Last week we used the image of a fly trapped between a window and a screen to explore the idea of invisible barriers. This week, we look at finding the way out.

Exhausted Effort

After countless bursts of energy, the pauses between the fly’s efforts lengthen. It’s tired from smashing against the screen and the glass, but it’s no closer to escaping than when it began. The frenetic energy dissipates.

The fly is doing exactly what it’s wired to do—what’s worked before: fly toward the light. But that strategy isn’t working, and it’s exhausted from trying.

For us, like the fly, the first effort usually isn’t the challenge. The challenge is what to do when multiple efforts fail. When you’ve identified your barriers, you’ve planned for them, but you’re still stuck.

What then?

Always Forward

When we fail to make progress despite our best efforts, we assume we need to push harder. We want to build forward momentum, no matter what. So we try different tactics, or a new approach, but remain pointed in the same direction.

We’re generally taught that progress is linear. Slow and steady—but forward. Getting unstuck just requires a better version of our strategy. Fine-tuning, yes. But always pushing ahead.

What if this idea is backward? If the way out isn’t ahead of you, but behind? What if you don’t need more effort, but a different direction entirely?

The Way Out Is the Way In

In our example, the trapped fly is without context, but in reality, it doesn’t just appear there.

Somehow, it got in. Somewhere there was a gap between the window and the frame, or a tear in the mesh. The fly stumbled in without noticing—undramatically and with little effort. It didn’t notice until it was unable to fly out.

Similarly, we didn’t drop into our lives where we are right now. We arrived here, through an endless series of circumstantial decisions, many of which were also unremarkable yet consequential. The habits we’re trying to change, the patterns we repeat—we arrived here step by step, choice by choice.

When we notice the trapped fly, we intuitively understand that the only way out is the same way it got in, just in reverse. It’s obvious when we’re watching the fly. Yet we have a hard time with this realization in our lives. We expend tons of energy searching for new solutions and new ways out, when sometimes what we need to do is examine—and undo—what got us here in the first place.

If we can’t move forward, no matter how hard we try, it might be worth it to trace our steps backwards and see if it’s possible to get out the same way we came in.

The only way out is the same way it got it, just in reverse.

How I Got Trapped

A few years ago, I was the fly. My drinking habit was the invisible barrier I kept bumping up against. I never hit rock bottom, thankfully, but I was stuck in a pattern that I wanted to break. I tried all kinds of tactics—moderation, rules, boundaries—but until I identified how I got there, it was a lot of effort and little progress. The only way I could figure out what was at the core of my drinking was to identify how I developed the habit.

The opening I saw (the gap I crawled in through), was this: At an early age, I equated drinking with having a good time. After decades of building habits on this foundation, it came to mean that if I wasn’t working, I drank—because that’s what you do for fun.

Moderation or restriction wasn’t going to curb my habit. If I wanted to change the habit, I had to go all the way back to the core idea. I had to examine why I held this assumption and, more importantly, if it was even true.

The only way out was the same way I got in.

Changing Direction

When you become trapped, or your efforts stall, it’s okay to stop and examine what’s happening. It’s not quitting to stop doing something that’s not working—it’s strategic reassessment.

You don’t have to keep pushing forward. You’re allowed to turn around and retrace.

You don’t need more persistence. You need clearer perception. And sometimes that means going backward to see what you can’t see moving forward.

Sometimes the smartest thing the fly can do is stop flying.

Progress Isn’t Always Forward

We know when we see the trapped fly that it won’t get out unless it finds the same way it got in, no matter how hard it tries. It has to stop banging against the glass and the screen and retrace back to the same gap. If it’s able to do that, it will simply crawl out as effortlessly as it came in.

You don’t always need a new solution. You need the courage to stop pushing forward, retrace your steps, and find what created the problem in the first place.

Find the gap. Exit the same way you entered.

Progress comes in many forms—and it’s not always forward. Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is turn around, go back where you started, and try again.

As always, thanks for reading. I’m truly happy you’re here.

All the best,

Nate