40. When you feel directionless

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everyone, back for another week another episode discussing the weird and wonderful things of our twenties and all that they contain. But this week in particular, we're going to talk about such a unique feeling for this decade for many people who are listening, and that's feeling directionless, feeling really really lost, not really knowing what you're doing with your life. So I put this kind of poll on my Instagram asking what you guys wanted to hear this week, this one by far. So I'm feeling like a lot of the content we're going to talk through today, we'll resonate with quite a few people who are listening. And if that's you, welcome. Welcome to my kind of mismatched self help guide as to what you should do when you are feeling directionist, when you don't really know where you're going in your life. Why that's completely normal. We are here to reduce shame, reduce stigma. You don't need to know what's going on and hopefully in this episode we kind of cover why it's okay to be at this point and be at a kind of juncture in your life. I think a lot of people don't talk about how normal it is to really not know where you're going to be at a bit of a stalemate. It's definitely a feeling many people get. I've discussed this with my friends quite a lot, and although we're not always at the same point at the same time, I can promise you I think almost all of them have at some stage in their twenties felt really lost as to where you're going and where they're going. And you might be feeling like, you know, you don't really know what the next step in your life is, feeling helpless, emotionally numb, or like you've kind of lost a bit of energy and a little bit of spark, and many things can make you feel a bit directionless. In this decade, you know, we've exited our teenage years, but we don't yet feel like adults. We're seeing a lot of huge and sometimes first life changes and life events like the end of important relationships, missed opportunities. You know, you might have lost friends or family members, you graduated UNI or you've moved on to the next stage of your life, and sometimes that's met with this almost sense of I think blown out awareness that your life is not moving in the direction that you imagined. And like I said, it can be caused by a lot of things, but I think in this day and age, social comparison through social media is a huge contribute, and money, money as well, not feeling like you have enough, not feeling like you have the amount that would allow you to experience the things that you want. I think personally, I've seen this so much recently with everyone you know being overseas, and I think I created this narrative when I was younger that my twenties in my life would be defined by travel and going places and having a lot of fun and overseas hostels, and that hasn't really been the case, and it's really easy to feel like I've lost that sense of direction and ambition for my life. I think burnout as well. A lot of the times feeling directionless is really linked to our career. Jobs we don't like, jobs we don't want, and burnout is a huge part of that. And as I'll talk about later, a huge contributor to that sense of stagnation and that sense that you're not going at the pace or in the direction that you would like to be. I think it also is an entirely separate topic that deserves its own episode, the concept of burnout and that experience as you enter into the workplace, or you're exhausted by family and friendships, and sometimes you know you might not be quite sure why you're feeling lost. It's just this sense in your body in your mind that you can't shake that things are kind of aimless. You're just kind of floating from moment to moment and not really going anywhere. So there are heaps of reasons why you might be feeling lost right now, but there are also a lot of ways that you can kind of find yourself again. I think the main philosophy I'm going to be adopting in this episode is not that you need to figure out where you're going, but you need to kind of figure out who you are and what your values are, and the rest kind of falls into place. So why is this important in our twenties. I feel like that's pretty self evident. This is the first decade of adulthood, and it's the first decade in our lives the first time in our lives where we might be feeling like we have real responsibility and control over where our life takes us. We have to choose the jobs that we want. Things don't just fall into our lap. We don't have the structures of UNI anymore, the convenience of friends that are attached to school, or to some of those structures that were placed around us when we were younger, and as a result, it's really easy to sit back and feel like the vision you may have had when you were younger of where you want it to be, or the current vision that you have isn't really going along so well. I kind of also mentioned this, but big life events are extremely extremely significant when it comes to a sense of direction lists and the definition of what a big life event is is really up to you. You know, you may have been in a string of relationships or in a relationship that's ended, and you're feeling like, you know, the I know like love, or the state of your relationships isn't where you would like it to be. You might be feeling lost in terms of friendships, or maybe you're stuck in a place you don't want to be physically you're in a town or in a city that you don't love anymore, there's nothing new there, and there's that sense of I'm stuck, I don't know where I'm going and what the fuck am I doing? And we're here to say that's completely normal. Feeling lost in your life feels a lot like depression. They've done heaps of studies that a sense of I don't know, exhaustion and confusion about where you're going is really tied to a lot of other mental health experiences. And if you do feel lost, you might feel unmotivated and uninterested in the things that make you happy, which consequently means you no longer feel or recognize yourself and it just kind of spirals from there. So it's really important to look at this topic from a holistic lens, not just in terms of organizational psychology and saying or these are the X y Z steps that you need to do to get your dream job and get your dream life, because most of the time, once you get there, there's always something better on the horizon that you want more now. So I don't really think that's the healthiest way of going about it. It's more about cultivating a relationship with yourself, which means that no matter what life kind of throws at you, the life transitions that you have to undertake, even if you do feel lost and you are struggling with that, from time to time, you can kind of see the light of the end of the tunnel and a way forward. It's going to be okay. I think that's the one thing that I really want to stress. If you're listening to this, I'm guessing you're in your twenties, and I would just kind of invite you to think back on where you were ten years ago. Could you haven't imagined your life now and think about how young you felt then. I'm sure in ten years time you're going to feel exactly the same way about your current self as you do about your past self. We are so young, and you have your entire life ahead of you, and this is a decade for making mistakes, for trying things out, for not exactly knowing where you're going, but knowing it's all going to fall into place. I've experienced this quite a bit, and there was this tumbler post and I think about it all the time, So maybe it might resonate with you or make you feel better and I can't remember the exact ages, but it kind of gives us example of these famous people like Harrison Ford and Oprah and Meryl Streep. These people didn't find their dream careers or their dream lives until much later in life, and so you have time. There are people who haven't met yet who will be some of the deepest loves of your life. There are opportunities that will appear when you least expect them, and many opportunities you'll probably get to say no to life. I think just gives us many forks in the road, and the path you're on now it won't be the same path in five years. Sorry, this is a bit of a rambling intro, but I guess I've been feeling a little bit direction less at the moment, so this is a bit of a monolog before we get into the actual psychology and science. But I looked back, and I was doing this for this episode. I was looking back at journals from when I first started UNI, and I just thought that my life was going to turn out so much different than it actually has. And all those times that I did feel lost in the moments of let up to where I am now, I can see how it was actually steering me onto the path that now I'm really happy with. I didn't you get an internship in my last year of union, and I was super cut by it and I felt super directionless. But because that didn't happen, I did get a job I really wanted, and now I live in the city I never thought I would, And I've met people so unexpectedly who have made me see the world differently and restored my confidence and love of life, and I never would have imagined that for myself, and all those times I felt so lost and directionless, I can see now that there were all these things moving in the background that I couldn't have even fathomed that were kind of bringing me to a place in life where I did feel really happy. The only thing that's really promised in life, and I say this to my friends all the time, is change. So I promise you you won't stay stagnant forever, and even if you do, you can still be happy. But enough of that. For those of you who who are in a rut, I get it, I understand. So let's talk about how to move through those periods of feeling lost and feeling directionless, and how to push forward, big growth and big change and restore I think just your confidence that you will find a sense of direction and a path and a journey through life that will make you happy, even if you are, you know, stuck right now. So we're going to take a little bit of a different path, not an organizational path, not a path focused on career, but we really are going to talk about positive psychology, which is perhaps my favorite domain or area of psychology, and it's so important when we're talking about feeling directionless. So positive psychology for those who don't know about this kind of area of study, it's basically the scientific study of what makes life most worth living. And it focuses, you know, not on the brain. Doesn't focus on your behavioral responses or mental illness or mental unwellnessed. It focuses on individual and societal well being and how your subjective experience of life is influenced by your individual traits, your surroundings, the institutions that make up your life, the relationships, all with the aim of improving the quality of life. So I guess it's in the name. Positive psychology is focused really on how you can curate and build resilience and build the kind of life that you want, and it tells us, I guess, you can kind of see a lot about what to do when you're feeling directionless, and it gives us advice across all domains and phases of life. So I'm going to kind of break down some of the ideas that positive psychology has had about what to do when you are at a stalemate, when you are in that stage where things aren't really moving forward, and why it's not actually about changing things in your life, but changing how you see yourself. So I read this really interesting article from this psychologist about what she does when she's in a rut, and there was a couple of suggestions. Having confidence in your abilities was one of them, trying new things, not overthinking, and not focusing on the negative. So let's kind of break these down and hopefully give you a bit of an outlook on what you can work on in yourself to get yourself out of this sense of a stalemate, in a sense of not really going where you're going, not really knowing where you're going, going where you're going, well, going where you're going as well. I guess. So the first suggestion this person had, which I found really really interesting, was just having confidence in your abilities. I think the reason we sometimes feel directionless is because we don't really know what we offer. I found this when I was applying for jobs and I just was like, well, I can't see myself here because I can't see myself contributing anything. But if you've always loved something and dreamed of pursuing something as a future career, or you've got ambition or you've got goals, you're a lot further along than I would say most people. And I think what's really stopping us from taking, you know, what are sometimes necessary grand leaps in life is because you're allowing insecurity and a lack of confidence in your abilities to kind of interrupt the steps you need to take to reach that a higher self and reach the point where you are content with where you're going and what's around you. So it's all about identifying what your strengths are. What do you bring to the table that others don't, even if it's really really small. Maybe you are really good at having conversations with other people, or you're a really good listener, maybe you're creative, or you have some unique skill that you know not everyone has, and chances are there will be an avenue to pursue that in one way or another that can bring you happiness. It's important to identify what makes you happy, what are you good at, and how can I leverage that to kind of push my life forward. That being said, sometimes it's best to also branch out and try new things, try a little bit of everything. That's what this person suggested. So if you have literally no idea of what you want to do, you are completely okay. That is a completely okay scenario to be in. This is the advice this person gave and I absolutely love it. When I first moved to Sydney, I was feeling really lost. I wasn't working, I didn't really have many friends here, and I just tried everything and anything, anything that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I did random little nick knack jobs that I found on the internet. I push myself into new spaces and hobbies that I hadn't thought to pursue before. And that's exactly what you should do. Restore. Restoring confidence in your own abilities the things that you already acknowledge yourself about yourself is one thing, but trying other things you never know what you're going to be good at and you'll probably get a confirmation of what you really want to do and the things that you're really interested in, and it will hopefully narrow it down a little bit. Maybe part of trying everything is getting out there, going in new places, and you realize that the thing that makes me happy is traveling or is being able to move around, and take that and don't forget it. Bring it into the fold of your life plan, integrate it into what you think your future has installed. Because you're the best person to be able to recognize what you really love and what your future dream life can look like based on the things that you've tried, the experiences you've had, and what you've learned. Don't overthink it. It sounds really simple, I know, and I hate giving advice that is so simplistic, But I think probably the worst thing that I did when I was feeling like I was in a rut was just ruminate and obsess over what I was doing wrong, how stuck I was, how I was never going to push myself forward, and those negative beliefs and those negative kind of self cycling patterns of thoughts will become your reality and the next time you need to make a big decision or try something new, or apply for a job that you think will make you happy. That little voice in the back of your head that is saying, oh, no, we're stuck, We're never going to move forward, isn't going to have full confidence in that decision, and you might end up not going forward or citing backwards. You shouldn't overthink it. Let life happen, Let yourself be in the moment, because big changes are really scary, and so is feeling stuck and lost. But if it feels right, just do it. Just overthink it, take that random job. I always think of my friend Meg, who moves around and just does the most amazing things because she just jumps at it and she doesn't look back. I think this goes hand in hand with the next piece of advice that positive psychology might give those of us who are feeling a little bit stuck right now. Don't focus on the negatives. That is a lot harder for some people versus others, especially those who are just naturally pessimistic. I think we often see people who have a negative outlook on life as having some kind of control over that, but there are just people who think that way. There are optimists and they're pessimists in the world, which is totally fine. We love our differences on this podcast. But if you are someone who kind of always sees things as not working out or is really pessimistic about your future or what might go right for you, and you're focusing on what might go wrong, it's important that you kind of don't focus on that internal voice, but focus more on external reward and pursuing things that validate a different belief in your mind that things can get better and things will go right for you. One way that a lot of psychologists suggest doing this is through scheduling positive reinforcement around your goals, so that when you are struggling with where you're going, you don't fall back on thinking that life sucks and isn't going to give you what you want. So scheduling positive reinforcement might involve rewarding yourself when you take actions towards the life that you want, even if they're small, and making it so that you're not just dependent on fate and good luck and factors outside your control to feel positive about your choices. So those are some of the pieces of advice that positive psychology kind of gives to us. But there are some other more meditative practices, I would say, more mindful practices that we see across a few domains of psychology that I think are really also important to integrate into this and into our personal narratives around when we're getting stuck. So if we've talked about what positive psychology can do for us, but what about kind of a different vein, I really want to talk about the role of values in recentering our lives and giving us direction, because this is something that I think is a lot more tangible. It's not around you know, how you feel about yourself and your thoughts and your experiences, but is direct actions and kind of a really yeah, an actionable way to restore restore your faith in yourself that everything is, you know, going to be okay, You're going to figure it out. I saw someone explain this really well, and why our sense of value, our values as well, not just our sense of value, but our values, our sense of mission and passion and connection in life is really important in the time, in these kind of tough times that I'm sure many of your experience experiencing right now. It's also about separating yourself from external things you are not just work. You are not just your career. I say this to myself all the time when I'm feeling really burnt out or feeling really stuck in my job. You're not just how much money you have either, And you're not just your relationships. You are made up of many, many amazing and individual components that aren't always externally motivated or externally driven, but are just as important and really important to rest and to kind of rely on in times like this. So this person, I thought this was a really interesting concept. They describe this idea of a win, and your win is kind of the thing or the essence of yourself that will help you get out of a rut, and you know, center back on what you have to offer, where you want to go, and what you're doing. So your win win is kind of interchangeable with your sense of self is comprised of these five elements, so mission, profession, connection, passion, and vibration. This sounds really spiritual, but I promise it's tangible as well and quite scientific. A lot of psychologists and psychology as a field of study, identify that our sense of self is not a singular thing. It's made up of a lot of different aspects, and rarely do you find someone who's mission, profession, connection, passion, and vibration all aligned. So they're all equally important and you can't be nicing one or the other. So let's just break down what these are and why it's important to really write down and state exactly what these five elements of yourself mean to you if you're trying to push yourself into the next chapter. So your mission is kind of your overarching objective. It's the why in your question of existence. And you know this feels really scary, but it's kind of your guide star. It's going to tell you what kind of course of action and what course you want to take to reach that kind of ideal self and that ideal life that we're all kind of striving towards. Your mission can be really really simple, and it can be whatever you want it to be. Maybe your mission is to become a doctor. Your mission is to travel as much as you can. Maybe your mission is to start a family. Maybe your mission is just to have a lot of friends, to be happy, to live in nature. Whatever you want it to be, it is the one thing that you can rest back on and say, even if everything else goes to shit like this is my goal, this is where I'm heading. Your profession is kind of the application of your unique skills in a manner that you know typically serves the mission, but not always. So it's kind of the things you'd put on your resume if you were applying for a job, or it might be your job. It's the kind of things in your life that make up your working life and your career. And yeah, the application of skills is probably the best way to say it. And it kind of links back to the having confidence in your own self and having confidence in your skills. So your profession is the things that you can identify that make you valuable. Maybe it's writing, maybe it's speaking, Maybe it is like very distinct you know, characteristics, attributes, whatever you want to call them, Like your job. Maybe it's your job title. Maybe it's you know, the volunteer experience you had. It's the tangible things that you can say, Okay, this is what I've done, this is what I have, and this is what is different and important about me. Often they're applied to your career, as the word profession kind of says, But if you're someone who that's not really part of your own goal. They can be as unique and different as you want them to be, but they're your skills. Next, you have your passion, and your passion as you could as you could be kind of sense might be different from your mission and your profession. Your passions transcend, They kind of transcend the things that we feel required to do, and they're the things that we are excited to do. And you don't always have to derive some kind of you know, money or worth or direct kind of impact on your mission from these. You know, you might just really like knitting or fishing and that might be your passion. You don't need to make money off of it. It's not going anywhere. You can just do it and enjoy it. Like for me it's rock climbing, it's making this podcast, this podcast, you know, it's you know, as much as it's important to me, I have a job outside of this. It's not my mission. It's just something that I really love doing that makes me enthusiastic, and it's the application of my profession and of my skills. So it builds me up in a way that's different to my career and different to my long term goals, but it's still important because it makes me feel good, and it's kind of creates an identity that's separate from my working life and separate from my relationships and from other things that feel really immovable. Your passion is kind of the deeper essence of who you are, and that brings us to connection. Connection is the relationships you have with others. These are important to think about when you're feeling like you're lost or you're feeling like you're direction lists, because chances are there are people who are looking at you thinking that you have everything together, people who love you as well, and that sense of connection, even in times of feeling really lost, is important to think back on and to think about and to kind of bring to the actions that you want to take to achieve your goals. Even if everything goes wrong, you know, you might still have that amazing relationship with your best friend or with your parents. You will always have people that love you and will support you and who you can enjoy and spend time around. So the final element of our win of the things that make up our self and which are important to really think about and ponder when you're thinking about the direction of your life, is your vibration. It's the state of being that extends way beyond your relationships. It extends beyond your profession, your passion and your mission. And it's kind of how you represent yourself to the world, not in terms of your skills, not in terms of your relationship, but in terms of your vibration. What are you kind of bringing to the world. You a happy, bubbly person, Do you have this kind of warm energy? How would you see yourself through the eyes of others, and what kind of energy do you bring into spaces? Vibration to me, it's kind of probably the most important, although I know I said none of them are more important than the other, but it is completely separate from you. It's obviously related, but it's separate from the other things. No matter what happens in your life, you get to choose the energy that you bring to your endeavors and that you bring to your life, and the passion that you have and the things that you enjoy and the things that you notice. So your vibration is kind of that sense of where you're standing in the world and what you kind of want to put forth. So this psychologist says that it's really important to focus on all of them at the same time in times when you are feeling a little bit lost, because it allows you to find meaning beyond the things that we normally feel directionless about, like work, like education, like careers, and recognize that your sense of self is tied to you know, many many other things. Who you present, you know, how you present to the world, the person you are. It doesn't always have to be about what you're achieving and where you're going, but about the you know, but about how you treat others, the connection you have with others, where you find enjoyment. So the way that I bring this kind of idea of the wind into steering myself back onto the course that I want is through this journaling exercise that I find so fulfilling and as it also kind of serves as a really good real time indicator of what's kind of going on in my life, what I want and what I'm achieving. So there's this it's this journaling exercise, and it asks you to think about your life in three months, Picture what your ideal self in three maybe even six months. What are they doing, who are they surrounded by, how are they making I don't know, money, what are their passions and what brings them happiness. Sit down and plan out the key elements of what your life looks like. So for me, I did this a couple of months ago, and I said, in six months time, I'm going to have you fifty thousand listens on the podcast, and I'm going to have amazing friends in this new city. It's almost like a manifestation, this is what I want. And the next part of the exercise is more tricky, but if you push it, you'll find that it's not as difficult as you think. Think about how you can reach that state. What exactly are the actions you need to take, even if they're small, that's going to allow you to realize that ambition for your life. Really think about it. If you know your job, if you want you know you're one of your pictures of your life in six three months, whatever you choose is I'm going to be working in a job that I really love. The actions would be, you know, apply and try different jobs, Try different jobs. Think about and identify what's important to me in a job. Think about what makes me happy and what I want to do and what I drive enjoyment out of. If it's being around animals, you kind of know that having a job that you love in six months probably needs to involve some element of that. If you love being outdoors, you know, a bad action would probably be to start applying for office jobs, because it's unlikely that's going to allow you to reach that goal, that six month goal of having a job that you like. So if you are feeling direction list, it's something that I really recommend is just sitting with your vision and your thoughts of what you want in the future and writing it down, writing exactly and as explicit and detailed as possible. What do you want, even if it's grand, even if it doesn't seem achievable. Where do you want to be in six months? What are you doing in that day, you know, six months time, on a Tuesday or Wednesday? What is your daily life like? And how can you get there? What are the actions you need to take? And I promise you things kind of fall into place. I think also people notice when you're trying to get yourself out of a rut, and opportunities will fall into your lap as you work towards them. I think this is a shorter episode, but that's really all I wanted to say. That's what I wanted to talk about. It's more of just my thoughts on this topic because it's something I've been feeling. I've been feeling just super burnt out and for the first time I think in a while, not having a clear vision or goal of where I want my life to be. But that's also super freeing because I know that this is the time when I can try many, many things and fall back on my relationships and screw up and fuck up and quit jobs and do whatever I want, and it's all going to be all right, because this is the decade for making mistakes and figuring things out. So if you're feeling directionless, I get it, But I also would like to remind you that you're not alone. So many people during this time feel exactly the same way, and so many people before you have as well, and always always works out. Thank you for listening to this smaller, shorter, but hopefully enjoyable episode. As always, if you have enjoyed it, please leave a review if you feel cool to do so on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you're listening right now. It really helps the podcast grow and reach new people, and it makes my day to see that people like this I don't know. I record these in my bedrooms, I write these scripts on my little laptop, and it is my passion. It's part of my win. So getting that kind of feedback that people like it and that it's resonating with people not only makes me feel really happy, but let's alone in this kind of weird, weird time. So thank you again for all of the support, and I will see you next week when we're talking about situation ships.