As much as I admire the sentiment here to change the surroundings that puts someone in the vicious cycle of negative thinking, most of these are impractical. Changing a job as easy as you say is a privilege most can't afford in my opinion.
I was in a rut and in sessions with a therapist became convinced that it was all my wife's fault. Now I don't have a wife and there's no hope of going back. A nebulous rut related to not having enough purpose or socialization in life has been replaced by a deep depression and crippling loneliness.
Don't worry about the grass on the other side of the fence. Watering your own lawn is often better than moving on.
My advice on how to dig yourself out of a rut - Spend a week focusing on making your loved ones' lives as happy and easy as possible. Removing a stressor from someone else's life will make you feel better about your own stressors. Making someone smile on the outside will make you smile on the inside.
There's always risk when making big changes, and relationships are probably the toughest change to make, since it tends to be a permanent one, but for some people, it's also the one they need most.
Sounds like it wasn't in your case, but unfortunately it can be hard to know for certain until you make the change, which sucks. I do wish that sometimes I could set a savepoint like in video games, try something different for a while, then be able to go back to the checkpoint if I'm not happy with the change. I'm sure I'd make more changes in my own life if I had the ability to do that.
I don't understand. It sounds like the situation vastly improved.
But it did seem to be more effective and easier than some other options at getting me out of the rut I was in at the time. Also when I actually pulled the trigger and put myself out there on LinkedIn, it ended up being easier to find a new job than I thought, although in fairness that was also in 2021 when tech hiring was still white hot.
By change friends, I just mean start going to meetups and meet some new people, find a couple other people you might like hanging out with. They can introduce you to new experiences that way. I've been doing that myself recently. Went to a dinner meetup with 8 people I've never met before just last Friday night, and a meetup at an Oktoberfest meetup with mostly new faces the week before that. And went back to a book club meetup I hadn't gone to since before the pandemic the week before that (and read a book I'd been meaning to read for a long time for it).
Changing which hobby you focus on isn't that hard either, unless you're trying expensive hobbies, but even then there's usually cheap ways you can experience them, like take a few lessons, or watch Youtube videos about it. But for me this wouldn't be enough, I already bounce around from hobby to hobby anyway. For someone who had only had one main hobby focus for most of their life though, or doesn't really have any hobbies outside of work, this could be enough to get them out of a rut.
Again these are ideas for changes and I only suggested changing one of them, not all of them. Some changes will be more suitable for someone based on their current situation than others. And really it doesn't even have to be these, they were just ideas. The main message was just 'Change something significant enough that you'll notice it'.
Like changing your breakfast cereal is likely not enough to get yourself out of a rut in life. But working out three times a week for six months and you start feeling better and healthier? That could be enough.