What makes you keep growing when you've hit a wall?

**sophia_** · September 8th, 2018, 06:44 PM

(Sorry if there's already a thread like this) What do you seek out to inspire you when you're ready to give up? Sometimes, when my hair's behaving badly, I have to talk myself out of starting over. I personally find all my old pictures to see how far I've come along.

**akurah** · September 8th, 2018, 06:49 PM

I’ve upset myself a couple of times with two massive chops to waist. Lately nothing is comfortable except the L-finity bun, but i had to order unusually long hairsticks (7”, custom order) because the loops fall off my shorter ones. I’ve also been unhappy with how flat my scalp hair looks. Plus I recently saw pictures of myself with APL hair and it looked GOOD worn down.

The temptation to cut is definitely there, but what’s kept me on track is how unbelievably annoyed with myself I was just from cutting back to waist, which is still quite long.

**spidermom** · September 8th, 2018, 08:13 PM

The first time around, I made a goal to grow to classic length, and I reminded myself that I could do anything I wanted after I reached my goal. There were times when I wanted to give up my goal, but I would tell myself it would be good practice for when I had more important goals and needed to keep going through whatever I had to do to reach my goal.

I reached classic length, agonized over cutting back for 2 years, then finally got the lob that I was dreaming of, enjoyed it for a year and a half plus, then decided to grow out to waist.

Repeat.

**lapushka** · September 9th, 2018, 08:48 AM

You just tell yourself that if you cut... it's never going to get longer.

If you get to an awkward stage where it's difficult to get through and nothing works, your hair is blah, whathaveyou, just tell yourself, this will pass. In a few weeks it will already be different because it will have grown a bit, another two weeks and perhaps you're out of that "glitch". Whereas when you keep cutting you will undoubtably hit that "wall" again pretty soon and then it becomes a vicious cycle.

**Chromis** · September 9th, 2018, 09:56 AM

I just learn new fun ways to put it up! Sometimes styles stop working at certain lengths, which makes things feel awkward and frustrating. I find sometimes those work again later (cinnabuns were like this for me)

**MusicalSpoons** · September 9th, 2018, 10:05 AM

I occasionally have intrusive thoughts about cutting - intrusive because it's not something I want to do, but what scares me is they're often based on a tiny grain of truth, e.g. I have tons of split ends and to cut to somewhere like collarbone length would get rid of most of them. I don't *want* to do that, but one of the effects of intrusive thoughts is the fear that one might act on them anyway. So it's not the same situation, but to rationalise it and reassure myself, I visualise hitting my goal, I think about how many years it would take to regrow, and think about how much I don't know how to take care of short hair because all my styles and tools work on my hair at this length, not shorter!
(Ironically the intrusive thoughts are caused by anxiety that's totally unrelated to hair - how stupid is that?!)

When my hair is misbehaving, I get it up and away in whatever style I know will work, even if it's boring or unflatteringly tight, and focus on other things. If I can't ignore it, I'll shift my focus to how I'm looking after it and either experiment or learn new styles, or whatever. If all else fails, I might buy a new hairtoy and focus on learning to use that in different styles!