380: Why You’re Stuck: Identifying the Hidden Bottleneck Blocking Your Progress

380: Why You’re Stuck: Identifying the Hidden Bottleneck Blocking Your Progress

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[00:00:00] Have you ever felt like you're working incredibly hard toward a goal, but you're making less progress than you were hoping? Maybe you bought another planner, you tried a new productivity app, you reorganized your calendar for the 10th time, and you promised yourself that next week is the week that you're finally gonna be more disciplined, more organized, and sit your butt down to be more consistent And then somehow you're still feeling stuck.

If that feels familiar, then this episode is for you. I wanted to mention that recently I was listening to the Cal Newport podcast. I think it's called the Deep Questions podcast. Correct me if I'm wrong. And one of his guests talked about a concept that I found really interesting, which is the theory of constraints.

So the guest told a story about his background as a runner and how [00:01:00] when he was younger, he spent years trying to improve his running performance by training just as hard as everyone else around him and just as often as everyone else. But then he realized that his issue wasn't necessarily the training, it was that his body needed more recovery time.

He needed to take more days and actually train less because his body needed that recovery time. So he adjusted his schedule, and once he accounted for that, his running performance improved dramatically. That's an example of something that a lot of us experience. Sometimes we think that we just need to put in more effort towards the goal and then we'll reach it.

But in reality, we might be dealing with something else. We might have some other hidden bottleneck. That made me think about my work with college students, with grad students, with working professionals, and [00:02:00] everyone I get to serve through my coaching and consulting. And I see a lot of this coming up regularly where people come to me and they're convinced, "I need you to help me with my time management.

I've got a time management problem, and if I just fix it, I'll be able to stay on top of my workload and reach my goals." But then once we start working together, after a few conversations, we'll discover that time management isn't the issue at all. There's something else going on. There's another hidden bottleneck.

So today I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about bottlenecks, I wanna talk about constraints, and why a lot of us find ourselves in situations where we're trying to solve the wrong problem. And I'm also gonna tell you about the common bottlenecks I see in my own work with my clients. And hopefully, this will help you to identify your own hidden constraints that may be slowing you down.

[00:03:00] So let's get into it.

Welcome to the award-winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place where first-generation BIPOC students and professionals can listen in on inclusive grad school stories and gain practical tools for sustainable success. This is Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, author, and speaker.

I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you thrive in grad school and beyond.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Let's start with what do I mean by a bottleneck? When you think about a bottleneck, I'm sure you [00:04:00] have an image of a literal bottle, right? The top of a bottle as it gets more narrow.

And that refers to a point in any process where things start to slow down, or they pile up, or maybe they stop moving as quickly as they could. And this relates back to that theory of constraints I mentioned earlier. In simple terms, the theory of constraints says that every system has a limiting factor.

This theory relates back to business and entrepreneurship, but it's helpful here so that you can understand that there might be a part in your process that is determining how quickly or how slowly everything can go. And as Eliyahu Goldratt explained in his work on the theory of constraints, the system can only go as fast as the biggest constraint allows.

Of [00:05:00] course, there are criticisms about this theory and about the work behind the theory, that it's oversimplified. I don't want you to get too hung up on the theory right now. I want you to take this at least to help you to visualize that metaphor of the bottleneck or even of a freeway that's narrowing down from four lanes down to one.

And I know my folks who live in the big cities, y'all know what this looks like, right? No matter how fast traffic is going in any of the other lanes, everything eventually starts to slow down at that bottleneck. The same thing can happen with your work, with your projects and your career, your writing, your business, whatever it is that you're juggling right now, that comes up.

And a lot of times you might find yourself trying to improve every part of a system at once, or maybe you're trying to improve one thing, [00:06:00] but that's not the bottleneck. And so I want you to think about a different approach. I want you to think about how can I find the bottleneck, then address it, improve it, then reassess and iterate as needed. So let's talk about why it is that we find ourselves solving the wrong problem.

A lot of times we find ourselves stuck because we're thinking about things as symptoms instead of as root causes. And here I'm bringing up another metaphor because of chronic illnesses and my own conditions where there have been so many instances where you're given Band-Aids and people are treating symptoms, and there's a big difference between that and actually uncovering the root cause, the root condition, the thing that encompasses everything.

And once you target that, you notice the biggest change. Here, what I'm trying [00:07:00] to say is that sometimes what is the visible problem or the symptom is not actually the root cause of that problem. So you might be thinking, "Oh, I need to spend more time writing." The problem is you're not getting enough words on a page, so you assume I need more time in my calendar to write.

But then when you look under the hood, when you're looking more closely, the issue isn't that you need more time on your calendar. Maybe you are unclear about your argument or about what you're writing. Maybe you need to spend more time organizing your ideas. Or maybe you keep slowing yourself down. You have plenty of time, but you're trying to draft and edit at the same time, so it takes you ages to simply write another sentence.

If you're someone applying for jobs, maybe you think that, "Oh, I just need to submit more applications. I just need to go from ten [00:08:00] to dozens or even hundreds of applications." But maybe your bottleneck is that you might not be networking, or you might not have enough informational interviews on your calendar, or you aren't communicating your strengths effectively, and so your applications are not getting touched.

They're not getting the attention that they need. If you're someone who's working full-time, maybe again, you think that you have a time management problem, but your bottleneck is that you are overloaded. That cognitive overload is heavy. You're making too many decisions, and so you're spending more time deciding what to do than actually having time to do the work itself.

And so what I've learned in coaching is that a lot of times we're spending so much time and energy improving parts of a system that weren't really the main root cause to begin with. You [00:09:00] are trying to work harder, make more time for it, buy a new planner or a new tool, a new app. You think that you have to learn how to use this new AI tool, right?

And you're making things more complicated for yourself when the actual root cause is something that you are not addressing at all. And so that's why you might not be getting the results that you want. These results aren't matching the effort because you're not identifying what's really making you stuck. So let me talk about some of the common bottlenecks that I notice in my own coaching.

People come to me all the time. They think that it's one concern, and then we work together, and it's something else. The first one that comes up is the person that's trying to figure everything out before they start. Oh my goodness, this is so common. I see this among grad students, post-docs, folks navigating career transitions.

They [00:10:00] think, "Oh, I'll get started on this once I know exactly what jobs I'm applying to," or, "I'll get started on this once I know exactly which grad programs I'm applying to," or, "I'll start writing once I know exactly what my writing is," or, "I'll begin my job search once I've researched every single option."

On the surface, this makes a lot of sense. You don't wanna waste your time, so you gather information, you do prep work because you wanna make the best decision possible. But prep work can also become a form of procrastination or a form of avoidance or a form of procrastivity. That's the work that you do to avoid the real work, the more important and urgent work.

I just wanna remind you that if you find yourself spending more time preparing and organizing and planning, then you're [00:11:00] probably not getting to the root cause. And so if that's you, I don't want you to feel compelled to have to know exactly what you need to do. I want you to instead take imperfect and messy action.

Just take a next step. And I say this because when I'm on a one-on-one call, a lot of times I'll remind people that you gain more clarity through action. If you can't write, maybe you need to write about your thoughts about writing because writing is a way of thinking. Or if you are struggling to get your job applications in, maybe you need to talk to someone else about the field or the line of work that you're getting into.

There's always something that you can do instead of over-plan, take that messy action to get toward your goal. The second bottleneck I'm gonna mention, and this is number two of [00:12:00] five, is that you're waiting on someone else. And this part frustrates me because this reminds me of how some of our biggest goals do rely on other people and gatekeepers in particular.

And so for this, I'm thinking about what I see a lot among grad students, where you might find a doctoral student who's waiting on advisor feedback before they feel like they can start writing their next chapter. I notice this right now with a couple of my clients who are finishing up and they're not getting enough feedback from their advisors.

That's a common situation. Or even among my grad school applicants, they think to themselves, "Oh, I'm not gonna start working on my application essays until I get all my recommendation letter emails sent, 'cause I wanna know that I have enough recommenders before I know it's official that I'm actually applying to grad school this year."

Or even if you're someone who's applying to jobs, you're waiting [00:13:00] to hear back. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Oh, I had an interview. I wanna wait until I hear back from them before I continue networking with other people in other orgs." Why is this a bottleneck? Because you're pausing something while you wait on someone else.

A lot of times we are letting this situation of waiting on someone else hold us back from continuing to take action and from remembering what is still within our control. You can think about this by asking yourself, "Well, what can I keep working on while I wait?"

Maybe while you wait on feedback from your advisor, you can keep working on your literature review or doing some more reading. Maybe there's another chapter that you can start writing or revising. Maybe you can practice your interviewing skills and still update your resume or your CV. [00:14:00] Maybe you can still think about the next five networking contacts you're gonna reach out to.

Yes, you're not in control of how long you wait on other people, but you do have more control over what you do during that time. The third bottleneck that comes up in my work a lot is that sometimes people are trying to carry everything in their head. So this comes up a lot because I work with a lot of busy individuals, folks who have multifaceted lives, so many roles and hats that they play in their lives.

And sometimes folks are trying to keep everything in their head, or they don't have a system that helps them to externalize everything. So they're trying to remember deadlines. They're trying to mentally track everything, and it becomes a lot. It's cognitively draining to have to think, "Oh yeah, I still have that thing to do.

Oh yeah, I [00:15:00] still have to call back that person. Oh yeah, I still have to do this and this and this and this." And there's actually this term in cognitive science called cognitive offloading, which refers to how when you externalize information, you reduce your mental load, which frees up your working memory for other things that you need.

This is why as soon as I think about something that I need to do, I'm quick to open up my task management tool. I add it to my to-do list, and then I can let it go. I don't have to worry about it. When I was younger, I remember... This might have been in college, probably in college. I would stay up really late at night, stressing out, ruminating, thinking about all the things I needed to do, hoping and praying I would remember them in the morning.

I no longer do that because I have a way that I externalize information, and I want you to do the same. I want you to externalize your work. [00:16:00] I don't want you to feel compelled to remember everything, and your system doesn't have to be fancy either. Again, you don't have to find the latest AI tool, the latest new app, et cetera.

People always ask me, "What are your favorite tools?" And my tools that I use are so simple. It's a notebook. It's a very simple to-do list or Kanban board. It could be your favorite notebook. It could be a piece of paper. It could be whatever task management tool you prefer to use. It doesn't matter.

But what matters is that you are writing things down in a way that's accessible to you so that you can access it later to free up your mental energy for other things that matter.

If you're feeling stuck in grad school or navigating a major professional transition, personalized coaching from a certified coach can make a meaningful difference. I offer one-on-one coaching for first-gen and/or BIPOC graduate students and professionals [00:17:00] who want structure and compassionate support while working toward important goals.

Together, we can create action plans that align with your capacity, your responsibilities, and your long-term vision. Clients often come to coaching when they are preparing for major milestones like qualifying exams, defending a proposal, finishing dissertations, exploring new career paths, or building sustainable systems that work for them.

Coaching includes live sessions, voice memo and email support between sessions, and access to a resource library filled with dozens of tools for academic and professional success. If you'd like to explore working together, visit gradschoolfemtoring.com/coaching to learn more and schedule a free consultation today.

Bottleneck number four is that you're trying to do too many things at once. And I know this is hard, and I know sometimes it's inevitable, [00:18:00] but this comes up too many times where folks have too many important and competing priorities happening at the same time, and they're all competing for your limited time and energy.

You might be working full-time, you're writing your dissertation, you're raising children, you're caring for other family members. You might be serving on committees or doing other type of service work. You're applying to jobs, you're preparing for conferences, you're still trying to maintain your friendships or other personal relationships.

And oh my goodness, yes, all of those things matter. Yes, they're all important. But when you've got a major goal like finishing a dissertation or like securing another full-time job, that does require an ample amount of sustained attention. And sometimes that means that you may need to pause or delegate or [00:19:00] slow down something else.

Because if you're trying to switch tasks too much, that slows you down. That also impacts your attention and makes it hard to focus and it makes it hard to ultimately get things done. So for now, ask yourself, if you think this is your bottleneck, if there's a way that you can temporarily allow your biggest priority, maybe it's one or two biggest priorities, to take center stage while everything else, like I said earlier, is paused, is reduced or simplified in some way. I know this is not easy, so I'm just gonna recognize that.

Like, sometimes you're faced with impossible situations, and you do your best, but if there is any way you can pause, do less, delegate, please do that. Okay, the last bottleneck I'm gonna mention today, and there are so many others, right? These are not the only [00:20:00] ones, but these are the ones I wanted to mention because they're what come up to me as top of mind in terms of my work with college students, grad students, and working professionals.

So this last one is that you are treating every single task like it requires the same kind of energy. I do get frustrated with this one because not everything deserves your most precious time of day. I notice a lot of times that, like, when folks come to me, like I said, so many people think, "Oh, Yvette's gonna help me with my time management."

But then we start working together, and they start paying more attention to their energy management because energy is just as important, if not more important, as time. Time, you know, people say you have the same 24 hours in a day, but guess what? We don't all have the same amount of energy in a day.

Sometimes, let's say you have an hour available, and you're like, "Oh, great, [00:21:00] I got an extra hour." Let's say even for me today, one of my clients canceled last minute, and I had an extra hour, and that gave me the time to work on this podcast episode and recording it. But sometimes you have that extra hour, and you think, "Oh, I can just get whatever thing done that's on my plate."

Again, not all hours are created equal. Some things require more time and energy. If you're working on a dissertation chapter, that's not the same as the type of energy you need to respond to emails. If you're studying for your comprehensive exams, that's not the same kind of energy required as organizing your references.

Maybe you're brainstorming for some sort of project, and that also requires a different kind of energy than formatting your paper. Again, many people will try to do their hardest work or the most cognitively [00:22:00] demanding work at the end of their day, or they say they're gonna do it at the end of the week, or maybe they put it to a time block where they're typically feeling drained.

Then they wonder why getting this thing done feels impossible. Again, the bottleneck is not always a lack of time. Sometimes the bottleneck is that you're asking yourself to do something during a time where your energy doesn't match what's required of you. This doesn't mean that you necessarily have a time management problem when you can't get things done.

A lot of times you just have to rethink how you're allocating your energy, and this does mean slowing down to reflect and think about, well, when do I typically have more energy? Am I a morning person, afternoon person, night person? [00:23:00] What is required of me for me to sustain my energy? Do I need to be on a specific sleeping routine or schedule?

Do I need to eat particular set of meals or stay on top of my nutrition in a specific type of way? Or do I need to commit to doing this and this and this on these days and these other days so I can maintain my energy? You do need to reflect and be more aware about where you are allocating your time and energy, and just to figure out, how can I work on the tasks that require the most energy when my body has the most energy as well?

You want to align that. So pay attention not just to your time, but also your energy. All right. I'm starting to notice a shift in my energy right now too. So I think that means it is time for me to get closer [00:24:00] to wrapping up this episode. So if you're feeling stuck right now, here's a simple reflection for you to consider.

Think about the one goal that you're working on that feels particularly hard to complete. Then ask yourself, "Where am I consistently slowing down? Where do I keep getting stuck? What feels harder for me than it seems for other people?" And then go back to the five bottlenecks I mentioned earlier and think about whether or not it's one of those five.

Are you waiting until you have everything figured out? Are you waiting on someone else before you keep going? Are you trying to do too many things at once? Are you not matching the work that you need to get done with your energy? Are you trying to remember everything in your head? No matter what it is think about, okay, if I were to address this one bottleneck and then this issue improved by just twenty-five percent.

So [00:25:00] let's again go back to this example of you're trying to write more, and if you address one bottleneck, the bottleneck of trying to know everything before you get started. And if you address it and you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna take imperfect action and just write even if it's messy writing," and let's say your writing output increases by 25%, how much easier would everything else become if it increases by that?

If you notice that that would be a big change and it would positively impact your output and your ability to keep pursuing and reaching that goal, then you probably found a good place to get started. You've probably identified a solid bottleneck. And once you do that, of course, like I said earlier, keep making changes, keep reassessing, keep reiterating, and eventually you'll find yourself making more progress.

And [00:26:00] I also wanna mention even one of the things that I said earlier, like I talked about bottlenecks. My biggest bottleneck right now is capacity, and so because of that, it's similar to the bottleneck of having too many things to do at once. So because I have limited capacity, I do have to do less. And so I'm just telling you this that, like, this is applicable to all of us in our work.

Think about where are you feeling the most stuck. For me, it's capacity. What can you do to get unstuck? For me, it's how can I still reach my business goals and my personal goals even when having less energy and time for it? And then take your next action, and eventually you will get there. If you are someone who is dealing with grad school applications, if you're working on a dissertation, if you're in the middle of a career transition, I'd love to hear from you.

This is the kind of [00:27:00] work that I do with my clients. As I said earlier, this is all the stuff that comes up. I'd love to support you. Please check out the link in the show notes to learn more about me and my services. And of course, if this episode resonated with you, please feel free to reach out to me.

Please share it with a friend or anyone else who could benefit from it. And that's it for today. Until next time, please keep taking care of yourself. Please keep doing the work that matters to you, and as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and curated podcast playlists to guide you through applying to and navigating grad school.

The third way to support my show is by joining [00:28:00] my email newsletter, where I share key takeaways and additional resources. Thanks again for listening, and until next time.