# Offbeat

Source: https://www.theminimalists.com/offbeat/
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2024-06-12
Author: Ryan Nicodemus

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Sometimes I get into a rut. I feel stuck. Stagnant.

When I first moved to Missoula, Montana, I felt this way. I didn’t have many friends, just a few acquaintances. One acquaintance invited me over for game night where a group of us sat around playing board games and drinking wine.

The get-together’s host, Rebecca, was a theater director. When I asked how her most recent production, *Thisillusionment*, was coming along, she said, “Everything’s great, except I can’t find someone to fill the main role of Ivan the Magician.”

Feeling the courage provided by three glasses of wine, I extended my arms in front of me, palms down, and then flipped my palms upward with exaggeration, rolled up my sleeves one-by-one, and said, with arms spread wide, “I think I might be the magician you’re looking for.” Rebecca laughed and said she’d let me audition for the role.

So I did.

I’ve never acted in a play, so I couldn’t believe it when they offered me the lead role.

I spent the next eight weeks rehearsing, five days a week, four hours each evening, getting ready for the production. Without realizing it, I slowly moved out of my rut. The growth I experienced in just two months was astonishing; I’ve never grown that much in such a condensed period of time: I gained an exponential amount of acting experience, learned how a play was developed start-to-finish, and, most important, I made great friends with whom I now have a strong connection. I became unstuck.

A lot of my [mentoring clients](https://theminimalists.com/mentoring) ask me how to get out of a rut. I tell them to change their physical state. I don’t suggest all my clients audition for a play, but I do suggest they do something offbeat.

Diving into something new can be terrifying, or at least [uncomfortable](https://www.theminimalists.com/discomfort/), but those feelings of discomfort are indicative of growth.

If you’re stagnant or stuck, change your state. Do something offbeat: audition for a play, take a photography class, take tango lessons, do cartwheels in the yard. Whatever you do, [do not continue the same old routine](https://zenhabits.net/aday/).

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