How to Change Your Mindset When You Feel Stuck: Start With What You Do Every Day

If you feel stuck, I would not start by trying to become more motivated.

I would look deeper.

What keeps repeating in your life? What are you doing because you actually want it, and what are you doing because it is familiar, comfortable, expected, or easier than dealing with what is underneath it?

That distinction changed a lot for me.

For years, I tried to solve things at the surface. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to feel comfortable around people. I wanted life to feel easier. Alcohol became one of the easiest ways for me to do that.

Then I had to admit something that was hard to get around.

It was not serving me anymore.

I stopped drinking in April 2021. The biggest change was not simply removing alcohol. It was that I no longer had the same escape hatch when something uncomfortable came up. I had to actually sit with things, process them, and figure out what was underneath them.

That is where a lot of my thinking about mindset comes from.

Why Mindset Problems Usually Go Deeper Than Motivation

A lot of people try to solve the top layer.

They want to work out more, make more money, fix a relationship, stop procrastinating, become more confident, or finally follow through on something they have talked about for years.

So they attack the visible problem.

Then three weeks later, they are back in the same place.

That does not always mean they lack discipline. Sometimes they are trying to repair the roof while ignoring the foundation.

That was part of what I had to recognize in my own life. Drinking was not the whole problem. It had become one of the ways I avoided dealing with other things.

Research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism supports the broader connection. Alcohol use disorder commonly overlaps with depression, anxiety, and sleep problems, and alcohol itself can interfere with sleep physiology. That does not mean every person who drinks has a disorder. It does mean alcohol can be part of a bigger cycle when it becomes a way to cope with stress or uncomfortable emotions.

My experience with sobriety is my experience. It is not medical advice, and somebody should not diagnose themselves because they relate to my story. For people who have been drinking heavily for a prolonged period, suddenly stopping can also cause dangerous withdrawal and should be discussed with a medical professional.

The bigger lesson applies well beyond alcohol.

If the same problem keeps coming back, quit asking only what happened.

Ask what keeps creating the conditions for it to happen.

On the Your Fitness Chick Podcast, Abby Smiley Krauss and I went deeper into sobriety, Day Zero, core purpose, fitness, reading, connection, and the daily practice of getting better. The full conversation gives you the stories behind the ideas in this article.

Treat Today Like Day Zero

One idea I came back to after getting sober was something I call Day Zero.

Day Zero is not about sobriety.

It means yesterday is done.

Maybe yesterday was great. Maybe you crushed the workout, had the perfect sales day, ate exactly how you wanted, handled a difficult conversation well, and felt completely in control.

Good.

That was yesterday.

Maybe yesterday was terrible.

Same answer.

That was yesterday too.

You can carry the lesson forward. You can carry confidence forward. You can learn from a mistake. You just do not get to live there.

Today starts at zero again.

That keeps me from needing some huge emotional high to get moving. It also keeps a bad day from turning into a bad week because I decided one mistake meant everything was falling apart.

The question becomes much smaller:

What am I going to do from zero today?

Find Your Core Purpose, Not the Easy Answer

People talk about finding your “why” so much that the phrase can lose meaning.

I think of it as your core purpose.

The first answer you give yourself usually is not it.

Imagine somebody tells me they want six-pack abs.

Why?

Because they want to look good.

Why does looking good matter?

Maybe they want their spouse to be more attracted to them.

Why does that matter?

Because intimacy matters to their relationship.

Why does the relationship matter so much?

Because they want their children to grow up seeing a healthy relationship modeled at home.

We just went from wanting visible abs to wanting to create a different example for a family.

Those are very different reasons to show up at the gym.

That is why I challenge people to keep asking why. I like going seven layers deep when you can.

You do not need to force seven fake answers. The point is to keep going until the answer stops sounding like something you would put on a goal sheet and starts feeling connected to who you actually want to be.

Try it with something you say you want:

1. What do I want?

2. Why do I want it?

3. Why does that matter?

4. Why does that matter?

5. Keep going.

6. Pay attention when the answer gets uncomfortable.

7. Write down what is underneath it.

That deeper answer gives you something to come back to when motivation disappears.

A Positive Mindset Is Not Pretending Everything Is Great

I do not believe being positive means convincing yourself that bad things are good.

Bad things happen.

People disappoint you. Relationships change. Family members die. Businesses have rough years. You screw things up.

The useful skill is getting better at saying:

What do I need to feel here, what can I learn, and what do I do next?

That is different from forcing yourself to smile through everything.

I heard psychologist Shawn Achor speak at a real estate conference, and one part that stuck with me was the idea that small daily practices can change what we pay attention to. Movement, gratitude, connection, and intentionally noticing something positive are all ways to interrupt the pattern of constantly looking for what is wrong.

There is real research behind parts of that idea.

The CDC says physical activity can reduce short-term feelings of anxiety, improve sleep, and reduce the risk of depression. A 2024 BMJ review of randomized trials also found that several forms of exercise can reduce depressive symptoms.

That does not mean a 15-minute walk is a universal substitute for antidepressant medication.

An older Duke study that is often connected to that comparison involved adults age 50 and older with diagnosed major depressive disorder. Participants completed a structured aerobic exercise program, and after 16 weeks the exercise group showed improvement comparable to the medication group. The exercise protocol and population were much more specific than the simplified claim often repeated online.

The practical takeaway is simpler.

Move your body.

Go walk. Lift something. Get outside. Go to the gym. Find something you are willing to repeat.

It does not have to fix your whole life before it counts.

Do Something Positive for Somebody Else

Another practice discussed in the podcast was taking a couple of minutes to send somebody a genuine message of appreciation.

No agenda.

No networking trick.

No expectation that they owe you something back.

Tell somebody why you appreciate them.

That idea fits something I have learned about showing up for other people. If you have trouble doing something for yourself at first, sometimes serving somebody else can get you moving.

Then something changes.

Eventually you stop needing the reaction.

You realize you did the right thing because it was the right thing for you to do, not because somebody thanked you enough afterward.

Research on gratitude practices is promising here. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 64 randomized clinical trials found that gratitude interventions were associated with better mental health, greater life satisfaction, and reductions in symptoms of anxiety and depression. The effects are not magic, and gratitude is not a replacement for mental health treatment, but intentionally practicing appreciation appears to have real value.

Connection matters beyond gratitude too. The U.S. Surgeon General has highlighted social connection as an important part of health and well-being and recommends investing time in consistent, high-quality relationships.

That part matters to me because I spent years using social media partly for the dopamine hit.

Likes. Comments. Engagement.

Over time, I found something more useful inside it.

Posting what I actually thought helped me find people who wanted to have real conversations. It let me skip some of the surface-level small talk and connect with people around things that mattered.

That is a much better reason to show up.

Stop Finishing Things Just Because You Started Them

This one took me a while.

I read more than 100 books in 2020.

That sounds impressive until you understand that at some point I was forcing myself to finish books I did not even like because finishing had become the goal.

The scoreboard mattered more than what I was getting from the book.

I finally started giving myself permission to stop.

If a book gets 20 or 30 pages and gives me nothing, I can put it down.

That sounds simple. It was not simple for me.

A lot of us grow up hearing some version of:

Finish your dinner.

Finish your homework.

Finish what you started.

There are obviously responsibilities you need to follow through on. I am not suggesting you abandon commitments every time something gets difficult.

I am saying difficulty alone is not proof that something deserves more of your life.

Ask a better question:

Is finishing this making me better, fulfilling a responsibility, or moving something important forward?

If the answer keeps being no, you are allowed to reconsider it.

Try More Things

One of the three pieces of advice I gave at the end of the podcast was simple:

Try things.

You might be good at something you have never done before.

You might hate it.

Both answers are useful.

I have learned skills around the house because I tried them. I got deeper into podcasting because I enjoyed the conversations. I started exploring ideas publicly because something about doing it kept pulling me back.

Exploration gives you information.

You cannot think your way into knowing how every path is going to feel.

Sometimes you have to go do it.

Do More of What Gives You Energy

People will tell you that you need more rest.

Sometimes you do.

Sometimes the bigger problem is that almost everything in your week drains you.

There is a difference between being exhausted because you are doing too much and being exhausted because you spend most of your time doing things that feel disconnected from who you are.

Pay attention to the things you can do for hours and still want to keep talking about afterward.

That does not mean every hobby needs to become a business.

It means your energy is information.

If something repeatedly makes you feel more awake, more curious, more useful, or more connected, pay attention to it.

Read, Learn, Then Keep Moving

I love taking in information.

Books. Audible. Podcasts. Conversations. Conferences.

The problem is that learning can become another hiding place.

You can read 100 books and still not change anything.

At some point you have to take one idea and use it.

That is why my advice around reading changed.

Pick up the book.

Give it a fair shot.

If it grabs you, keep going.

If it does not, find another one.

The objective is not to prove you can finish books.

The objective is to find something useful enough that you think differently or act differently because you encountered it.

Start by Doing It Once

Big goals can become paralyzing because you keep staring at the finished version.

You see the whole mountain.

I would rather ask you for one step.

The first time I put down a book without finishing it felt uncomfortable.

Then I did it again.

The same thing happens at the gym.

Can you do one more rep?

If you can, do one.

Then the next decision comes.

That is how a lot of consistency gets built.

Do it once.

Then do it once again.

Instead of trying to convince yourself you are going to do something every day for the rest of your life, prove that you can do today's version.

Eventually you look back and realize you have stacked a lot of those days together.

Protect the Peace You Worked to Build

Changing your mindset also changes what you are willing to react to.

I remember sitting at a machine in the gym talking with somebody. Another guy came over wanting to use it. His energy could have easily turned the interaction into a confrontation.

In the past, I might have matched it.

I did not need to.

I told him I had two sets left, gave him a fist bump, and let him walk away.

That sounds like a small story.

It felt big to me because I recognized that I no longer needed to take somebody else's mood and make it mine.

The same thing happens when you grow and then go back into old environments.

People remember the old version of you.

Some of them expect you to behave exactly like you did five years ago.

You are not required to.

You also do not have to convince them that the new version is better.

Live it.

What Changing Your Mindset Actually Looks Like

Changing your mindset is not about becoming positive every second.

It is getting better at noticing what is happening inside you.

It is learning what sits underneath the goal.

It is recognizing when an old coping mechanism is running the day.

It is moving your body.

It is finding better people to connect with.

It is giving yourself permission to stop doing something that no longer makes sense.

It is trying something new before you have every answer.

Then tomorrow comes and you start at Day Zero again.

The goal is not perfection.

The goal is to notice faster when you are off course and have something real to come back to.

FAQ

What is the best way to change your mindset when you feel stuck?

Start by identifying the pattern that keeps repeating instead of attacking only the visible problem. Ask what is underneath the behavior, what you actually want, and what one action today would move you closer to it.

How do you find your real why or core purpose?

Keep asking why after your first answer. The first response is often a surface goal such as money, fitness, recognition, or career growth. Going several layers deeper can reveal the relationship, family, freedom, service, identity, or purpose underneath the goal.

Can exercise improve your mood and mindset?

Yes. Research supports physical activity as beneficial for anxiety, sleep, depression risk, and depressive symptoms. Exercise can be one part of improving mental health, but it should not automatically be treated as a replacement for professional care or prescribed medication.

Can quitting alcohol improve mental clarity?

For some people, removing alcohol can remove a coping behavior and create space to address emotions, sleep, relationships, and other underlying issues. Alcohol use and mental health have a complicated relationship, so individual experiences vary. People who have been drinking heavily for a prolonged period should seek medical guidance before stopping suddenly because alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous.

How do you build consistency when motivation is low?

Make the next action smaller. Do the workout once. Read one useful page. Have one difficult conversation. Make one better decision. Once you complete that action, repeat the process instead of waiting to feel motivated enough to tackle the entire goal.

Is it okay not to finish something you started?

Yes, when continuing no longer serves a meaningful purpose and you are not abandoning a real responsibility. Finishing something purely because you started it can keep you spending time on work, habits, books, or projects that no longer deserve the attention.