It is a rare entrepreneurial physician, or any wannabe entrepreneur, who does not encounter a period of feeling completely bogged down. Stuck in the morass of doubt, lack of knowledge, or overwhelm.

For someone who is accustomed to feeling confident and knowledgeable about his or her work activities, this can be a scary experience. And the discomfort can be enough to halt the aspiring entrepreneur's efforts and send him or her scuttling right back to a satin-lined coffin job.

A recent book, Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths, by business and career psychologist Timothy Butler of Harvard Business School and CareerLeader, offers insights to walk you gently out of the sticky mud and onto a new path.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have not yet read the book - I have it on order. Instead, I offer you an excellent article and review called Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.

The key take-home points of the article are:

• The experience of being stuck is a combination of feelings and thoughts that tend to appear gradually, rather than arriving overnight
• When we are stuck, our somewhat static version of reality is no longer working for us. Reality in fact is dynamic and changeable. And we have gotten left behind. So continuing with our usual approaches to problem-solving will not help us break through.
• Being at an impasse suggests we need to change our whole approach to and even understanding of, the problem. We need a fresh perspective.
• The 6 phases of being stuck are:

1. The arrival of a crisis
2. The deepening of the crisis
3. We finally realize that our old model isn't working
4. We begin to listen better and to be open to a new type of information
5. We experience deepening of insight into the patterns of the self
6. We take action

• Without the experience of being stuck in one place, ....."we cannot grow, change, and—eventually—live more fully in a larger world". It is our ability to work through our "stuckness" and to learn the lessons this challenge offers that encourage us to move on to new adventures and avenues of self-discovery.
• What awaits us beyond the impasse is the unknown -- "how our life is going to open up next. It's pretty scary and also pretty exciting".