97. Rebuilding Trust in Yourself and Breaking Free from Feeling Stuck
Have you ever felt stuck, like you’re spinning your wheels with no clear way forward? As moms, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the demands on our time and energy. If you’ve been doubting yourself, wondering if you’re capable, or feeling like you're not making progress, this episode is for you.
In this episode, I dive into the journey of rebuilding trust in yourself. I share why feeling stuck doesn’t mean you’re failing; it’s simply a signal that change is needed. I walk you through how to shift this mindset so you can move from feeling stuck to feeling empowered and aligned with your goals.
If you’ve been feeling uncertain about your next step or questioning your ability to move forward, this episode will give you the clarity you need. Rebuilding trust in yourself is the key to breaking free from that stuck feeling and stepping into a more confident, purposeful version of yourself.
Ready for clarity and a simple action plan to get your business started? Schedule a free 1-hour consultation with me here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why feeling stuck is a normal part of the growth process.
How rebuilding trust in yourself helps you move past doubt.
The importance of trusting your intuition when facing uncertainty.
How to break free from self-doubt and regain confidence.
Why feeling stuck is a signal for change, not a sign of failure.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Episodes Related to Rebuilding Trust in Yourself:
28. 6 Mental Blocks Keeping You Stuck in Corporate & How to Overcome Them
95. There Are No Bad Ideas: How to Turn Excitement Into Business Growth
Full Episode Transcript:
Have you ever felt like you've tried so many things and none of it has worked? And you're starting to wonder if maybe it's me, maybe it's you. Maybe you're the problem, or maybe you're just never going to figure it out. And on top of that, you feel stuck, like you're spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.
Today, I want to offer you a perspective that might completely change how you see your life. What if nothing has gone wrong?
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 97 of the How to Quit Your Job podcast, and we are officially less than one month away from 100 episodes. 100 just feels so big. It feels like one of those things that when you start, you don't fully believe you'll get to because 100 weeks of doing anything consistently is a long time.
And I know when I started this podcast, I didn't have 100 ideas. I barely had three. I didn't know how I was going to keep up with it, how it would fit into my life. There was so much I didn't know. And I think that's true for so many things, not just a podcast. For a lot of you, it's the idea of starting something new, a business, a different path, something that actually feels like you.
One of the biggest things that keeps us stuck is this feeling of, I don't know how this is going to work. But what I want to offer today is a different way of looking at where you are right now. Because if you feel like you're stuck, like you're spinning your wheels, like you're in the mud and getting nowhere, I want to offer you that maybe nothing has gone wrong in your life. Maybe you're exactly where you need to be.
I want to share what this actually looked like for me because when we say stuck, it can often sound vague. But being stuck did not feel vague when I was in it.
When I was in corporate, feeling stuck, feeling like I was spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, a normal day for me looked like waking up already dreading work. That feeling would hit before I even got out of bed. And then I'd log on, and it was just drinking from a fire hose all day. Back-to-back meetings where I couldn't even step away to go to the bathroom, constantly reacting, constantly on. Underneath all of that, there was this quiet thought of, what am I even doing?
I didn't feel proud of my work. I didn't feel connected to it. And the hardest part was I didn't have an answer for what I would want to do instead. I remember thinking, maybe I'm just someone who's never going to like working. Maybe this is just how it is. And I told myself all the things we tell ourselves. You should be grateful. This is a good job. The company isn't that bad. The benefits are good.
But I was miserable. And at the same time, there was this quiet knowing underneath all of it, this can't be it. I knew I was good at supporting people. I knew I was good at leading, but doing it in a system that felt so misaligned, where everything was tied to metrics and outcomes that didn't actually matter to me, it felt like I was using my strengths in the wrong place.
I didn't want to help people get better at something that felt meaningless. I didn't want to help get people better at making someone else really rich. I wanted to help people actually feel fulfilled in their lives. And I started to feel really trapped in the corporate environment. I wanted more flexibility and more freedom, but I didn't know how to get that.
I remember feeling so much resentment toward my husband because he had built a business and he had that freedom I was looking for. He really was the inspiration for me to be able to see a different type of life. He could and would spend an afternoon reading at the botanic gardens, and I was stuck in meetings all day.
But at the same time, I knew I wanted these things, but I was also terrified to change anything because I didn't trust myself. I didn't know if I'd be good at business. I didn't know if coaching would work. And more than anything, I was scared that I would leave, try something new, and end up in the exact same place again. Still stuck in the mud, spinning my wheels, feeling unfulfilled with no light at the end of the tunnel. And that was the real fear.
So, the decision to create change didn't happen all at once. I was in the mud for a very long time. I was in the mud for six years. It was slow, but I started experimenting. I started coaching for free.
And I remember one random Wednesday, I took time off work to do coaching, and I got a glimpse that this is what my life could look like, where I was spending my entire day able to get up when I wanted, able to walk my dog when I wanted, able to spend my lunch reading a book, and able to work on my coaching business. And this was what my life could feel like.
What surprised me the most, I will say, like I started coaching free clients after work. So I'd work from nine-to-five, nine-to-five-thirty, nine-to-six. And from six-to-seven, I donated coaching hours to a single parent, low-income housing facility. And what surprised me the most that I've talked about before on this podcast was that on days when I coached after work, when I had no idea what I was doing, when I was technically working more, I felt more energized, more alive, and happier than on the days that I was just working the nine-to-five.
And that didn't make logical sense, but it gave me something that I didn't have before when I was spinning in the mud and wondering what my life was looking like and judging myself that I'm wasting time.
It gave me evidence. Evidence that maybe there was something in my life that could have me feeling differently about work, that could have me feeling alive, that could have me feeling like I wasn't dreading to wake up every day. And that's when something shifted. Not because I had a whole perfect plan and whole business idea and all of the pieces in place, but because I realized I don't need to have it all figured out. I just need to follow what feels true. I just need to follow what feels aligned.
And now looking back, I can see that all those moments where I felt so stuck, where I felt like I was spinning my wheels, that was actually what was building my conviction. It didn't feel like it at the time, of course. At the time it just felt hard, but it was building up to where I am now. It was building my conviction to focus more of my time and energy in something that felt aligned.
And I see this pattern all the time with my clients. I had a session yesterday with one of my clients and she said, I feel like I'm stuck in the mud. Like I'm spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. That conversation was actually the inspiration for this episode. She was in tears, feeling lost and frustrated like nothing was working. And then today, we had a group coaching call.
And that same client, she showed up with a completely different energy. She was talking about new business ideas, feeling creative, seeing possibilities, even realizing that the joy and excitement that maybe the next step isn't to leave her job right away, but to stay where she is and build something awesome on the side.
And nothing externally changed overnight, but something shifted in how she was seeing herself and her situation. On that same call, there's another mom joining for the first time who just started coaching. And she said something I hear all the time. She said, I feel like I've tried so many things and none of it has worked, and it's all been a waste of time. And she even said logically, I know that's not true, but there's still a part of me that believes it, that judges myself, that thinks I should be further along.
And so I asked her, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you believe that you're exactly where you need to be right now? And she said, maybe a five. And then I asked the other women who had been working with me for a few months and they said, closer to an eight. And what mattered wasn't the number. It was that they said, I wouldn't have said an eight even just a few months ago. And even the client who felt like she was stuck in the mud yesterday, she said, yesterday I would have been at a two. And today I'm at an eight.
And that's the really important part that we all need to understand about the ebbs and flows of life and this process, is that the mud feels permanent when you're in it. When you're stuck in it, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like this is just how it is now, but it's not. The mud is not the problem. Okay? The mud is the signal. It's showing you that something isn't working anymore. It's showing you that where you are isn't where you're meant to stay.
And when you're in it, it feels heavy. It feels confusing. It feels like you should have figured this out by now. Your life should look different. You had a different idea of what you wanted your life to look like and it doesn't look like that right now. And it's easy to judge ourselves. It's easy to see it as something has gone wrong.
But what if nothing has gone wrong? What if you're not behind? What if you actually haven't wasted time? What if everything you've been through is actually part of what's guiding you to and building what's next? It's gotten you to this place where you want to create change and it's actually helping you build what's next.
Because what I've seen again and again is that the women who feel the most stuck, my client who was in tears just less than 24 hours ago because she was feeling stuck, the women who feel the most stuck are often right on the edge of something changing. They're right on the edge of an idea, of motivation or momentum.
Not because they finally find the perfect plan, but because they start to trust themselves enough to take a step. And not because it suddenly feels easy, but because staying where they are starts to feel even harder than trying something new, even without knowing exactly how it all will play out.
So, instead of asking, how do I get out of the mud? I want you to start with, what is no longer working for me? What do I know, even a little bit about what I don't want anymore? Because clarity doesn't always start with a big vision. I love stepping into a vision of what's possible with clients, but it doesn't always start with that. Sometimes it starts with, this isn't it anymore. And from there, you rebuild trust with yourself. Once you realize that it's time for change, then you just figure out the one step at a time that you need to take to start rebuilding that trust.
I know we all have moments where we are feeling stuck in the mud, and unfortunately, it is a very normal part of the process. That mud that you're feeling, that feels like a trap, that feels like it's holding you back, that feels like it's making you waste time, precious time, that mud is our signal that change is needed. It's also a signal that we need to trust ourselves to take that first step out of the mud.
And if you're listening to this and you're like, yes, this is exactly where I am, you feel stuck, you feel in the mud, like in the thick of it, and you know something needs to change but you don't know what that next step looks like. This is exactly the work I do with my clients. We don't jump straight into a perfect plan or try to force clarity. We slow things down and help you understand what's actually happening in your life right now, why you feel stuck, and how to start rebuilding trust in yourself so you can move forward without second-guessing every step.
Because so much self-trust is lost when we look back and we feel like we've wasted a lot of time. So we want to start rebuilding that trust. We want to start creating momentum without second-guessing everything. And what I've seen over and over again is that when that shift happens, even a little bit, everything starts to open up. You start to see options again. You start to feel momentum again. You start to feel like yourself again.
So if that's something you're craving, if you know you need it, if you're tired of feeling stuck and ready to start moving, get out of the mud, even if you don't have it all figured out yet, I'm here to support you. You can go to my website, jenna.coach. You can schedule a free consultation.
Of course, if you're not quite ready for that step, this podcast is a place where you can continue to be supported. So make sure you follow the podcast and tune in each week. It's like I always say, a little coach in your pocket, guiding you and giving you ideas, helping you explore that next step, and offering perspective shifts that really help you to get there.
I also host a free momentrepreneur circle that I've talked about on this podcast. It meets every other week and you're always welcome there. It's a space to connect, get support, and be around other moms who are in this same season of life. You don't have to figure this out on your own. There are people and places and resources that can help you. And no matter how stuck or uncertain it feels right now, I promise you're closer than you think.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Today, I want to offer you a perspective that might completely change how you see your life. What if nothing has gone wrong?
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 97 of the How to Quit Your Job podcast, and we are officially less than one month away from 100 episodes. 100 just feels so big. It feels like one of those things that when you start, you don't fully believe you'll get to because 100 weeks of doing anything consistently is a long time.
And I know when I started this podcast, I didn't have 100 ideas. I barely had three. I didn't know how I was going to keep up with it, how it would fit into my life. There was so much I didn't know. And I think that's true for so many things, not just a podcast. For a lot of you, it's the idea of starting something new, a business, a different path, something that actually feels like you.
One of the biggest things that keeps us stuck is this feeling of, I don't know how this is going to work. But what I want to offer today is a different way of looking at where you are right now. Because if you feel like you're stuck, like you're spinning your wheels, like you're in the mud and getting nowhere, I want to offer you that maybe nothing has gone wrong in your life. Maybe you're exactly where you need to be.
I want to share what this actually looked like for me because when we say stuck, it can often sound vague. But being stuck did not feel vague when I was in it.
When I was in corporate, feeling stuck, feeling like I was spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, a normal day for me looked like waking up already dreading work. That feeling would hit before I even got out of bed. And then I'd log on, and it was just drinking from a fire hose all day. Back-to-back meetings where I couldn't even step away to go to the bathroom, constantly reacting, constantly on. Underneath all of that, there was this quiet thought of, what am I even doing?
I didn't feel proud of my work. I didn't feel connected to it. And the hardest part was I didn't have an answer for what I would want to do instead. I remember thinking, maybe I'm just someone who's never going to like working. Maybe this is just how it is. And I told myself all the things we tell ourselves. You should be grateful. This is a good job. The company isn't that bad. The benefits are good.
But I was miserable. And at the same time, there was this quiet knowing underneath all of it, this can't be it. I knew I was good at supporting people. I knew I was good at leading, but doing it in a system that felt so misaligned, where everything was tied to metrics and outcomes that didn't actually matter to me, it felt like I was using my strengths in the wrong place.
I didn't want to help people get better at something that felt meaningless. I didn't want to help get people better at making someone else really rich. I wanted to help people actually feel fulfilled in their lives. And I started to feel really trapped in the corporate environment. I wanted more flexibility and more freedom, but I didn't know how to get that.
I remember feeling so much resentment toward my husband because he had built a business and he had that freedom I was looking for. He really was the inspiration for me to be able to see a different type of life. He could and would spend an afternoon reading at the botanic gardens, and I was stuck in meetings all day.
But at the same time, I knew I wanted these things, but I was also terrified to change anything because I didn't trust myself. I didn't know if I'd be good at business. I didn't know if coaching would work. And more than anything, I was scared that I would leave, try something new, and end up in the exact same place again. Still stuck in the mud, spinning my wheels, feeling unfulfilled with no light at the end of the tunnel. And that was the real fear.
So, the decision to create change didn't happen all at once. I was in the mud for a very long time. I was in the mud for six years. It was slow, but I started experimenting. I started coaching for free.
And I remember one random Wednesday, I took time off work to do coaching, and I got a glimpse that this is what my life could look like, where I was spending my entire day able to get up when I wanted, able to walk my dog when I wanted, able to spend my lunch reading a book, and able to work on my coaching business. And this was what my life could feel like.
What surprised me the most, I will say, like I started coaching free clients after work. So I'd work from nine-to-five, nine-to-five-thirty, nine-to-six. And from six-to-seven, I donated coaching hours to a single parent, low-income housing facility. And what surprised me the most that I've talked about before on this podcast was that on days when I coached after work, when I had no idea what I was doing, when I was technically working more, I felt more energized, more alive, and happier than on the days that I was just working the nine-to-five.
And that didn't make logical sense, but it gave me something that I didn't have before when I was spinning in the mud and wondering what my life was looking like and judging myself that I'm wasting time.
It gave me evidence. Evidence that maybe there was something in my life that could have me feeling differently about work, that could have me feeling alive, that could have me feeling like I wasn't dreading to wake up every day. And that's when something shifted. Not because I had a whole perfect plan and whole business idea and all of the pieces in place, but because I realized I don't need to have it all figured out. I just need to follow what feels true. I just need to follow what feels aligned.
And now looking back, I can see that all those moments where I felt so stuck, where I felt like I was spinning my wheels, that was actually what was building my conviction. It didn't feel like it at the time, of course. At the time it just felt hard, but it was building up to where I am now. It was building my conviction to focus more of my time and energy in something that felt aligned.
And I see this pattern all the time with my clients. I had a session yesterday with one of my clients and she said, I feel like I'm stuck in the mud. Like I'm spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. That conversation was actually the inspiration for this episode. She was in tears, feeling lost and frustrated like nothing was working. And then today, we had a group coaching call.
And that same client, she showed up with a completely different energy. She was talking about new business ideas, feeling creative, seeing possibilities, even realizing that the joy and excitement that maybe the next step isn't to leave her job right away, but to stay where she is and build something awesome on the side.
And nothing externally changed overnight, but something shifted in how she was seeing herself and her situation. On that same call, there's another mom joining for the first time who just started coaching. And she said something I hear all the time. She said, I feel like I've tried so many things and none of it has worked, and it's all been a waste of time. And she even said logically, I know that's not true, but there's still a part of me that believes it, that judges myself, that thinks I should be further along.
And so I asked her, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you believe that you're exactly where you need to be right now? And she said, maybe a five. And then I asked the other women who had been working with me for a few months and they said, closer to an eight. And what mattered wasn't the number. It was that they said, I wouldn't have said an eight even just a few months ago. And even the client who felt like she was stuck in the mud yesterday, she said, yesterday I would have been at a two. And today I'm at an eight.
And that's the really important part that we all need to understand about the ebbs and flows of life and this process, is that the mud feels permanent when you're in it. When you're stuck in it, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like this is just how it is now, but it's not. The mud is not the problem. Okay? The mud is the signal. It's showing you that something isn't working anymore. It's showing you that where you are isn't where you're meant to stay.
And when you're in it, it feels heavy. It feels confusing. It feels like you should have figured this out by now. Your life should look different. You had a different idea of what you wanted your life to look like and it doesn't look like that right now. And it's easy to judge ourselves. It's easy to see it as something has gone wrong.
But what if nothing has gone wrong? What if you're not behind? What if you actually haven't wasted time? What if everything you've been through is actually part of what's guiding you to and building what's next? It's gotten you to this place where you want to create change and it's actually helping you build what's next.
Because what I've seen again and again is that the women who feel the most stuck, my client who was in tears just less than 24 hours ago because she was feeling stuck, the women who feel the most stuck are often right on the edge of something changing. They're right on the edge of an idea, of motivation or momentum.
Not because they finally find the perfect plan, but because they start to trust themselves enough to take a step. And not because it suddenly feels easy, but because staying where they are starts to feel even harder than trying something new, even without knowing exactly how it all will play out.
So, instead of asking, how do I get out of the mud? I want you to start with, what is no longer working for me? What do I know, even a little bit about what I don't want anymore? Because clarity doesn't always start with a big vision. I love stepping into a vision of what's possible with clients, but it doesn't always start with that. Sometimes it starts with, this isn't it anymore. And from there, you rebuild trust with yourself. Once you realize that it's time for change, then you just figure out the one step at a time that you need to take to start rebuilding that trust.
I know we all have moments where we are feeling stuck in the mud, and unfortunately, it is a very normal part of the process. That mud that you're feeling, that feels like a trap, that feels like it's holding you back, that feels like it's making you waste time, precious time, that mud is our signal that change is needed. It's also a signal that we need to trust ourselves to take that first step out of the mud.
And if you're listening to this and you're like, yes, this is exactly where I am, you feel stuck, you feel in the mud, like in the thick of it, and you know something needs to change but you don't know what that next step looks like. This is exactly the work I do with my clients. We don't jump straight into a perfect plan or try to force clarity. We slow things down and help you understand what's actually happening in your life right now, why you feel stuck, and how to start rebuilding trust in yourself so you can move forward without second-guessing every step.
Because so much self-trust is lost when we look back and we feel like we've wasted a lot of time. So we want to start rebuilding that trust. We want to start creating momentum without second-guessing everything. And what I've seen over and over again is that when that shift happens, even a little bit, everything starts to open up. You start to see options again. You start to feel momentum again. You start to feel like yourself again.
So if that's something you're craving, if you know you need it, if you're tired of feeling stuck and ready to start moving, get out of the mud, even if you don't have it all figured out yet, I'm here to support you. You can go to my website, jenna.coach. You can schedule a free consultation.
Of course, if you're not quite ready for that step, this podcast is a place where you can continue to be supported. So make sure you follow the podcast and tune in each week. It's like I always say, a little coach in your pocket, guiding you and giving you ideas, helping you explore that next step, and offering perspective shifts that really help you to get there.
I also host a free momentrepreneur circle that I've talked about on this podcast. It meets every other week and you're always welcome there. It's a space to connect, get support, and be around other moms who are in this same season of life. You don't have to figure this out on your own. There are people and places and resources that can help you. And no matter how stuck or uncertain it feels right now, I promise you're closer than you think.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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