Do you feel stuck in life — that you aren’t making progress in a relationship, job, or goal and you don’t know how to fix the problem and move forward? Well, perhaps you can take a little solace in the fact that it’s a universal human experience, even amongst history’s highest achievers. Indeed, when Adam Alter, a social psychologist and professor of marketing, looked at the lives of successful actors, musicians, writers, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs, he found that they all had passed through times in their lives and careers when they felt totally stuck.

Today on the show, Adam, who’s the author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most, explains why getting stuck is an inevitability in life, as well as mindset shifts and practices to escape from stuckness. We first talk about what contributes to getting stuck, including the goal gradient effect, and how the illusion of the creative cliff can keep you from seeing that you may end up doing your best work later in life. We then talk about dealing with the emotional angst of feeling stuck, and how it can be better to initially accept your stuckness than kick against the pricks. From there, we turn to some tactics for getting unstuck, including doing a friction audit and copying the work of others. In my favorite part of the conversation, we discuss the importance of recognizing when to move from exploring to exploiting, and vice versa. We end our conversation with why the mantra for getting unstuck is “action over all.”

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Adam’s previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #420: What Makes Your Phone So Addictive & How to Take Back Your Life
• a-ha’s video for “Take on Me”
• Giannis on whether he considers this season a failure
• AoM Article: Meditations on the Wisdom of Action
• AoM Article: Want to Become a Better Writer? Copy the Work of Others
• AoM Article: Solvitur Ambulando — It Is Solved By Walking
• AoM Podcast #418: How to Get Unstuck
• AoM Podcast#432: How to Achieve Creative Success
• AoM Podcast #512: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Connect with Adam Alter

• Adam on LinkedIn
• Adam on Twitter
• Adam’s website