By Dawn Onley

If a child is bored, she is not creative enough. If an adult feels stuck, she is not creative enough.

Life can be brutal. One thing after another can leave us feeling despondent and lost. There are real life circumstances that overwhelm us, and threaten to take us under by the sheer enormity of it all. By our very nature as nurturers and caregivers, women face these feelings more acutely. We are the ones looking after others first and by the time we get to ourselves, we feel depleted and hopeless.

It’s an awful thing to feel stuck. But it’s just that – a feeling. It is not the totality of our reality, or at least it doesn’t have to be. There’s a lot of hope in this world. Grab you some, and hold onto it for dear life. It will get you through these bleak periods and bring you back to your confident and carefree self soon enough.

If you can’t seem to shake the blues, you should know there are endless possibilities out there waiting for you. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had limited options. It was a much different time period. They couldn’t always vote. Certain careers were off limits to them. They didn’t have the educational, financial, informational, and networking resources that we have today. We should not feel stuck. Our elderly relatives would have loved the abundant opportunities that we have, and sometimes take for granted.

Today, life gives us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves. If there is something we don’t like, we can change it. If we wish to learn a new language, switch jobs, take up a new hobby, start an exercise regimen, even move to a new location, it’s within our reach. All we need is a strategy to get un-stuck.

I have a friend who decided after more than a decade as a journalist that she wanted to be a lawyer. So she went to law school, in her mid-thirties, and is now practicing quite successfully in New Jersey. I have friends who packed up and moved across country for better opportunities and a change of environment. Retired for almost a decade after a career in banking, my mother started a non-profit to more directly serve a segment of the population she is passionate about, and to connect her heart with her work.

If you’re feeling stuck, do something about it. Start journaling. Register for a class. Consider your next move. If you don’t, it’s almost certain that things won’t improve.

Don’t wait. Don’t stay stuck. Life is too big for you to play small.

“You shouldn’t be at the same place now as you were five years ago. If you’re still letting the same things upset you, the same people offend you, the same challenges steal your joy, this is a wake-up call – it’s time for change,” said Joel Osteen.

Exactly.