How Can I Get Out Of A Mental Rut?

About a fortnight ago, I found myself at my irritable best. Just about anything, big or small happening around would fluster me. The same string of thoughts of fear, panic, impatience, purposelessness kept running in loop.

A mental rut can be exhausting and toxic, to say the least. You want to leave things behind and get out; where you really don’t know. You don’t like being in your mind but that’s really where you always are, in a constant chain of thoughts. Days and events are all a blur and you suddenly can’t keep track of the last time you had fun or the next event that will have you anticipating.

A global pandemic accompanied by several catastrophic events piling up is perhaps that emergency signal we needed as a society to shift focus on mental health. If this is also the time you took to address the problem behind your consistent lack of emotional and mental stimulation and a constant sense of forlorn, let me tell you, you’ve done something that very few can do.

Before exploring our ways out of this mess, let’s first understand what’s really going on.

Stuck In A Rut Or Not: Understanding What Goes Inside The Head

What you call overthinking, growth stagnancy or an irreversibly pessimistic attitude towards life may actually have a science behind it. Your head can help you achieve great things, just like it can be a really dark place. This feeling of being trapped or in a rut of negativity majorly comes from four mental impositions:

When we refuse to let go of the past, we lose out on the spent time, effort, or money that could have been utilized for the better, or what we call the sunk-cost fallacy effect i.e. sticking to things, behavior, perspectives or people that no longer serve you but at times can make you worse off.
When we keep thinking about a future that can help us get somewhere we want to be but seems impossible, also called wishful thinking. There’s no doing anything here other than letting your mind go in repetitively on the same thoughts about a future you want.
When we constantly pipe dream about running away — from the city, our problems, our jobs, or ourselves. When the phrase “I’m going to…” becomes a constant in your conversation and is not followed by action, happiness seems a distant milestone to reach.
When we live with an illusion of improvement, when in fact, we are at a dead end. We take cues from life to give us fake hope to intermittently reinforce real hope.

In each of the above scenarios, we can clearly see a pattern — these are ways we try to escape our reality or the present. It’s our mind playing tricks to either repeat the discomfort from the past or bring a false sense of comfort to the present. Either way, we lose out on our life at the moment.

Which is why I thought to put some thoughts together on things I’m trying.

Make Your Way Out: Effective Steps To Get Out Of The Rut

I would rather not make an entire step out of it, but really, first things first — identify and accept that you are in a rut and that you will need to make conscious efforts to get out of it.

Unless you don’t absorb the gravity of your mental health, its implications on your quality of life, and the urgency to set things right in the head in its entirety, you will have a tough time opening that door to get through. Once you’ve buckled your belts and made up your mind to make it better, here’s what you’ll need to follow:

Step 1: Go Soul Searching

Literally, but not quite ‘shaman-like’ literally. This is where you self reflects and is something you can perhaps not proceed without.

As much as you might feel that the never-ending loop of hopelessness and negative emotions have no particular trigger, they are in fact stemming from an underlying root cause that is disturbing you mentally and psychologically. To find out how you counter a particular problem, you will have to first know what is the problem.

It’s only when you sit to analyze, dig into what has been affecting you, or face what you’ve left unresolved, will you be able to chalk out a way to walk out of it. Here are some ways you can search your soul, mind, and memory for answers:

Note the times when you feel most depressed.
Ask yourself questions about whatever bothers you and why.
Try to think back to what stopped you from liking what you liked.
Notice negative patterns in your behavior and trace back the time when they started.
Make a list of all the disappointments and failures in career, life, and relationships that you subconsciously haven’t moved on from.

Step 2: Set Little Goals, Achieve In Baby Steps

Once you know where the problem lies, you need a game plan. Since the entire purpose of getting out of a rut is to be productive in leaving behind problems and feeling good about ourselves, we’ll take the route that’s most effective — accomplishment.

There’s nothing that motivates a person in all spheres more than the sense of accomplishment. That is why you will set little goals and cherish that feeling at every baby step you take towards success.

Slept within 30 minutes of going to bed today? Well done.

Focused for a complete hour without getting distracted by random thoughts? Good job!

Laughed your heart out on a joke? Excellent, keep going!

I cannot stress enough how important this is to heal you psychologically. Since in matters of mental health a drastic change is rare to achieve, seeing yourself walk your way out slowly is therapeutic in its own.

Step 3: Play Mind Games

This means you technically take control over your mind and thoughts to gain clarity on your issue and how they are affecting your present. You must do this in two ways:

Counterfactual Thinking

Going back to what you regret, which sounds toxic but when objectively dealt with, is pretty damn effective. It’s a common method used in therapy when you recall situations you regret and figure out solutions you could have rationally come up with.

Now that you have a solution, you have found a way to never face the same dreadful outcome again. Congratulations on that self-empowerment.

Critical Thinking

Don’t connect things when they aren’t supposed to be. It’s pivotal that you don’t let negative thoughts form an interconnected sequence in your mind. This will only pile up to multiply eventually. Rather than believing something that makes you feel better about certain things, be critical about the downfalls and figure out what has really led up to it.

For instance, you didn’t fail the interview because you aren’t destined to be successful. Find out where you were lacking and work on it.

Step 4: Go All Out To Pamper Yourself

Don’t skip!

Feeling good about life begins with feeling good about yourself. This means understanding that gaining weight doesn’t make you unworthy of love, or losing a job doesn’t have to mean your life is doomed. Pampering yourself means knowing your worth and what you’re capable of, irrespective of accepted social norms and external factors, and treating yourself right accordingly.

So yes, have that cheesecake if that’s how you feel loved, you’ll be beautiful anyway. But burn some calories to respect your body and maintain a healthy balance. Go take that trip you couldn’t when you were caught up at work. And know that when you come back you will be motivated to put in your best at whatever you do next.

Finally, concluding with another obvious tip that I would rather not take a step out of, talk to people about it. It’s very common to not realize or even forget the things that once made us happy. People who genuinely love us and embrace us when we’re having it hard can reintroduce us to those joys in life in ways that are custom made for us.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Too Hard

Coming to the part that’s hard to discuss for too many — the toxicity of being in a rut and ignoring signs of something more serious.

Breathing, smiling, or even living life as it comes shouldn’t be so hard and pitiful. But if despite the efforts, it continues to seem like an endless dark tunnel, if we still aren’t able to come up for water, it’s time we take help to stay afloat.

We need to know where to draw a line; need to understand that getting out of a monotonous, monochromous life shouldn’t be as hard. And if it is, let the professionals take it from there. Because even if you think people wouldn’t understand what’s wrong with you, there’s a science that will.

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