Have you ever felt so stuck that you don’t know which way is up or down? That disorienting feeling where you’re bewildered about how to take even the first step forward? It’s a frustrating place to be, cycling through thoughts of “I have no clue what to do” while flitting between half-completed tasks instead of tackling what truly matters.
When we’re blocked, confused, or off track, it can feel like we’re trapped in an interminable abyss. Even though part of us rationally knows this state won’t last forever, emotionally it feels like we’ll never find our way out. The good news? This feeling, while terrible, is completely normal and extremely common.
In today’s episode, I’m offering you a lifeline for those moments when you feel hopelessly stuck. I’ll share why we get stuck in the first place, what might be happening beneath the surface, and most importantly, a practical “cheat sheet” you can use immediately to start finding your way forward. This simple acronym—PACE—will give you concrete steps to take when you feel like there’s no clear path ahead.

Have you ever felt so stuck that you don’t know which way is up or down? That disorienting feeling where you’re bewildered about how to take even the first step forward? It’s a frustrating place to be, cycling through thoughts of “I have no clue what to do” while flitting between half-completed tasks instead of tackling what truly matters.

When we’re blocked, confused, or off track, it can feel like we’re trapped in an interminable abyss. Even though part of us rationally knows this state won’t last forever, emotionally it feels like we’ll never find our way out. The good news? This feeling, while terrible, is completely normal and extremely common.
In today’s episode, I’m offering you a lifeline for those moments when you feel hopelessly stuck. I’ll share why we get stuck in the first place, what might be happening beneath the surface, and most importantly, a practical “cheat sheet” you can use immediately to start finding your way forward. This simple acronym—PACE—will give you concrete steps to take when you feel like there’s no clear path ahead.
What you'll learn from this episode:
- Why feeling stuck is often caused by something you haven’t yet identified or named.
- The four-step PACE method for getting unstuck when you don’t have time for deep introspection.
- How to execute small, intentional actions that can interrupt the cycle of stuckness.
- The importance of “pacing yourself” through periods of feeling blocked rather than rushing to feel better.
- A memorable visualization technique to help you recall the PACE method even when you’re feeling most stuck.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Powerful Takeaways:
5:45 “The truth is, it actually won’t last forever, but when you’re in it, you usually won’t believe otherwise. You usually think it will last forever.“
8:40 “Feeling stuck is simply a clue to prompt us to look deeper, and address whatever the heart of the matter actually is.“
14:00 “If you are holding a rope that’s tethered to a pole and you’re walking as best you can forward, you’re gonna keep going in a circle.“
18:05 “To pace is to take one thing at a time and not to take on extras that may be unnecessary. And when you pace, you are choosing sustainability over hustle.“
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- Ted Lasso
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Full Episode Transcript:
Enjoy the show:
Welcome to Episode #165. I'm your host, Kristi Angevine, and I'm here with a podcast to help you understand why you think, feel, and act as you do, so that you can change habits that take more than they give and create intentional ones that serve you in the ways that you would like. Today's episode is about what to do when you don't know what to do, what to do when you don't know where to start, and what to do when you feel really, really stuck. Let's get started.
Welcome to Habits On Purpose, a podcast for high-achieving women who want to create lifelong habits that give more than they take. You'll get practical strategies for mindset shifts that will help you finally understand the root causes of why you think, feel, and act as you do. And now, here's your host, Physician, and Master Certified Life Coach, Kristi Angevine.
Hello, hello, everybody. Well, if you are listening to this in real time, it is springtime, roughly March, April of 2025. And where I'm located at in the world, it is starting to get much lighter in the evening than it has in a while, and earlier in the morning because we live where there's daylight savings.
One of the things that I really enjoy about my mornings is solitude, darkness, and silence. And I get up really early on purpose to have those things. And one of the things about the seasons changing from spring into summer that I really love is the extra light and the length of the days, and the warmth. But I'm realizing now that I have gotten so used to having this dark, silent time early in the mornings, that that's shifting a bit for me. And I'm just thinking about right now how I may have to come up with some ways to have some blackout curtains to continue this inky black darkness in the mornings that I find so soothing.
So wherever you are in the world, I hope that your season changes are working well for you. If you are new to the podcast, I'm so honored that you joined and opted to spend a little bit of your time, whether you're walking or sitting, or driving, spend a little of your time coming to this podcast to learn some things about better understanding yourself.
My goal for this podcast is for you to be able to learn why you do what you do, understand why you think what you think, and really have a good understanding of why you emotionally react as you react, so that you can create a very kind relationship with yourself that helps you be intentional with your habits in a way that really feels nourishing for you. So if you're new, thank you so much for listening.
And if you have not listened to some of the earlier podcast, I encourage you to flip through some of the titles and just pick some of the ones that really resonate with you. And you will notice that we're today talking about feeling stuck. And in Episode #162, I posed a very simple solution for getting out of feeling stuck. And this episode is about a different aspect of feeling stuck and a way to address it that I think is powerful in a very different way than what I proposed in Episode #162.
So if you've ever felt really stuck, and I mean just really stuck, where you kind of don't know which way is up, which way is down, you don't have your bearings, maybe you feel disoriented, and you don't feel like there's any way out. This episode is to give you a bit of a lifeline.
So have you ever felt blocked or confused or just off track in a way that's bewildering? And you really just, you don't even know how to take the first step. And even though you may rationally or intellectually know that it's not gonna be like this forever, to part of you, it feels like this is an interminable abyss.
And if you're like many of us, when you get in these states, you might have a tendency to catastrophize. Oh my gosh, the day is lost. Tomorrow's gonna be worse. I'm never gonna get back on track. I have no idea how to do anything. Everything is terrible. And you might notice your mind repeatedly cycles through things like, I just have no clue what to do. What the hell?
And if you were to be able to do anything at all, more often than not, you will kind of flit about, take some low hanging fruit action or maybe some haphazard kind of half-ass action where you're doing things from a restless, overwhelmed state instead of actually sitting down, buckling down, and tending to the bigger, higher-yield things that you previously deemed quite essential?
In these states when you feel so blocked, so confused, just so off track that you don't even know how to get your bearings, it can feel terrible. Can you relate to this? If so, let me reassure you that even though this type of feeling stuck always feels like something has gone wrong, it's actually very normal and extremely common.
And even though it feels like everything has gone off the rails, nothing has actually gone wrong, even though it sure does suck to be in that state. The truth is, it actually won't last forever, but when you're in it, you usually won't believe otherwise. You usually think it will last forever. And in times like this, when you're really desperate for a lifeline, I find that having something really concrete, kind of like an emergency plan for evacuating a sinking ship, is so very helpful. And that's what this episode has, a cheat sheet of sorts for making the feeling of stuckness and being blocked and off track a little less torturous.
So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna briefly touch on what could be going on deep down inside when we feel stuck, what creates a feeling of being stuck and blocked in the first place, and then we'll get straight into that cheat sheet lifeline so that you have something really specific and tangible that you can use today if you are feeling stuck.
So, first things first, if you've been listening for a long time to the podcast, you know that one of the fundamental tenets of making sustainable changes hinges on understanding the root causes of why you do what you do. Understanding what is at the heart of an issue is critical if you want real and lasting change, and not just superficial change that only lasts for a brief period of time.
So when it comes to feeling really stuck, whether it's stuck with a project, stuck with an emotion, stuck with a mood, stuck with something that you've been trying to get started and you keep starting and stopping and starting and stopping. When it comes to that experience of being stuck or blocked, it would make sense if we could identify and then tend to or process the primary source of the stuckness, right?
Well, this is one of those situations where the answer is both yes and no. On one hand, it's useful to know what's lurking under the surface of the blocked action. Is there a fear of what could happen if you take action? Is there a concern about failing? Is there perhaps a part of you that feels inadequate? And if you were to get started on whatever you're blocked on and it doesn't go very well, might you end up feeling worthless?
And therefore, for this part of you, it's much better just to circle the runway and feel stuck and blocked than it is to dive in and have to face the psychological grenade of feeling worthless and inadequate. Or perhaps the risk is you do something and you fail, that failure might kind of be like dominoes for a sense of inadequacy that leads to a sense of powerlessness, that leads to a sense of abject rejection. Now, these things could all be lurking under the surface of feeling blocked or feeling stuck when it comes to taking action on something.
So it's my opinion that feeling stuck is simply a clue to prompt us to look deeper and the comprehensive solution to whatever is behind feeling stuck, behind feeling blocked, is going to include addressing whatever the heart of the matter actually is. And yet, sometimes in the trenches of ordinary everyday real life, you don't have time for the deep dive. Yes, the deep dive matters, it's important, it cannot be neglected indefinitely, but when you have places to go, kids to get to school, deadlines to make, groceries to get, dinner to get, house to get clean and tidy so that you have dishes to eat off of, you sometimes need a quicker intervention to help you get unstuck, to help you feel less bad about being stuck.
So let's start at the top. On the surface, what can make you feel stuck or blocked in the first place? What makes clarity and ease feel like just a figment of your imagination? We get stuck and blocked because something is in the way of clarity, courage, and the confidence to take action. And usually, whatever's in the way is something we simply haven't yet identified or named. It's kind of like how clouds block the sun.
When we have thoughts on repeat, emotions that we're not clear on, or parts of us that we don't appreciate as being present, these will get in the way of clarity, courage, and the confidence to take action, just like clouds get in the way of the sun, and then we will feel stuck.
So what are some examples of things that can get in the way that when they're unnamed can block us? And what might it look like to simply name them? Let me give you a couple examples. We might feel really scattered and have no clue why we feel scattered, and we can't get our thoughts sorted.
But when we pause, we might realize that right behind that feeling of being scattered, almost like something right behind a veil, is sadness. Maybe it's sadness about not having enough time to do what we're craving to do. So on the surface, we feel scattered and stuck, and we don't know why. But the reality is we just haven't named that there's a bit of sadness. And this sadness obscures our access to thinking clearly. But when we name it, we can kind of inch towards feeling less stuck.
And this sounds like this, you know what, I am so confused and scattered, and I really just don't know what to do. But you know what else? I'm realizing I'm also a bit sad about not having enough time. And as soon as we name what's right behind the scattered that makes us feel blocked, as soon as we name the sadness, then we can understand why we're stuck a little bit better. And as soon as we understand why we're stuck, sometimes that gives us a bit more space and we can feel less stuck. So our increased understanding can decrease our stuckness.
So here's another example. We might feel confused about how to start something, and we just sit there, and we circle and we wonder and we think we should research, and we just stay in this spin of confusion. But underneath the confusion, there could be some stealthy self-criticism to the tune of, gosh, I should be further along. Or we might just have no clue what else we could possibly do to solve something. We feel like we've hit a dead end, and we're just completely bewildered.
And this bewilderment, when we slow down just enough, we realize is accompanied by a feeling of discouragement. Or we might simply be tired or having PMS, but right behind that fatigue and that PMS where we just feel blocked, we're quietly telling ourselves that we just need to suck it up and do better. So we feel extra inadequate.
In these situations, as soon as we are able to name feeling inadequate, feeling self-criticism, feeling discouragement, as soon as we're able to name that we're telling ourselves we need to suck it up, all of a sudden, any confusion, any stuckness, any wondering what we could possibly do, they all of a sudden make a whole lot more sense.
So, when we can simply name what is alongside or contributing to a feeling of being stuck or blocked, sometimes this alone is quite therapeutic. As one of Toni Morrison's characters says in her novel Song of Solomon, “Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly? You gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.” So in this situation, the thing that weighs us down and keeps us stuck is often something we just have yet to identify or name. So when you can start naming the shit that's weighing you down, it is your pathway towards feeling less stuck.
Now, if you're a visual person, you may appreciate this image. Imagine that you're walking and you're walking as best you can forward. But as you're walking, you notice that you keep actually going in a circle. And you're not clear why you're going in a circle because you're trying to walk forward.
Well, if you can picture a person who's holding onto a rope and that rope is tethered to a pole, kind of like that game tetherball. If you are holding that rope that's tethered to this pole and you're walking as best you can forward, you're gonna keep going in a circle. Well, this is kind of like what happens when we get stuck or blocked. Every bit of forward action we try to take doesn't really result in anything. We stay generally in that same place.
And if we don't realize that there is something there keeping us stuck, that we are holding onto a rope that is attached to a pole that is tethering us there, if we don't recognize that and name that, we're gonna keep wondering why we're stuck and we're gonna keep staying stuck. But as soon as we look and we go, oh, I'm holding onto a rope, this rope is attached to a pole. When I move, no matter what I do, as I continue to hold onto this, oh, I will be stuck here. I will not go anywhere else.
As soon as we realize that, then we open ourselves up to the opportunity to make a change. So this is what's possible for you when you can name something that has yet to be named, that can be keeping you stuck. Now, these as yet unnamed things are sometimes really easy to identify. You notice you're stuck and you take maybe five minutes or so and you reflect and say, you know what?
What is behind the feeling of being blocked? What else is here for me that maybe I just haven't yet named? And then as soon as you notice it, you can name it, and you might notice just a modicum of space. Or it could be something much deeper, and that takes more time than you have in the moment tend to. But in either case, it's often so powerful just to know. The way that you're feeling, the stuckness, it makes sense.
You are stuck or blocked or feeling like there's no way to get back on track, simply because there's something present for you that you have yet to name or identify, that you have yet to understand. So there's a good reason you feel the way you feel. It's not a sign that there's something wrong with you. It's not a sign that your approach to life is bad. It's just what you have right now. It's what's present. And yes, a part of you wishes it were different, but it's simply because something hasn't been named. So it makes tons of sense, even if you can't identify how.
So the take-home message here is when you are stuck, it's usually because there's something you haven't identified that is in the way of your confidence, clarity, and courage. And when you can name what's in the way, sometimes you can feel a little bit less stuck. And even if you cannot name what's in the way, just knowing that there's always a good reason for why you feel how you feel. It can be really reassuring.
And this is actually very important. Just think about this for a moment. What might shift for you if when you were feeling really off track, really stuck, really blocked, what would change if you knew, there is some good reason that I feel this way? And what have you told yourself? You know what, this might be easy to find, or it might take some time, but either way, in some way, this is understandable. This is reasonable. And honestly, other people in similar situations, they might feel similar to me. What would change if you knew that you didn't have to know exactly why you feel like you do, that you're gonna figure it out eventually, and you're not gonna feel like that indefinitely, but that it just makes sense? So this is step one for taking a bit of the suffering out of feeling stuck and feeling off-kilter. Now, let's dive into the cheat sheet for getting unstuck.
So when you don't have time to figure out why you feel how you feel. You don't have time for a deep dive where you spend five minutes and you don't figure anything out that gives you any breathing space or wiggle room. I want you to think the word “PACE”. This is an acronym, and it is spelled P-A-C-E.
To pace means to intentionally meter your speed, your effort, or your energy to go bit by bit instead of rushing full speed ahead so that you can conserve your energy, so that you can go the long haul. To pace is to take one thing at a time and not to take on extras that may be unnecessary. And when you pace, you are choosing sustainability over hustle. And you are explicitly recognizing that sometimes things take time, just like it takes time for a peach to ripen to a flavor that tastes really good or something to be ready to pick. Sometimes things inside of us, they just take some time.
So the acronym for getting unstuck is PACE, P-A-C-E. Now let me go through what every letter stands for and then I'm going to give you a way to remember it that hopefully will keep it memorable even when you are feeling completely stuck and blocked and can barely think any thoughts that don't just feel like they're molasses.
So P is for pause, A is for acknowledge, C is for compassion, and E is for execute. So let's go through all of these.
P for pause. As soon as you notice that you are stuck or blocked or just feeling disoriented and off kilter, pause. This means stop. Step away, get grounded in some way, interrupt the internal broadcast that's going on in your head, step back from whatever you are swirling in, pause, stop, do something to interrupt where you are. Sometimes, just pausing is all you need.
But A is for acknowledge, and that's the next step. To acknowledge means to name that you are stuck. This is very simple. A part of me is stuck. A part of me is confused and frustrated, and so blocked. It could also sound like, this is what I've got right now. One big pile of bleh. That's simply to acknowledge.
Now there is a second A here. In addition to acknowledge, there's assess. So to assess is to look for, are there other things that are making the stuckness worse? Specifically, is there resistance, judgment, or are you catastrophizing?
If you are resisting things, it sounds like, oh my gosh, this stuckness, it's a problem. I shouldn't feel this way, I hate this. If you're judging yourself, it sounds like, oh my gosh, I just need to suck it up. Nobody else wallows like this. How many times do I have to get stuck? How many times do I have to go through this?
If you're catastrophizing without offering yourself any solutions, it might sound like, you know what, if this keeps on going, tomorrow I'm going to be facing, insert the worst case scenario, and this is going to go on for month,s and then imagine the worst tragedy ever.
So A is to acknowledge and assess. So, after you quickly assess, are you resisting, judging, or catastrophizing without any solutions? All you do is just acknowledge that you're doing that. Here I am, I'm feeling stuck, and I'm really resisting feeling stuck. I'm also being harsh, I'm catastrophizing, and yes, this feels like it makes everything harder. So that is A, acknowledge, and P.S., assess if you'd like.
Now, onto C. C is for compassion. When you notice you're stuck, the last thing you need is judgment. And the first thing you need is compassion. This is where you remind yourself that you make sense. You remind yourself that even though it feels like the worst thing ever, it's not actually a problem. It's going to be okay. Indeed, it does suck. And you normalize what you're feeling. Everybody feels this way sometimes. Every creator or artist goes through their proverbial personal hell on the way to creating something great. This is just what it feels like for me right now.
And even if you don't know why you're stuck, you remind yourself, there's a good reason. And then I love to give myself permission, permission granted to drop resistance, judgment, and stop catastrophizing. You can remind yourself, it's okay to not like this. It is normal to resist and judge, and think of the worst-case scenario.
This is so very human, but it's going to go faster if I stop pushing against it. So thank you, brain. Thank you for the preview of the potential disaster. Thank you for judging what's going on because that's just what we do. But you know, I know I'm gonna figure this out even if I don't feel so great right now.
And when you're trying to access some sort of compassion for feeling stuck, think about what you might say to a friend or a loved one. Think about what's going on in your life that might make it make sense. And remind yourself, even though it feels like it's going to last forever, this is not going to last forever, and being stuck is not proof of your ineptitude. So compassion can look like whatever feels kind and loving and makes you make sense.
Then E is for execute. Execute means take some small action in the direction that you want to go. Make this action mediocre on purpose, meaning go for the least thing that you can do. What is D-minus or C-plus work? What is the most paltry first draft that you can do? Go do that.
Pick one thing that you can do, one thing that you can start, and do it for 10 minutes. I literally recommend that you set a timer. You can sit there and write, I have nothing worth writing for 10 minutes. You can go walk for 10 minutes, you can wipe your kitchen counters for 10 minutes, you can take the task that you're dreading and spend 10 minutes breaking it into smaller chunks. Or, as my son said, you can go do something fun to get your mind off being stuck for 10 minutes, and then you come back later.
When you execute and go do something, this is how you give yourself the chance to start by starting. You give yourself another way to sort of interrupt and get some space from or unblend from a part of you that feels super stuck. And this tiny little move gives you a chance to interrupt the stuckness.
So let's go over these again. PACE. means to pause, then acknowledge what's going on, simply name that you're stuck, assess if you're compounding things with judgment, resistance, and catastrophizing without solutions, bring in some compassion, which happens to also bring in some clarity, and then go execute one small, tiny thing.
Now, I wanna take a second to sort of reinforce in your memory the acronym PACE. When you are stuck, you usually can't rush yourself to feeling unstuck. You have to allow it to take time, i.e., you have to pace yourself. You may be in a season of your life where things literally just do take longer. You might be overextended. You might be in the thick of just disastrous things happening left and right, the proverbial middle school of your 30s, or the middle school of your middle age.
Maybe you are learning lots of new things that you didn't expect you would have to learn. Maybe you're processing so much in your own internal system that every day feels insanely full, and you feel like you can barely keep up. Maybe you have a really tricky relationship with a family member that consumes a lot of your time and energy, and this takes some time. And this might be that time where you are learning how to be in an uncomfortable middle ground.
Now, let me be clear. When I'm stuck, I just want to be unstuck. I don't want to pace. I just want to feel better. I want to feel better now. And yet there's something really calming about knowing that it's okay to pace myself and not feel better immediately. This is where you get to practice letting two opposing things be true. You want to feel better, and you have to let it take the time it takes.
When you pace yourself, you embrace the idea that progress doesn't need to look exactly like you think it does, and it might move at a different speed than you would like, but that's normal. Now, how on earth are you going to remember all these steps? Granted, it's just four, but when you're feeling really stuck, if you're anything like me, sometimes it's hard to access the insights and truths that come to you very easily on a day where you don't feel stuck and blocked.
So I'm gonna give you another way to remember PACE., in addition to just the idea that you need to pace yourself when you feel unstuck, and you need to pause, acknowledge, use compassion and execute. I wanna give you kind of a silly image that will help you remember things. So I don't know if you, when you're doing, studying for classes, would ever draw pictures or use a cartoon or some sort of mnemonic and as a way to like remember like the Krebs cycle or some long chemical equation or you know something in virology or microbiology that was kind of a tricky relationship but boring and dry and you had to spice it up. So if you did that type of thing, this will hopefully land well with you.
What I want you to do is bring to mind the character in the show Ted Lasso. I actually can't remember the name of the actor who plays Ted Lasso, but if you have seen Ted Lasso, this will work for you. If you've not seen Ted Lasso, you can just Google Ted Lasso so you can see what he looks like, because this might actually help this image sink in for you. But if you know who I'm talking about, picture Ted Lasso wearing Nike sneakers and a t-shirt that happens to have a picture of Mr. Rogers on it, you know, because Ted Lasso, he's a little bit quirky and he's walking down the street and he's humming that song by the Supremes, “Stop in the Name of Love,” which I will not sing for you here.
I want you to think about that. And I'm gonna go through PACE. and link it to this image for you. So P for pause, that's the Supremes saying, “stop in the name of love.” You can just know that when you feel stuck, think of the Supremes in that song and stop and pause.
A for acknowledge. When I think of somebody who models acknowledging and then assessing what's really going on without judgment, I think of Mr. Rogers. This is where you go to the t-shirt that Ted Lasso is wearing. Mr. Rogers had a way of slowing things down and making space for whatever was present without rushing to fix it, without rushing to minimize things or change the subject. And so that's what the A in PACE is all about. Noticing what's there, naming it, holding it with some warmth and curiosity.
And one of the quotes from Fred Rogers that will help drive this home for you is, quote, "Anything that is human is mentionable and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable."
So that's P, “stop in the name of love,” and A for acknowledge with Mr. Rogers. And now for compassion. This is where Ted Lasso himself comes in. Ted Lasso as a character is kind of the go-to pop culture example of compassion and clarity. He doesn't ignore hard things or sugarcoat things, but he really brings a sense of care and kindness and connection to all sorts of tough moments. And that's what the C in PACE represents, the ability to be with yourself kindly, even while you're holding to what's true.
Now, if you've ever watched Ted Lasso, you may remember that he says, "Be curious, not judgmental," and then he attributes that quote to Walt Whitman. Well, I don't think that quote is actually from Walt Whitman, but that line in the show, "Be curious, not judgmental," is a beautiful way to keep in mind that compassion is much more helpful than judgment. And this is particularly true when you feel stuck.
So that energy of looking inward with curiosity and kindness instead of criticism, that's what helps shift the stuckness, and that's what helps you feel a little bit safer to take your next step, even if it's small, which leads us to E for execute. And this is where we talk about his Nike shoes he's wearing. And I don't actually know if Ted Lasso wears Nikes in the sho, probably not. I don't think they paid for that sponsorship, but imagine Ted Lasso wearing Nikes, and you know the classic line for Nike is “just do it”. So E for execute, that's his Nikes, just do it.
So if you find yourself feeling stuck or blocked, realize the reason that you are stuck in the first place is simply because there's something present for you that you have yet to name. A part that's present, an emotion that's present, some sort of thought that's not quite clear, kind of still nebulous that you haven't yet named. And whether you can name it or not, you can rest comfortably knowing that there is a very good reason you're stuck. And it makes sense, even if you don't know why.
And then, if you don't have time for a big deep dive into what's way down underneath and at the heart of feeling stuck, that is no problem. All you have to do is remember the acronym PACE. P for pause, A for acknowledge, also assess to see if there's any judgment, resistance, or catastrophizing. C for compassion and clarity, and E for execute with a small, tiny action.
And then to help you remember this, you can picture Ted Lasso, the kind, compassionate Ted Lasso, wearing Nikes, reminding you to just do it, and a t-shirt with Mr. Rogers on it. That is your reminder to acknowledge. And he's walking down the street and he's humming, "Stop in the Name of Love", which is your reminder to pause.
So I hope that this tiny little acronym, with all of its little renditions of PACE, when you're feeling stuck is helpful for you. If you might find yourself in the middle of something, it feels kind of heavy, you feel kind of stuck in it, you're not really sure where to go. And I hope that the reminder that even if you don't know exactly why you're stuck, that there's really good reason why you are, is reassuring to your system as a whole.
If this episode was helpful to you and you want to get access to more, you can join the Habits on Purpose email list. Just simply go to https://habitsonpurpose.com, and you'll see the sign-up for the newsletter box. You can put it in your email address, and I will send you things straight to your inbox, where you can take some of the concepts we learned on the podcast and take them even deeper. And then you can also learn about places that I'm gonna be speaking, workshops, classes, webinars, and coaching that is offered.
Enjoy, and I will talk to you next week.
Are you a woman physician interested in being more intentional in your life, being more deliberate with your habits? Maybe you're feeling a bit frayed on the edges with all the pressures of work and life, and you may have a tendency to overthink, people please, second guess, or feel so much guilt when you do something for yourself.
Perhaps your charting takes forever, you bring work home, and you're just not as present as you would like to be. Maybe you scroll, or shop, or emotionally eat, or you use a drink to wind down more often than you'd like.
If you can relate to this and you just want to feel less reactionary and more in the driver's seat of your life, you need to understand the root causes of your habits. Habits like perfectionism, a harsh inner critic, people pleasing, numbing, ruminating, overcomplicating, procrastinating, and so on.
And that's exactly what you can work on in the next round of small group coaching called Habits on Purpose for Physicians. Habits on Purpose for Physicians, or HOPP for short, comes with CME and is a small group of women physicians who meet weekly for six months.
And in HOPP, you get practical, deep dive coaching and teaching from me. And I come at this from a perspective of cognitive, somatic, and Internal Family Systems informed approaches in a way that is not only accessible, but applicable to real life.
And you get a ready-made structure that you don't have to create on your own, and you get probably one of the best parts is a community where you can connect with other physicians doing the same work.
Enrollment information and the link to join the waitlist can be found at https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp. And when you go there, get on the waitlist, because when you're on the waitlist, you'll get access to early enrollment and some bonuses only available to those who sign up early. And the reason why this is important is spots are limited. So signing up sooner as opposed to later is really smart so you can ensure that you get a spot before they're full.
Also, if you are interested and you want to join but you find the price is a barrier, there are scholarship options so don't hesitate to fill out the easy application for either a partial or a full scholarship that will ultimately be linked on the main sign-up page when we open up enrollment.
In the Habits on Purpose for Physicians group, you will unpack and unlearn old habits so that you can create new ones that are sustainable. So I hope you'll consider joining. The signup page with all the details will come out closer to enrollment for the next round, but go to https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp to get on the waitlist. I can't wait to see you there.
Thanks for listening to Habits On Purpose. If you want more information on Kristi Angevine or the resources from the podcast, visit HabitsOnPurpose.com. Tune in next week for another episode.
Welcome to Habits On Purpose, a podcast for high-achieving women who want to create lifelong habits that give more than they take. You'll get practical strategies for mindset shifts that will help you finally understand the root causes of why you think, feel, and act as you do. And now, here's your host, Physician, and Master Certified Life Coach, Kristi Angevine.
Hello, hello, everybody. Well, if you are listening to this in real time, it is springtime, roughly March, April of 2025. And where I'm located at in the world, it is starting to get much lighter in the evening than it has in a while, and earlier in the morning because we live where there's daylight savings.
One of the things that I really enjoy about my mornings is solitude, darkness, and silence. And I get up really early on purpose to have those things. And one of the things about the seasons changing from spring into summer that I really love is the extra light and the length of the days, and the warmth. But I'm realizing now that I have gotten so used to having this dark, silent time early in the mornings, that that's shifting a bit for me. And I'm just thinking about right now how I may have to come up with some ways to have some blackout curtains to continue this inky black darkness in the mornings that I find so soothing.
So wherever you are in the world, I hope that your season changes are working well for you. If you are new to the podcast, I'm so honored that you joined and opted to spend a little bit of your time, whether you're walking or sitting, or driving, spend a little of your time coming to this podcast to learn some things about better understanding yourself.
My goal for this podcast is for you to be able to learn why you do what you do, understand why you think what you think, and really have a good understanding of why you emotionally react as you react, so that you can create a very kind relationship with yourself that helps you be intentional with your habits in a way that really feels nourishing for you. So if you're new, thank you so much for listening.
And if you have not listened to some of the earlier podcast, I encourage you to flip through some of the titles and just pick some of the ones that really resonate with you. And you will notice that we're today talking about feeling stuck. And in Episode #162, I posed a very simple solution for getting out of feeling stuck. And this episode is about a different aspect of feeling stuck and a way to address it that I think is powerful in a very different way than what I proposed in Episode #162.
So if you've ever felt really stuck, and I mean just really stuck, where you kind of don't know which way is up, which way is down, you don't have your bearings, maybe you feel disoriented, and you don't feel like there's any way out. This episode is to give you a bit of a lifeline.
So have you ever felt blocked or confused or just off track in a way that's bewildering? And you really just, you don't even know how to take the first step. And even though you may rationally or intellectually know that it's not gonna be like this forever, to part of you, it feels like this is an interminable abyss.
And if you're like many of us, when you get in these states, you might have a tendency to catastrophize. Oh my gosh, the day is lost. Tomorrow's gonna be worse. I'm never gonna get back on track. I have no idea how to do anything. Everything is terrible. And you might notice your mind repeatedly cycles through things like, I just have no clue what to do. What the hell?
And if you were to be able to do anything at all, more often than not, you will kind of flit about, take some low hanging fruit action or maybe some haphazard kind of half-ass action where you're doing things from a restless, overwhelmed state instead of actually sitting down, buckling down, and tending to the bigger, higher-yield things that you previously deemed quite essential?
In these states when you feel so blocked, so confused, just so off track that you don't even know how to get your bearings, it can feel terrible. Can you relate to this? If so, let me reassure you that even though this type of feeling stuck always feels like something has gone wrong, it's actually very normal and extremely common.
And even though it feels like everything has gone off the rails, nothing has actually gone wrong, even though it sure does suck to be in that state. The truth is, it actually won't last forever, but when you're in it, you usually won't believe otherwise. You usually think it will last forever. And in times like this, when you're really desperate for a lifeline, I find that having something really concrete, kind of like an emergency plan for evacuating a sinking ship, is so very helpful. And that's what this episode has, a cheat sheet of sorts for making the feeling of stuckness and being blocked and off track a little less torturous.
So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna briefly touch on what could be going on deep down inside when we feel stuck, what creates a feeling of being stuck and blocked in the first place, and then we'll get straight into that cheat sheet lifeline so that you have something really specific and tangible that you can use today if you are feeling stuck.
So, first things first, if you've been listening for a long time to the podcast, you know that one of the fundamental tenets of making sustainable changes hinges on understanding the root causes of why you do what you do. Understanding what is at the heart of an issue is critical if you want real and lasting change, and not just superficial change that only lasts for a brief period of time.
So when it comes to feeling really stuck, whether it's stuck with a project, stuck with an emotion, stuck with a mood, stuck with something that you've been trying to get started and you keep starting and stopping and starting and stopping. When it comes to that experience of being stuck or blocked, it would make sense if we could identify and then tend to or process the primary source of the stuckness, right?
Well, this is one of those situations where the answer is both yes and no. On one hand, it's useful to know what's lurking under the surface of the blocked action. Is there a fear of what could happen if you take action? Is there a concern about failing? Is there perhaps a part of you that feels inadequate? And if you were to get started on whatever you're blocked on and it doesn't go very well, might you end up feeling worthless?
And therefore, for this part of you, it's much better just to circle the runway and feel stuck and blocked than it is to dive in and have to face the psychological grenade of feeling worthless and inadequate. Or perhaps the risk is you do something and you fail, that failure might kind of be like dominoes for a sense of inadequacy that leads to a sense of powerlessness, that leads to a sense of abject rejection. Now, these things could all be lurking under the surface of feeling blocked or feeling stuck when it comes to taking action on something.
So it's my opinion that feeling stuck is simply a clue to prompt us to look deeper and the comprehensive solution to whatever is behind feeling stuck, behind feeling blocked, is going to include addressing whatever the heart of the matter actually is. And yet, sometimes in the trenches of ordinary everyday real life, you don't have time for the deep dive. Yes, the deep dive matters, it's important, it cannot be neglected indefinitely, but when you have places to go, kids to get to school, deadlines to make, groceries to get, dinner to get, house to get clean and tidy so that you have dishes to eat off of, you sometimes need a quicker intervention to help you get unstuck, to help you feel less bad about being stuck.
So let's start at the top. On the surface, what can make you feel stuck or blocked in the first place? What makes clarity and ease feel like just a figment of your imagination? We get stuck and blocked because something is in the way of clarity, courage, and the confidence to take action. And usually, whatever's in the way is something we simply haven't yet identified or named. It's kind of like how clouds block the sun.
When we have thoughts on repeat, emotions that we're not clear on, or parts of us that we don't appreciate as being present, these will get in the way of clarity, courage, and the confidence to take action, just like clouds get in the way of the sun, and then we will feel stuck.
So what are some examples of things that can get in the way that when they're unnamed can block us? And what might it look like to simply name them? Let me give you a couple examples. We might feel really scattered and have no clue why we feel scattered, and we can't get our thoughts sorted.
But when we pause, we might realize that right behind that feeling of being scattered, almost like something right behind a veil, is sadness. Maybe it's sadness about not having enough time to do what we're craving to do. So on the surface, we feel scattered and stuck, and we don't know why. But the reality is we just haven't named that there's a bit of sadness. And this sadness obscures our access to thinking clearly. But when we name it, we can kind of inch towards feeling less stuck.
And this sounds like this, you know what, I am so confused and scattered, and I really just don't know what to do. But you know what else? I'm realizing I'm also a bit sad about not having enough time. And as soon as we name what's right behind the scattered that makes us feel blocked, as soon as we name the sadness, then we can understand why we're stuck a little bit better. And as soon as we understand why we're stuck, sometimes that gives us a bit more space and we can feel less stuck. So our increased understanding can decrease our stuckness.
So here's another example. We might feel confused about how to start something, and we just sit there, and we circle and we wonder and we think we should research, and we just stay in this spin of confusion. But underneath the confusion, there could be some stealthy self-criticism to the tune of, gosh, I should be further along. Or we might just have no clue what else we could possibly do to solve something. We feel like we've hit a dead end, and we're just completely bewildered.
And this bewilderment, when we slow down just enough, we realize is accompanied by a feeling of discouragement. Or we might simply be tired or having PMS, but right behind that fatigue and that PMS where we just feel blocked, we're quietly telling ourselves that we just need to suck it up and do better. So we feel extra inadequate.
In these situations, as soon as we are able to name feeling inadequate, feeling self-criticism, feeling discouragement, as soon as we're able to name that we're telling ourselves we need to suck it up, all of a sudden, any confusion, any stuckness, any wondering what we could possibly do, they all of a sudden make a whole lot more sense.
So, when we can simply name what is alongside or contributing to a feeling of being stuck or blocked, sometimes this alone is quite therapeutic. As one of Toni Morrison's characters says in her novel Song of Solomon, “Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly? You gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.” So in this situation, the thing that weighs us down and keeps us stuck is often something we just have yet to identify or name. So when you can start naming the shit that's weighing you down, it is your pathway towards feeling less stuck.
Now, if you're a visual person, you may appreciate this image. Imagine that you're walking and you're walking as best you can forward. But as you're walking, you notice that you keep actually going in a circle. And you're not clear why you're going in a circle because you're trying to walk forward.
Well, if you can picture a person who's holding onto a rope and that rope is tethered to a pole, kind of like that game tetherball. If you are holding that rope that's tethered to this pole and you're walking as best you can forward, you're gonna keep going in a circle. Well, this is kind of like what happens when we get stuck or blocked. Every bit of forward action we try to take doesn't really result in anything. We stay generally in that same place.
And if we don't realize that there is something there keeping us stuck, that we are holding onto a rope that is attached to a pole that is tethering us there, if we don't recognize that and name that, we're gonna keep wondering why we're stuck and we're gonna keep staying stuck. But as soon as we look and we go, oh, I'm holding onto a rope, this rope is attached to a pole. When I move, no matter what I do, as I continue to hold onto this, oh, I will be stuck here. I will not go anywhere else.
As soon as we realize that, then we open ourselves up to the opportunity to make a change. So this is what's possible for you when you can name something that has yet to be named, that can be keeping you stuck. Now, these as yet unnamed things are sometimes really easy to identify. You notice you're stuck and you take maybe five minutes or so and you reflect and say, you know what?
What is behind the feeling of being blocked? What else is here for me that maybe I just haven't yet named? And then as soon as you notice it, you can name it, and you might notice just a modicum of space. Or it could be something much deeper, and that takes more time than you have in the moment tend to. But in either case, it's often so powerful just to know. The way that you're feeling, the stuckness, it makes sense.
You are stuck or blocked or feeling like there's no way to get back on track, simply because there's something present for you that you have yet to name or identify, that you have yet to understand. So there's a good reason you feel the way you feel. It's not a sign that there's something wrong with you. It's not a sign that your approach to life is bad. It's just what you have right now. It's what's present. And yes, a part of you wishes it were different, but it's simply because something hasn't been named. So it makes tons of sense, even if you can't identify how.
So the take-home message here is when you are stuck, it's usually because there's something you haven't identified that is in the way of your confidence, clarity, and courage. And when you can name what's in the way, sometimes you can feel a little bit less stuck. And even if you cannot name what's in the way, just knowing that there's always a good reason for why you feel how you feel. It can be really reassuring.
And this is actually very important. Just think about this for a moment. What might shift for you if when you were feeling really off track, really stuck, really blocked, what would change if you knew, there is some good reason that I feel this way? And what have you told yourself? You know what, this might be easy to find, or it might take some time, but either way, in some way, this is understandable. This is reasonable. And honestly, other people in similar situations, they might feel similar to me. What would change if you knew that you didn't have to know exactly why you feel like you do, that you're gonna figure it out eventually, and you're not gonna feel like that indefinitely, but that it just makes sense? So this is step one for taking a bit of the suffering out of feeling stuck and feeling off-kilter. Now, let's dive into the cheat sheet for getting unstuck.
So when you don't have time to figure out why you feel how you feel. You don't have time for a deep dive where you spend five minutes and you don't figure anything out that gives you any breathing space or wiggle room. I want you to think the word “PACE”. This is an acronym, and it is spelled P-A-C-E.
To pace means to intentionally meter your speed, your effort, or your energy to go bit by bit instead of rushing full speed ahead so that you can conserve your energy, so that you can go the long haul. To pace is to take one thing at a time and not to take on extras that may be unnecessary. And when you pace, you are choosing sustainability over hustle. And you are explicitly recognizing that sometimes things take time, just like it takes time for a peach to ripen to a flavor that tastes really good or something to be ready to pick. Sometimes things inside of us, they just take some time.
So the acronym for getting unstuck is PACE, P-A-C-E. Now let me go through what every letter stands for and then I'm going to give you a way to remember it that hopefully will keep it memorable even when you are feeling completely stuck and blocked and can barely think any thoughts that don't just feel like they're molasses.
So P is for pause, A is for acknowledge, C is for compassion, and E is for execute. So let's go through all of these.
P for pause. As soon as you notice that you are stuck or blocked or just feeling disoriented and off kilter, pause. This means stop. Step away, get grounded in some way, interrupt the internal broadcast that's going on in your head, step back from whatever you are swirling in, pause, stop, do something to interrupt where you are. Sometimes, just pausing is all you need.
But A is for acknowledge, and that's the next step. To acknowledge means to name that you are stuck. This is very simple. A part of me is stuck. A part of me is confused and frustrated, and so blocked. It could also sound like, this is what I've got right now. One big pile of bleh. That's simply to acknowledge.
Now there is a second A here. In addition to acknowledge, there's assess. So to assess is to look for, are there other things that are making the stuckness worse? Specifically, is there resistance, judgment, or are you catastrophizing?
If you are resisting things, it sounds like, oh my gosh, this stuckness, it's a problem. I shouldn't feel this way, I hate this. If you're judging yourself, it sounds like, oh my gosh, I just need to suck it up. Nobody else wallows like this. How many times do I have to get stuck? How many times do I have to go through this?
If you're catastrophizing without offering yourself any solutions, it might sound like, you know what, if this keeps on going, tomorrow I'm going to be facing, insert the worst case scenario, and this is going to go on for month,s and then imagine the worst tragedy ever.
So A is to acknowledge and assess. So, after you quickly assess, are you resisting, judging, or catastrophizing without any solutions? All you do is just acknowledge that you're doing that. Here I am, I'm feeling stuck, and I'm really resisting feeling stuck. I'm also being harsh, I'm catastrophizing, and yes, this feels like it makes everything harder. So that is A, acknowledge, and P.S., assess if you'd like.
Now, onto C. C is for compassion. When you notice you're stuck, the last thing you need is judgment. And the first thing you need is compassion. This is where you remind yourself that you make sense. You remind yourself that even though it feels like the worst thing ever, it's not actually a problem. It's going to be okay. Indeed, it does suck. And you normalize what you're feeling. Everybody feels this way sometimes. Every creator or artist goes through their proverbial personal hell on the way to creating something great. This is just what it feels like for me right now.
And even if you don't know why you're stuck, you remind yourself, there's a good reason. And then I love to give myself permission, permission granted to drop resistance, judgment, and stop catastrophizing. You can remind yourself, it's okay to not like this. It is normal to resist and judge, and think of the worst-case scenario.
This is so very human, but it's going to go faster if I stop pushing against it. So thank you, brain. Thank you for the preview of the potential disaster. Thank you for judging what's going on because that's just what we do. But you know, I know I'm gonna figure this out even if I don't feel so great right now.
And when you're trying to access some sort of compassion for feeling stuck, think about what you might say to a friend or a loved one. Think about what's going on in your life that might make it make sense. And remind yourself, even though it feels like it's going to last forever, this is not going to last forever, and being stuck is not proof of your ineptitude. So compassion can look like whatever feels kind and loving and makes you make sense.
Then E is for execute. Execute means take some small action in the direction that you want to go. Make this action mediocre on purpose, meaning go for the least thing that you can do. What is D-minus or C-plus work? What is the most paltry first draft that you can do? Go do that.
Pick one thing that you can do, one thing that you can start, and do it for 10 minutes. I literally recommend that you set a timer. You can sit there and write, I have nothing worth writing for 10 minutes. You can go walk for 10 minutes, you can wipe your kitchen counters for 10 minutes, you can take the task that you're dreading and spend 10 minutes breaking it into smaller chunks. Or, as my son said, you can go do something fun to get your mind off being stuck for 10 minutes, and then you come back later.
When you execute and go do something, this is how you give yourself the chance to start by starting. You give yourself another way to sort of interrupt and get some space from or unblend from a part of you that feels super stuck. And this tiny little move gives you a chance to interrupt the stuckness.
So let's go over these again. PACE. means to pause, then acknowledge what's going on, simply name that you're stuck, assess if you're compounding things with judgment, resistance, and catastrophizing without solutions, bring in some compassion, which happens to also bring in some clarity, and then go execute one small, tiny thing.
Now, I wanna take a second to sort of reinforce in your memory the acronym PACE. When you are stuck, you usually can't rush yourself to feeling unstuck. You have to allow it to take time, i.e., you have to pace yourself. You may be in a season of your life where things literally just do take longer. You might be overextended. You might be in the thick of just disastrous things happening left and right, the proverbial middle school of your 30s, or the middle school of your middle age.
Maybe you are learning lots of new things that you didn't expect you would have to learn. Maybe you're processing so much in your own internal system that every day feels insanely full, and you feel like you can barely keep up. Maybe you have a really tricky relationship with a family member that consumes a lot of your time and energy, and this takes some time. And this might be that time where you are learning how to be in an uncomfortable middle ground.
Now, let me be clear. When I'm stuck, I just want to be unstuck. I don't want to pace. I just want to feel better. I want to feel better now. And yet there's something really calming about knowing that it's okay to pace myself and not feel better immediately. This is where you get to practice letting two opposing things be true. You want to feel better, and you have to let it take the time it takes.
When you pace yourself, you embrace the idea that progress doesn't need to look exactly like you think it does, and it might move at a different speed than you would like, but that's normal. Now, how on earth are you going to remember all these steps? Granted, it's just four, but when you're feeling really stuck, if you're anything like me, sometimes it's hard to access the insights and truths that come to you very easily on a day where you don't feel stuck and blocked.
So I'm gonna give you another way to remember PACE., in addition to just the idea that you need to pace yourself when you feel unstuck, and you need to pause, acknowledge, use compassion and execute. I wanna give you kind of a silly image that will help you remember things. So I don't know if you, when you're doing, studying for classes, would ever draw pictures or use a cartoon or some sort of mnemonic and as a way to like remember like the Krebs cycle or some long chemical equation or you know something in virology or microbiology that was kind of a tricky relationship but boring and dry and you had to spice it up. So if you did that type of thing, this will hopefully land well with you.
What I want you to do is bring to mind the character in the show Ted Lasso. I actually can't remember the name of the actor who plays Ted Lasso, but if you have seen Ted Lasso, this will work for you. If you've not seen Ted Lasso, you can just Google Ted Lasso so you can see what he looks like, because this might actually help this image sink in for you. But if you know who I'm talking about, picture Ted Lasso wearing Nike sneakers and a t-shirt that happens to have a picture of Mr. Rogers on it, you know, because Ted Lasso, he's a little bit quirky and he's walking down the street and he's humming that song by the Supremes, “Stop in the Name of Love,” which I will not sing for you here.
I want you to think about that. And I'm gonna go through PACE. and link it to this image for you. So P for pause, that's the Supremes saying, “stop in the name of love.” You can just know that when you feel stuck, think of the Supremes in that song and stop and pause.
A for acknowledge. When I think of somebody who models acknowledging and then assessing what's really going on without judgment, I think of Mr. Rogers. This is where you go to the t-shirt that Ted Lasso is wearing. Mr. Rogers had a way of slowing things down and making space for whatever was present without rushing to fix it, without rushing to minimize things or change the subject. And so that's what the A in PACE is all about. Noticing what's there, naming it, holding it with some warmth and curiosity.
And one of the quotes from Fred Rogers that will help drive this home for you is, quote, "Anything that is human is mentionable and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable."
So that's P, “stop in the name of love,” and A for acknowledge with Mr. Rogers. And now for compassion. This is where Ted Lasso himself comes in. Ted Lasso as a character is kind of the go-to pop culture example of compassion and clarity. He doesn't ignore hard things or sugarcoat things, but he really brings a sense of care and kindness and connection to all sorts of tough moments. And that's what the C in PACE represents, the ability to be with yourself kindly, even while you're holding to what's true.
Now, if you've ever watched Ted Lasso, you may remember that he says, "Be curious, not judgmental," and then he attributes that quote to Walt Whitman. Well, I don't think that quote is actually from Walt Whitman, but that line in the show, "Be curious, not judgmental," is a beautiful way to keep in mind that compassion is much more helpful than judgment. And this is particularly true when you feel stuck.
So that energy of looking inward with curiosity and kindness instead of criticism, that's what helps shift the stuckness, and that's what helps you feel a little bit safer to take your next step, even if it's small, which leads us to E for execute. And this is where we talk about his Nike shoes he's wearing. And I don't actually know if Ted Lasso wears Nikes in the sho, probably not. I don't think they paid for that sponsorship, but imagine Ted Lasso wearing Nikes, and you know the classic line for Nike is “just do it”. So E for execute, that's his Nikes, just do it.
So if you find yourself feeling stuck or blocked, realize the reason that you are stuck in the first place is simply because there's something present for you that you have yet to name. A part that's present, an emotion that's present, some sort of thought that's not quite clear, kind of still nebulous that you haven't yet named. And whether you can name it or not, you can rest comfortably knowing that there is a very good reason you're stuck. And it makes sense, even if you don't know why.
And then, if you don't have time for a big deep dive into what's way down underneath and at the heart of feeling stuck, that is no problem. All you have to do is remember the acronym PACE. P for pause, A for acknowledge, also assess to see if there's any judgment, resistance, or catastrophizing. C for compassion and clarity, and E for execute with a small, tiny action.
And then to help you remember this, you can picture Ted Lasso, the kind, compassionate Ted Lasso, wearing Nikes, reminding you to just do it, and a t-shirt with Mr. Rogers on it. That is your reminder to acknowledge. And he's walking down the street and he's humming, "Stop in the Name of Love", which is your reminder to pause.
So I hope that this tiny little acronym, with all of its little renditions of PACE, when you're feeling stuck is helpful for you. If you might find yourself in the middle of something, it feels kind of heavy, you feel kind of stuck in it, you're not really sure where to go. And I hope that the reminder that even if you don't know exactly why you're stuck, that there's really good reason why you are, is reassuring to your system as a whole.
If this episode was helpful to you and you want to get access to more, you can join the Habits on Purpose email list. Just simply go to https://habitsonpurpose.com, and you'll see the sign-up for the newsletter box. You can put it in your email address, and I will send you things straight to your inbox, where you can take some of the concepts we learned on the podcast and take them even deeper. And then you can also learn about places that I'm gonna be speaking, workshops, classes, webinars, and coaching that is offered.
Enjoy, and I will talk to you next week.
Are you a woman physician interested in being more intentional in your life, being more deliberate with your habits? Maybe you're feeling a bit frayed on the edges with all the pressures of work and life, and you may have a tendency to overthink, people please, second guess, or feel so much guilt when you do something for yourself.
Perhaps your charting takes forever, you bring work home, and you're just not as present as you would like to be. Maybe you scroll, or shop, or emotionally eat, or you use a drink to wind down more often than you'd like.
If you can relate to this and you just want to feel less reactionary and more in the driver's seat of your life, you need to understand the root causes of your habits. Habits like perfectionism, a harsh inner critic, people pleasing, numbing, ruminating, overcomplicating, procrastinating, and so on.
And that's exactly what you can work on in the next round of small group coaching called Habits on Purpose for Physicians. Habits on Purpose for Physicians, or HOPP for short, comes with CME and is a small group of women physicians who meet weekly for six months.
And in HOPP, you get practical, deep dive coaching and teaching from me. And I come at this from a perspective of cognitive, somatic, and Internal Family Systems informed approaches in a way that is not only accessible, but applicable to real life.
And you get a ready-made structure that you don't have to create on your own, and you get probably one of the best parts is a community where you can connect with other physicians doing the same work.
Enrollment information and the link to join the waitlist can be found at https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp. And when you go there, get on the waitlist, because when you're on the waitlist, you'll get access to early enrollment and some bonuses only available to those who sign up early. And the reason why this is important is spots are limited. So signing up sooner as opposed to later is really smart so you can ensure that you get a spot before they're full.
Also, if you are interested and you want to join but you find the price is a barrier, there are scholarship options so don't hesitate to fill out the easy application for either a partial or a full scholarship that will ultimately be linked on the main sign-up page when we open up enrollment.
In the Habits on Purpose for Physicians group, you will unpack and unlearn old habits so that you can create new ones that are sustainable. So I hope you'll consider joining. The signup page with all the details will come out closer to enrollment for the next round, but go to https://habitsonpurpose.com/hopp to get on the waitlist. I can't wait to see you there.
Thanks for listening to Habits On Purpose. If you want more information on Kristi Angevine or the resources from the podcast, visit HabitsOnPurpose.com. Tune in next week for another episode.