Are You Just Spinning Your Wheels or Are You Going Somewhere?
Feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels can be frustrating and infuriating.
Ever have that feeling that you’re in motion, but not going anywhere?
It’s akin to a car being stuck in the mud, on sand, or on ice. Your tires spin and spin and spin – but you don’t move.
Sometimes, you do move – just really, really, slowly. Too slowly to feel like any movement is occurring.
That’s a feeling I think many of us deal with from time to time. Despite all our efforts, the work we do, the energy we put into it – we don’t see any movement.
Is it any wonder that it makes it feel like you’re just spinning your wheels?
I can commiserate. In 2020 and 2021 I published 9 novels total. Beyond those 9 novels, I wrote and published at least 260 blogs each year – more than 520 blogs total. Despite having 1200+ followers on Medium and 11 published novels on Amazon – I am not earning the kind of money I should be.
Despite all the work I put into walking this path of my choosing – it frequently feels like I might just be spinning my wheels.
To assess this properly – applied mindfulness is necessary.
Applied mindfulness for knowledge
Mindfulness is conscious awareness. And that awareness extends both within and without.
Awareness of the world outside yourself is attained via your six senses. But conscious awareness of it – mindfulness – is a matter of focus. It’s super easy to not focus on what’s going on around you. Or more – to focus on things way, way, way outside any control you could have to influence or impact them.
Awareness of yourself within is a matter of connecting your conscious mind to both your subconscious mind and ego. To gain mindfulness of your inner self, you must consciously be aware of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
When you are fully present, in the moment, here and now, you are consciously aware. That’s when and how you live from your conscious mind.
The subconscious mind is where your habits, beliefs, values, and the like exist.
Your ego is both how you envision yourself in that nebulous place between your conscious and subconscious mind – as well as how you project yourself out to the world at large. Ego is not bragging and arrogance – it’s how you share yourself with yourself and everyone else, too.
When you are not being mindful – and allowing your subconscious mind and ego to do the driving – you can lose track of where, what, when, how, and why you are. Losing track of that can allow you to stop moving forward and find yourself truly spinning your wheels.
Asking direct questions of yourself can bring you into the moment, make you present, and consciously aware (mindful) as such. These questions include
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What am I doing and what’s my intent with that?
This knowledge, in the here-and-now, will tell you if you are going somewhere – or not.
The frustration from spinning your wheels
You do something. Along the way, you anticipate things happening as a result of what you do. You know it might take some time – but you have your eyes on the prize.
You’re only human. Even the most patient people I know have limits to their patience. You reach a point, if it takes too long, where you start to wonder. And if you have no forward motion to show – now the question:
Am I just spinning my wheels?
Sometimes this is a good question to ask. It’s easy to get fixated on an idea, concept, or plan – and give it laser-focus. Doing so, however, can also put blinders on you. This means you might miss that you’re not genuinely going somewhere.
Often, before delving into the why of spinning your wheels, you might get negative. It’s normal to feel bad about yourself, blame yourself for any perceived shortcomings, and so on.
Then, too, you might also blame outside influences.
If you are not consciously aware and mindful, you could wind up in an unnecessary loop. That’s blame – whether directed inwards or outwards. Blame, recriminations, and the like disempower.
Mindfulness empowers. And mindful awareness of if you are spinning your wheels rather than going somewhere lets you make new choices and decisions if needed.
Being aware of this, FYI, does not make it any less frustrating, annoying, or upsetting. But it does give you more control.
Spinning your wheels isn’t necessarily a bad thing
You might presume that spinning your wheels – given the analogy of a car stuck in the mud – is bad. But not necessarily.
Sometimes spinning your wheels is what it takes to get traction. There are times your wheels need to get turning for anything at all to happen.
There are times when spinning your wheels is more important than inaction. Choosing to make an effort – even if it’s fruitless temporarily or permanently – empowers you.
Empowerment is your ability to take the wheel and steer your life experience. When you choose to do so – you take the control that is and always has been yours.
Mindfulness lets you change direction – or rock the car back and forth to get traction to go somewhere.
You are not alone
I do not doubt that everyone goes through this from time to time.
Sometimes it’s in your control – and sometimes not. But mindfulness and working to be consciously aware is how you take control more frequently and regularly.
You are not alone if you wonder if you are just spinning your wheels or truly going somewhere. Nobody’s life is so set and so perfect that they don’t find themselves in this position from time to time. That’s just the nature of the Universe.
And even at its worst – it can still be advantageous to you. How? By teaching you something valuable that you would not have learned otherwise. In an almost infinite universe of abundance – there is ALWAYS something new to learn. Some of the things you can learn will help you make the best of your life that you possibly can.
Feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels can be frustrating and infuriating. But you are not alone, and you are not powerless to change this. Be mindful and see, here and now, all the potential and possibilities around you.
Are you currently spinning your wheels or going somewhere?
This is the five-hundred and thirty-ninth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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