instead – especially by medical professionals, who use it to describe a condition caused by prolonged cognitive activity. Merriam Webster’s dictionary delineates related terms like “brain fog,” “writer’s block” and “stumbling block” to describe varying states of diminished mental capacity.
Whatever the terminology used, mental blocks feature the same conundrum: an inability to concentrate, think or reason clearly, resulting in a lack of drive. Forbes reports that unchecked mental fatigue can even impact your physical health . If you don’t learn how to get over a mental block, it can truly derail your productivity and sense of contentment with life.
Understanding how to get over a mental block is much like overcoming a plateau – those places in life where the mind, body and emotions grind to a standstill. To regain your momentum, harmonize your mind and body to reach your peak state . Oftentimes a little activity is all that’s needed to break through a mental block. Your state is ultimately the framework you operate out of in life, so use it to your advantage to unblock your thinking.
As you work to master how to get over a mental block, it helps to recognize the signs of a breakthrough. As unlikely as it sounds, the more frustrated you feel, the closer your breakthrough is. You may feel a vague sensation of discontentment with life, like you’re reaching your limit and something needs to give. You may have already reached the point of feeling fed up, like you’ve had enough. Realize that these feelings are normal as people grow and evolve to overcome obstacles in their lives. These feelings signal your breakthrough around the corner.
When your environment is cluttered or uninspiring, learning how to get over a mental block becomes all the more difficult. Your environment is more than just your physical surroundings – it also encompasses the sounds, people and activities that surround you in your day-to-day life. If you’re overworked with too many responsibilities on your plate, you’ll have a hard time working up the extra energy necessary to overcome a mental block. The same is true if you’re not getting enough sleep or if you hold yourself to impossible standards. To beat mental exhaustion, stay organized and set realistic expectations of yourself and others. Rethink how you spend your energy and create a schedule you thrive on. If you’re taking on too much work, learn to delegate and adjust your workplace operations for optimal efficiency. By taking control of your environment, you’ll be able to make massive progress on how to get rid of mental blocks.
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