Lesson Twenty: The Space Between

We just had a massive snowstorm, and at some point, almost everyone had the same experience. You pull out of the driveway, give it a little gas, and… nothing. Tires spin. You're not moving forward. You're not moving backward. You're just there.

So you do what you've always done. You rock the car. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. Slowly. Uncomfortably. A little embarrassing if the neighbors are watching. And eventually, almost without noticing, you're free.

That's kind of where I am right now.

Stuck.

Not lazy. Not lost. Not unmotivated. Just stuck.

The frustrating part is that I'm more focused than I've ever been in my personal life. My goals are clear. My standards are higher. My discipline is better. The inputs are there. The progress is real. But the results are not instant, and that messes with my head more than I like to admit.

I want the end state now. I want a business to be where I know it can be. I want clarity instead of questions. Momentum instead of friction. I know what I'm capable of, and that gap between where I am and where I think I should be feels louder than ever.

Business-wise, this one hits hard. I'm not where I thought I'd be by now when I started this blog. And if I'm honest, most days I don't even know where to begin. There are too many ideas, too many directions, too many "this could work" paths staring back at me. Decision paralysis dressed up as ambition.

There's also a very real constraint I don't always say out loud.

I can't just blow things up and start over. I can't gamble recklessly or chase every idea the moment it sparks, even though I know if I had enough runway, I'd succeed. My family depends on what I do now to provide the life we live. Stability matters. Consistency matters. And that responsibility is something I'm proud of. It's not a burden. It's a privilege. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

But it would be disingenuous to pretend there isn't a selfish part of me that wishes we had taken different measures earlier. Choices that might have created more flexibility. More room to experiment. More margin to fail, learn, and rebuild. That tension doesn't come from ingratitude. It comes from ambition colliding with responsibility.

The strange thing is, I know deeply that I'm an asset. I know I add value. I know I thrive when I'm part of something meaningful. I've seen it over and over in my life. But doing things solo exposes a different voice. One that questions whether I'm building the right thing, the right way, at the right time. That's not a skill issue. That's a self-doubt issue. And pretending it isn't would be dishonest.

So yeah, I feel stuck.

But here's the important part. I'm still showing up.

I've made a quiet commitment to myself that no matter how I feel about my circumstances, I will do something each day that moves me forward, even if the movement is small, especially if it's small.

If I don't feel good about my progress, I go for a run.

If my confidence dips, I lift.

If my mind is noisy, I do something physical.

If I slip up, I get right back up and keep moving.

It's not about fitness. It's about agency.

Stacking wins matters. Not the flashy wins. Not the public ones. The private wins. The ones that remind you that even when life feels unresolved, you are still capable of discipline, effort, and follow-through.

That matters more than motivation ever will.

The uncomfortable realization I'm coming to is this. Being stuck might be part of the process, not a failure of it. I don't want to be here, but maybe there's something here I need to learn, and until I learn whatever it is, the longer I'll be here.

I've lived long enough to know that nothing stays the same. My life today looks nothing like it did five years ago. Or ten. Or fifteen. And if I'm honest, many of the things I stressed over back then barely register now. The same will be true five, ten, and fifteen years from today.

That doesn't make the present tension disappear, but it does put it in perspective.

Maybe this season is teaching patience.

Maybe it's teaching restraint.

Maybe it's forcing me to build a foundation instead of chasing outcomes.

Or maybe it's simply reminding me that growth often feels like resistance before it feels like momentum.

Cars don't get unstuck by flooring it. They get unstuck by controlled movement. By rocking. By patience. By accepting that forward progress sometimes looks like going backward first.

I don't have this figured out yet. I'm still in it. Still rocking. Still trusting that traction will come if I keep showing up and doing the work, even when the work feels unglamorous and uncertain.

I don't want to stay stuck. But I'm done pretending that feeling stuck means I'm failing.

Sometimes it just means you're between where you were and where you're going.

And the only job you have in that space is to keep moving, even if it's only an inch at a time.