If you ask people around you if they feel stuck in their life or work (or both), you will be stunned by the amount of positive answers you will receive.

Feeling stuck means you can’t move forward and toward your goals despite your actions.

It’s the relentless feeling of having your legs -metaphorically- stuck at the same spot even though you try to move your body. It’s like being glued to the ground. I’ve felt that and know how it sucks.

You want to move forward but can’t, like an invisible force is pushing back. That’s resistance to change.

What’s even more challenging to understand is that you can’t go back either. You can’t take even one step back. That’s the desire for change.

It’s a battle of opposing forces - forward or backwards. The end result is a lack of movement, standing still with no way out of the turmoil.

Most people want to change but are unwilling to make the effort and take the necessary actions.

That’s normal and human. I don’t justify it, but I acknowledge that it’s human nature.

The thing is that we, humans, can do better than that.

If we dissect the situation and its causes, we can identify the key success (or, better, failure) factor: comfort.

People want change and - under certain conditions - want to change to move forward.

However, change requires action, effort, and discomfort. But hey, no one likes effort and discomfort. “I didn’t sign up for this!” usually plays in people's minds when it’s time to put the reps to make change happen.

This resistance to discomfort (or, better yet, total avoidance) is a byproduct of today’s comfort culture:

You don’t need to do much. Your path can be (= is) assigned to you; you just have to follow it and consume.

If we dive deeper into this, we find the source of all evil: a lack of depth.

99% of people today stay surface level. They do this because it’s easier (hence little or no discomfort).

If you stay shallow in work and life, you condition your mind to avoid anything requiring more thinking and action (hence discomfort and “suffering”).

A lack of depth is manifested in almost all areas of life.

If you stay shallow, you won’t invest in yourself by learning new things or mastering your existing skills. Therefore, you lack the qualities and opportunities to grow and advance your career.

If you are a solopreneur and don’t dive deep into your niche and offering, you won’t stay relevant for long.

If you are an introverted person and don’t seek to understand the depth of your introversion (what it really means and how you can leverage it), you will limit your life and growth by labelling yourself as a problematic person (you are not).

Depth is the remedy to most human suffering.

It’s how one can break free from autopilot mode (the surface level of life) and claim what one deserves in work and life (purpose, meaning, enjoyment).

It’s so much more than simply reading a lot or analysing things. And it’s definitely not overthinking.

Let’s dive in!

A little bit of science

What comes to mind when you hear the word “depth”? Most probably the physical measurement from the top to the bottom of an object or area. That’s what 99,9% of people would think.

There’s more to depth, which is why it can help you live a good life.

From the scientific point of view, depth is also the distance from front to back (so not only top to bottom). That’s essentially how far back an object extends from its front.

There’s even more. Depth perception allows us to understand our world in three dimensions (vs the two-dimensional view) and avoid obstacles as we move.

It also allows us to estimate distances from ourselves to an object, which is critical, even in survival. Imagine a situation where a bear or a lion faces you, and you must decide how far it is and whether you can escape by running.

Furthermore, our perception of depth allows our eyes to coordinate and our bodies to move without the risk of injury.

Judging distances or speeds also helps us make quick decisions in everyday activities. 

Plus, it enhances our visual experience. For example, a top-class painting with depth allows us to appreciate and enjoy art. The same goes for nature and any other activity that relies on spatial representation.

As you can see, depth is multidimensional. It extends far beyond a two-dimensional view of the world.

The same goes for our perception of the world and life itself. Even if we limit our approach to two dimensions, we will lose 99% of life and opportunities if we remain shallow.

Embracing the notion of depth in its richness and complexity can provide incredible insights and reveal opportunities to break free from autopilot and live and work with purpose, meaning, and enjoyment.

Let’s explore how.

How to leverage the power of depth to start living and working on your own terms

From a scientific point of view, depth is similar to the ability to break free from default survival mode.

It’s about triggering observations, experiences and emotions, empowering us to explore life in all its richness and on multiple levels.

Biology and how our eyes and minds work and sync to help us perceive depth can provide a clear understanding of why and how depth can add value, perspective, and growth potential to our lives.

That biological process relies on various visual cues, regardless of whether we use both eyes or just one eye.

When an object is far away, each eye views it from a slightly different angle to judge its depth. Then, our mind processes those two images to determine whether the object is near or far and at what approximate distance.

If we focus on a nearby object, our eyes converge to align with it, determining that the distance between us and the object is short.

Our biology also allows us to gauge depth using only one eye. We can view and make sense of the world around us, judging depth by an object's speed, size, perspective, possible interposition (one object in front of the other), shadowing, and even blur due to focus.

There’s so much richness in the depth perception.

It’s similar with life or work. Depth is the line between quality experiences and mere existence.

Mere existence is living and working on a preassigned path (assigned to you by your parents, teachers, other institutions, and society as a whole).

Quality of experience is about connecting with what is most real and significant in YOUR life.

Famous American essayist, poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said.

That’s a profound realisation.

Instead of opting for a meaningless life waiting to retire in your 60s, go deep and experience life in a way that feels right and authentic to you so you can realise your potential.

If that means quitting your 9-5 job and going solo, go for it.

If you want to impact the world with a new niche and offering that resonates and aligns more with your values, go for it. 

If you are an introvert, embrace your uniqueness and turn your introversion into a superpower to help you live and work in a way that feels you (without being conditioned by our predominantly extroverted world).

There may be infinite examples. Those above are the ones that resonate with me the most: I quit my corporate jobs and went solo, I want to make an impact by empowering people realise their potential as solopreneurs, I transformed from a scared introvert to a confident and authentic one who enjoys life the way it feels more natural. 

Nothing came by chance. Nothing was a result of simply sitting on the couch and doing nothing.

That transformation took a while, was painful in some parts, and is still happening.

Opting for depth (instead of a surface-level life and work) triggered and powered that transformation process.

Here is how it helped me and how you can benefit, too!

5 surefire ways to embrace depth in your life and work and transform

Before elaborating, let me clarify: whatever you read below worked for me 100%. I am confident they will work for you 100%, too. However, we are all unique, so if something does not resonate 100%, feel free to refine it - not change or discard it, but adapt it to your case based on your personality, values, skills, and experiences.

Let’s dive in (deep)!

1. Read a lot. Whatever interest you have, read books about it and expand. Jump from one area to the other and go deep. Explore and discover things you would never think existed or have never imagined that they work that way. I read philosophy and science (biology and cosmology mainly). One extra tip is to zoom both in and out. Reading about areas of knowledge that refer to the microworld and macroworld around us can help you gain tremendous insights. Most of all, you understand that universal laws apply to all levels of life, from miniscule to cosmic scale. Read!

2. Be mindful and observe. That means being present and living the moment. Keeping your mental focus on the past (failures, trauma, etc.) or the future (dire scenarios, possibilities, projections, etc.) doesn’t let you be in the moment. Not being in the moment hinders you from observing. Observation is one of the best ways to make deep sense of the world around you and your life. Observe how things are and evolve, how people behave and evolve, and their interconnections (things to things, people to people, things to people). You will see and experience incredible richness with observation. You can see seemingly unrelated things or situations with a fresh investigative look and through a lens that makes sense for you (for example, the lens of your interests, niche, offering, unique skills, introversion, you name it).

3. Create. That involves anything creative and constructive, be it painting, building a house or a shed, playing music, making a small robot, building a LEGO empire on the floor, jigsaws, cooking, gardening, you name it. It’s essential for transforming your life and work because creativity is about combining different elements (input) to create new, exciting things (output). Creativity also pushes you to solve problems that arise during the process, enabling you to go deep, from one issue to the other, until you reach the ultimate solution and build the necessary mindset and skillset to make extraordinary things happen.

4. Write. Writing is the foundation of all change. Deep knowledge, insights and understanding trigger change. You can acquire all those qualities by writing. That can take the form of journaling. Writing your thoughts down can help you discover incredible things about yourself and life by reflecting and connecting the dots. Writing can also be blogging or any other form of digital writing (content for social media, for example). They say that if you want to speak a new language you learn, you must write a lot. It works the same way for life or work. The more you write about their aspects, problems, solutions, and circumstances, you train your thinking muscles to the highest level. There can be no deep and critical thinking without structured thought and writing. 

5. Teach. The majority of people don’t feel confident enough to teach anything because they believe they don’t have the knowledge or experience. In reality, there’s no point after which your knowledge or experience is good enough to start teaching. In fact, you can teach anything from any point of reference. That’s because when you teach, you discover more and more things you don’t know, so you improve your learning, knowledge and skills on the go. There’s no better way to learn than by teaching. And there’s no better way to enhance your teaching than by doing it in the first place. Teaching can be as simple as writing helpful content on social media or your blog, or it can be more sophisticated in the form of actual teaching, teaching online, and digital courses. Teaching can teach you how to go deep.

Those are five ways to nurture a depth mindset and build the appropriate mental muscle. They may appear distant or irrelevant to how you break free from autopilot mode and start living and working with purpose, meaning and enjoyment. They are not.

Depth can help you:

• Identify and acknowledge you are on autopilot mode (most don’t even know it, although they know their current status does not feel good at all)

• Explore the vast amount of possibilities out there (versus the limited mindset and set of options people believe they have when in default survival mode)

• Understand the importance of action (versus the desire to change but unwillingness to act)

• Get fascinated with the richness of life (which you can’t possibly see when on autopilot; all you see are problems with no solutions and no beauty in the world)

• Discover (or uncover) your purpose among the millions of possible purposes a human can have breathing and living on this planet

• Find meaning in what you do (by actually doing what you love to do vs what you have been conditioned to do)

• Enjoy life and work with their highs and lows (because they are simply part of how the cosmos works; a high point usually comes after a low one)

Wrapping up!

You can’t reach anything from the list above with a surface-level life and work. Sticking to comfort won’t get you anywhere near where you see a light at the end of the tunnel.

A depth mindset is like navigating a ship in the fog. You move cautiously, but every yard further allows you to see more things you couldn’t see a few yards back until you eventually start seeing the harbour - your end goal or destination.

Life is a multifactor matrix and extends beyond the 2D or even 3D view we are used in the physical world. 

Depth is a cognitive and mental gateway to all the rich dimensions life and work can take.

What’s next?

Your next step is to embrace depth and incorporate it into your daily life.

There’s one rule of thumb to help you identify the timing to shift your approach to things: when something is easy and comfortable (with no need for critical thinking, effort, or discomfort), the bell should ring.

That’s when you need to consciously and intentionally start digging deeper to optimise the output of that activity or situation.

You can live a life on your own terms. Creating a one-person business is an excellent opportunity to do that. It’s freedom. It’s also a challenge, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s about creating and solving your and not others’ problems. And the payoff comes directly to you. 100%.

If you need support navigating the transition and journey, let me help. DM me on LinkedIn, and let’s explore how Mindset Coaching can help you move forward and claim what you desire and deserve.