A former client came to me recently, requesting an emergency session. She was terribly distraught and had been up all night crying.
Over the course of a couple of months, the terrible realisation that she had chosen the wrong career and life path had begun to dawn on her. The industry she’d found herself in was turning out to be far less fulfilling than she’d hoped.
Although she’d climbed the ranks and become a director at the wellness centre she worked at, she found herself performing menial tasks more often than not in order to compensate for the chronic staff shortages that plagued her company.
She’d given up her passion for teaching gymnastics to kids in her spare time in order to take this job, and now felt the joy being sucked out of her day-to-day life.
This was an awful position for her to find herself in. She had mapped out her life after finishing college and had taken comfort over the past few years in knowing she was ticking off boxes, attaining her goals at work and getting ready to marry her partner of several years and start a family.
And now, her plans were being derailed. She could not shake the feeling that she was going to live a life of regrets if she continued on in this way. But she also had a great aversion to taking chances, “I’m not a risk taker!” she declared many times in our sessions.
Her problem is far from unusual. I would venture to say that nearly everyone spends a few sleepless nights every few years or even months, haunted by the thought that they’ve made some wrong choice or choices.
So, what do you do when you feel lost in life and realise you’ve been on the wrong path?
1. Understand that this lost feeling is here to tell you something.
“It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.”
― Dalia Lama
It might help to understand that our goals are merely pointers that lend direction and a sense of purpose to life. They are endlessly being redefined by us. The things we believed we wanted three years ago may have led us in the general direction of where we are now, but as we edge closer to them, they lose that quality of feeling like a true destination.
If we could trace the evolution of each goal, we would see it never really mattered whether we reached it or not. What mattered most were the moments of growth along the way, and the people and experiences these goals led us to.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
– Joseph Campbell
So, try to understand the meaning in the journey you have taken so far. In my client’s case, it was painful to feel that she’d invested this much time and energy in climbing up the ladder at her company, only to find she really didn’t want to be in that industry. But she really couldn’t have known that she doesn’t like chaotic workplaces, or that she loves being around children, or that she needs physical movement, until she experienced the lack of those things and began to long for them.
2. Start small, and think incrementally.
Maybe at this moment in time , you don’t know where to go, what path to follow, and it leaves you feeling lost and hopeless. Understand that you may not have access to the big answers to your dilemma right at this moment in time. In fact, most likely you WILL NOT have access to the answers you seek precisely because you are so entrenched in your problem. That is natural. But, what you do have access to are a set of a few possible things you can do today that will make your life a little bit better tomorrow. It’s easy to underestimate the power of simply taking those few small steps toward improving your current life, but you shouldn’t.
Starting and finishing small tasks sends a signal to the brain that order is coming, that the world immediately surrounding you is becoming less chaotic.
Cleaning your house or organising your email inbox or getting your taxes done might not seem to have anything to do with deciding what to do with your life. But they have the power to give you a small boost in self worth, and then you can be elevated enough to catch a glimpse of what your next move should be. Starting and finishing small tasks sends a signal to the brain that order is coming, that the world immediately surrounding you is becoming less chaotic.
3. Develop a routine, and stick to it.
If you are feeling out of sorts or anxious, consider your daily routine. Do you wake up at the same time each morning? And once you are awake, do you know what the rest of your day will look like? If you are waking up at different times each day, you might be interfering with your circadian rhythm, which can wreak havoc on your ability to concentrate and focus, and can also provoke anxiety and a sense of instability.
Allow the safety of a daily routine to hold you, and then let that lead you back to a place where you feel purposeful, surrounded by people and goals that really matter to you.
Some people mention that they have little choice as to their daily rhythm because long work hours basically dictate this. So, they have a routine and yet it leaves them feeling depleted and powerless.
If this is the case, I suggest you take back some of your autonomy by finding out what matters most to you, and insist on making time daily for that thing.
In my client’s case, it was gymnastics. I suggested she find a way to incorporate teaching kids again, even if she only had time to do it once a week. And then I advised her to take some time each day for her own practice. It is worth waking up half an hour early to begin the day with something that matters a lot to you.
The world is a big place and it’s natural to feel lost in it at times, especially in these days of uncertainty we have found ourselves in increasingly as of late, with the Covid pandemic in its third year now and a war raging on European soil as I write this blog post. It is natural to lose your balance in it all.
When this happens, try to see it as a passing phase in the many moons of your life, and then take a tiny step in any positive direction. Allow the safety of a daily routine to hold you, and then let that lead you back to a place where you feel purposeful, surrounded by people and goals that really matter to you.
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