Whether in your personal or professional life, there are moments and stretches of time when you feel stuck. You feel like you cannot move forward even though you are taking what you believe are the right steps toward your goal. Sometimes the worst part is feeling blocked and losing motivation while, without realizing it, you are actually making real progress.

The harmful effects of feeling trapped in a spiral that produces no results include sliding into negativity, lowering your productivity, and even giving up. Two elements can strongly push you toward that wrong side of negativity:

1. Physical state: A negative physiology reinforces a negative mindset. It can be something as simple as sitting up straighter, standing instead of sitting, or something more intense like going to the gym to channel your energy and/or shape your body into the one you dream of having.
2. Focusing outside the present: If you are too focused on the past or the future, you forget to live in the present. Your only real power in this life is to change your situation today, right now, in this moment. You cannot change the past or the future. Focus on the present or you will stop being productive and fall into that feeling of being stuck.

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So how do you know you are actually moving forward?

It can feel hard to sense progress when you are so locked onto your goal and your challenges that you never pause to review everything you have already achieved. Here are 5 signs that show you are close to a major breakthrough.

1- You are tired of the same old thing

You are already tired of your situation. You no longer want to feel hungry at the end of every month, you want to sleep without nightmares, you want to live free of stress, you want money, you want a better car, you want to go out to eat instead of buying pasta and rice every day, you are tired of carrying those 15 extra pounds.

2- Disgust

You are no longer happy with what you do, with your way of living, with your job, with your passions that have become boring. You want something bigger. Something more inspiring that motivates you to improve yourself and take steps that used to scare you.

3- Point of no return

You are living a situation where you either push through or go under. It could be getting out of debt, surviving an illness, leaving a toxic relationship… You are at the point where you have to take action so that YOU feel better.

4- You experience a revelation

Someone, something, or some piece of information opened your eyes to a topic that unlocks a whole new world of opportunities. You start changing your view of the world and of your own reality, you understand things you did not understand before, and you find a new energy inside you that is motivated by something that could never have motivated you before.

5- An opportunity

Finally a door opens. All those changes that have been boiling inside you suddenly become essential for a new opportunity that is presenting itself. You are taking a step you could not have taken before, and you are heading down this new path without hesitation.

 

Growing and learning how to move forward in life is about ending your limiting beliefs and your fears. You must persevere until the conditions come together to create an opportunity that lets you break free from this block and carry you in the right direction toward your goals. In the end, it all comes down to two things: courage and perseverance.