Episode 86: Turning 'Stuck' Into Action Steps

TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 86 - turning hurdles into the How-To, so that the stuck points actually become the steps to completing a task or any project. Including an exclusive resource that I’m going to gift you to accompany this episode, so if you’d like to turn the frustrations or difficulties that arise when your teen gets stuck on something in their study into steps towards progress and accomplishment, then this is the episode for you.

Hey VIPs. How are you? I'm good. I am in planning mode for how to celebrate our 100th podcast episode. It’s not that far away and I want to make a big deal of it. Because, seriously, 100 episodes IS a big deal. We’ve got to celebrate progress and just the act of sticking with something, of growing and building something, right? 

I know from your emails that so many of you get value from it and find it helpful or useful. If you do and you haven’t yet left a rating or a review, even just one or other of those would be amazing! Just saying :) 
 

More imminently, we have our monthly Facebook Live tomorrow - as of when this episode goes out - That’s Wed 21st Feb. And it’s going to be an Ask Me Anything Session.  Which means that you can come along and ask me anything, or you can email in or leave a comment on any of the social post reminders with your question and I’ll answer it on the live.
 

I decided to do an Ask Me Anything Session as I’ve had some really interesting and useful questions sent in lately in emails from parents and I want to share a couple of my thoughts that I ended up replying with more widely because I think they might be helpful to quite a lot of parents and teens. And because I know it takes thought, time and effort to email in, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to ask anything you’ve been wondering or would like to pick my brain on too. 

That’s really what these monthly sessions are all about. I run a free Facebook Live session on the third Wednesday of each month  - so pop that in your diary - 7.30pm AEST  - and it’s where you get to ask me your questions and get my live feedback and answers. All of my past sessions are recorded and in the videos section of the Rock Solid Study Facebook page, so you can go see what you might’ve missed, and if you’re listening to this after the 21st Feb, you now know where you can find the recording and come along to a future session. 

This theme of getting questions answered links perfectly to today’s podcast episode where we’re going to talk about your teen getting stuck on something in their study.
And specifically, the idea that getting stuck can, actually, pave the way to progress, show the way to success. Even though it feels like anything but progress in the moment, if we can figure what is keeping your teen stuck or making them feel stuck, determine what exactly they are stuck on, then we have the steps to getting un-stuck. 

If we don’t know some things or what to do at some steps, - that then becomes the to-do list. Because, getting stuck isn’t what’s KEEPING them stuck. What’s keeping them stuck is not being able to determine exactly why they are stuck, what they are stuck with and then not having a way to overcome it.

Staying stuck is what happens when we don’t know what we are stuck ON.

So, how do we get out of stuck and make progress?  

1) Figure out what we don’t know, figure out what exactly we are stuck on or with.  

And then… 

2) Decide what we need in order to solve for that - and have that be part of the plan of action of completing the task. Create a solution to-do list.


Now, I have a resource that I’m going to gift you to accompany this episode. 
It’s called 6 Steps to Getting Un-Stuck. 

I’ll share the direct weblink to get it at the end of this episode and also put it in the show notes. The 6 steps to getting unstuck is a nice clear flow diagram with simple Yes/No options to step your teen through whatever it is they’re working on. You can use it with them to help guide them or you can simply hand it over and have them get themselves unstuck independently. And because it’s strategy and skills based, it can be used for any type of task, in any subject.
 

I’ll share an example of where this happened for me recently. Something where I felt stuck and had hurdles and things that were confusing and things I didn’t have a clue how to do.
 

You know what it was? 

Mount the TV on the wall.

You might think, oh for goodness sake, that’s simple. Or you might be like, yep, I wouldn’t have a clue either. Just like some students might love a creative project compared to data analysis questions and vice versa. And just like happens sometimes with your teen and their study, it felt like it should’ve been fairly straightforward. Like, loads of people have their TV mounted on their wall. It can’t be that hard, right? But, the instant me and my husband decided to do it. We also instantly went - okay - no idea how to do it. 

He won’t mind me telling you that we are both pretty useless at DIY.  We knew we needed to get a wall mount. We knew something needed to happen with the wires and cables. But we didn’t know HOW to do any of it. Now, this is where I tend to get into strife because I have the attitude of ‘how hard can it be’ - We’ll figure it out, and he has the more sensible perhaps attitude of - you have to do these things right , it’s probably not as simple as you think. Don’t just rush it. And… it Took ages - not because it was actually super-time consuming to DO, but each step was a challenge to be solved. 

Just like an essay doesn’t take that long to write, when you know exactly what the question is asking, you can identify the topic and focus, you know how to select the best evidence, you know how to analyse in detail. If you know all the what and the how, you’re set to complete something really efficiently and effectively. It’s the hurdles that mean things take a long time to complete. 

At every step of this whole TV mounting thing, there was a new hurdle to figure out. Honestly, it’s still not 100% finished. We still need to figure out where to put the little digi box thing. At the moment it’s just precariously perched on top of the TV. And I’ll whisper this - we ended up changing the actual mount 3 times because we kept getting the wrong one and didn’t know til we got it home. 2 exchanges. 3rd mount lucky.

Now, of course, I didn’t realise at the time that we were doing it, but we were using this system of turning stuck points into steps, into items on the to-do list.

First thing: Don’t know how to mount it. How to physically get it onto the wall. 
So, we needed to turn that into an action step: Look up tv mounts online. Looking up the different types, what would work for our wall space and what we wanted. 
We figured that out.  Bought a TV mount. - wrong one, swapped it - wrong. 3rd time - done.  That’s a good example of putting in a step, thinking you’ve done it, but it didn’t work out as you wanted and you’ve got to repeat that step. Tick.
Step 1 - done. 

Then how to actually put it up.

So step 2: What equipment do we need? How do we do it? Action step - Watch enough Youtube videos til you know.  

Then Step 3: Where on the wall to mount it? It has to be into a stud, not just into the plasterboard. So action step: figure out where the studs are. And measure up the positioning. 

And then finally - what do we do with the wires and cables?

Step 4 - look up how to hide TV cables and end up buying and installing a Cable tidy and runner.

And, like I said, we now have stuck point 5 - where to put the box. How to position the box neatly and in a way that the remote can connect.

So, this isn’t a promise that you find the hurdle, put in an action step or how-to and it’s solved. It might not be a straight path of stepping stones. But it will give you the next step - next thing to figure out or do. You might wish you already knew it, feel like you should already know it. But if you don’t, then whether you like it or not, figuring that out, is the next step. And a necessary step in the whole process or task.

Now, hopefully you are seeing the parallel here between this and a task that your teen might face in their study. A research assignment, an inquiry task, an essay, or even planning and then actually carrying out revision and exam prep. 

Trying to tackle a task ‘as a whole’ can often be overwhelming or feel daunting and one hurdle early on in the process can then make it feel like they are stuck on the whole thing, when that’s not actually the case.

So, whenever they have a larger task or assessment, it could be good just to start out by building awareness - what CAN they do/DO they understand. What CAN’T they do/DON’T they understand? And chunk down the task and steps from there.
If it’s something they know - it will be Step 1 - do that thing. And when they realise there’s something they don’t know - the step will be to figure that out. 
It might be ‘ask teacher about X’. They might not be able to ask the teacher, so in that case what will they do instead to solve the sticking point? Is it go find a tutorial video online? Is it go back and re-read the chapter of the textbook on that, book in a coaching session or attend a group coaching call if they’re a Next Level or 10WGT student? These are all steps of the action plan.

Each thing is a step in the path to progress and completion. They can’t be skipped. And it’s not helpful to see them as added extras that are just adding to the burden. See the hurdles and the stuck points AS the steps to success. 

Going through in detail everything they need to do and know and action and complete, including solving for things they’re unsure of or things they don’t know, that then creates a blueprint that they can follow. A hurdle, a stumbling block, something that your teen is stuck on is actually one of the keys to completing the overall task or achieving a goal.  The thing we are stuck on literally highlights exactly what we need to do. Because the how-to, the blueprint to accomplishment is to conquer and overcome each thing that is in between where your teen is now and where they want to be. In this case with a finished essay, or completed exam block with the grades they want and without any extra stress or struggle.

If you’d like a flow chart of that path to accomplishment, with some of the most common hurdles and things that keep students stuck in their assessment tasks and every day study, some that they might not have considered might be keeping them stuck, WITH what to do at each step to solve for them, you can get your copy of my 6 Steps to Getting Un-Stuck resource.

It’s at episode 86 podcast web page: www.rocksolidstudy.com/86  - the numbers 8-6  - and it literally asks them things like: 

Have you identified the command word of the question? 
Yes, go this way - No, go this way. 

Next question: Do you know the aim or objective of the task? 
Yes,  do this. No, do this. 

That link again: www.rocksolidstudy.com/86 

I’ll put that as a direct hyperlink in the show notes. 

But what I’d really love for you and your teen to take away from this, is that the stuck points are not necessarily negatives. They are literally the steps to success or accomplishments. We use them to create a clear path, and - more tangibly - an action plan or to-do list. 

So, I hope that helps re-frame things a little in those moments of overwhelm or frustration - and turn them into something a little more productive. 

I hope you have a GREAT rest of your week and I’ll meet you back here next week . 

See ya, bye!