A career built on obligation leaves you stressed, stuck and feeling like something is missing. This article details how you ended up this way, as well as a simple process to help you slow down, reconnect with what matters and get back on track with your life.
What do you want to do with your life?
It’s an honest question, and yet it’s rarely asked once we’re an adult.
AN ALL TOO COMMON EXPERIENCE
As a child, we’re alive with possibility: we dream big and we play in whatever interests us. When we’re young, there’s no pressure to decide, so our idea of what we want to do when we grow up can change at a moments notice.
We see the courage of a firefighter or the helpful nature of doctor and instantly declare that we want to be like them. The very next day we could feel the excitement of being an astronaut or a president or a builder and change our mind, and that is perfectly normal.
We get asked, but we don’t feel any pressure in having to figure it out anytime soon. After all, we have nothing but time, and there’s fun to be had each and every single day. And then, all of a sudden we hit a certain age, often in our mid-late teens, where we’re encouraged to decide on something to do, pursue it, work hard and never give up, creating a life for ourselves, and many of us do exactly that.
We choose something, we study or learn a skill, we get a job, we change jobs. We navigate our way through creating a life that is expected of us: good career, house, maybe even kids…
Everyone has inherited their own version of what makes a good life.
There’s just one problem…
We don’t even know who we are when we’re encouraged to make that decision. We have foregone our childlike nature in the pursuit of becoming an adult, and from that point on, we were seldom encouraged to let our inner child out to play.
At an age well before we’ve even had the time to discover what life is all about, we’re pursuing a career. The opportunity to try things and get an idea about who we really are and what we actually enjoy doing is lost in favour of building a life that we think will make us happy.
We work hard because that’s what almost everyone suggests is the way forward. We settle for temporary reward and recognition and call that a life. We think nothing of stress, many even forego their health or relationships in favour of their growing career. We drink or smoke or take drugs to cope and pretend like we’re not quietly battling ourselves. We even surround ourselves with other people who do the same and seldom speak about how we truly feel.
Maybe we do have an interest in exploring something else, but society has subliminally outcast artists and musicians and creatives, embedding the fear and uncertainty of a successful career doing that, so playing in that realm is something that happens when there’s free time, an opportunity that rarely seems to occur.
Our life has become governed by a schedule, a to-do list, and a work ethic that we call healthy. We have a life that looks good: a beautiful home, a car to drive, weekend adventures, beautiful clothes to wear, brunches, lunches and dinners, even overseas holidays.
Yet when we get sick, when we struggle to cope, or when our relationships fall apart as a result of us working too hard, we treat these like individual problems that need to be fixed.
THE PROBLEMS WE FACE
All of these problems are evidence of a life that is being lived through force and out of alignment to who we really are.
Stress is often a sign that we’ve been pushing too hard for too long, but instead of addressing the root cause, we find ways to manage the stress. Some drink, some find yoga. Some explore better options for time management and/or productivity hacks.
When our mental health fails, we self diagnose, we take a pill, we find therapy. We find ways to better cope and improve our mental health without actually questioning why our mental health has deteriorated in the first place and addressing that.
When we get sick, we take a pill, visit a doctor or explore an alternative therapy that helps us get better as soon as possible without looking at why we got sick in the first place.
WHAT’S ACTUALLY GOING ON
You are rarely invited to look at your life and ask deep questions that would show why you are sick, struggling and barely holding it all together.
Are you actually doing what you want to be doing in the way you want to be doing it?
Are you actually happy?
Or have you sacrificed yourself and your own vision for life in favour of a life that looks good?
Are you spending more time building someone else’s dream instead of your own?
Are you actually listening to your body? Or, are you just doing the human equivalent of smashing out the fuel light of your car and continuing to drive in the hope that the car will last long enough to finish the journey?
We’re rarely asked these questions because as a society, we’ve placed more importance on the pursuit of a safe but successful life over daring to dream and exploring that. Our dreams were fine when we were a kid, but now we’re an adult, we’ve been unconsciously reminded to get our head out of the clouds, to live in the real world, and just get on with it. We have unconsciously put happiness and rest as something that we have to work hard to earn, not something that we place as the foundation of our life.
What of play and possibility and passion and excitement?
What of creativity and ideas and exploration?
What of adventure and pursuing things that inherently mean something to us as an individual?
Or has that all become less important now we’re an adult?
No wonder why so many are struggling whilst trying to put on a brave face and convince others they’re fine.
OVER TO YOU
So what of your life?
Are you doing what you actually want to be doing?
Or have you unconsciously created a life that you thought would make you happy, only to get to this moment, to read these words, and realise that you have, in fact, lost sight of what actually matters to you?
Look inside yourself and see if there’s any truth to these words.
Notice what stings, notice any emptiness, notice the futility of creating a life that looks good on paper but has you sacrificing yourself in order to maintain that.
And notice how hard you’re trying to hold it all together.
You are trying to hold together a life that you thought would make you happy, but isn’t. Not deep down anyway. It looks good. But it looks way better than it feels. And that’s not something a pill, a new habit, a doctor or even a therapist can fix.
Your life, your mind, your happiness is dependent on you doing what you love to do in the way you love to do it.
And contrary to popular belief, doing what you love doesn’t have an expiration date on it either. The idea of retirement (as but one example) only makes sense when you’re not madly in love with what you do.
And if you don’t love what you do, it means you don’t truly love who you are being either, because nobody loves their life if it’s built on obligation.
That, my friend, is a recipe for a mind that’s constantly at war with itself.
Not wanting to leave your safe and successful career, but also not wanting to keep going with it either.
You will not find peace, nor will you be able to truly rest until you discover what you actually want to do in your life.
And you cannot find what you truly want to do with your life until you discover who you are.
You find yourself when you find your joy.
THE PROCESS
The process is simple: slow down, (just for a moment!) each day, but do it for longer than initially feels comfortable. No phone. No music. Simply take notice of what continues to show up in that stillness, in that empty space.
Then, bathe in curiosity once again.
What feels most exciting to explore? Start playing with that. Set time aside to incorporate that into your life a little more and notice what starts to occur. That’s a little thing called joy, and it’s not something you have to work hard to achieve.
FINAL WORDS
If you’re feeling lost, stuck or confused about what comes next, stop looking outside yourself for the answers, and start looking within for what truly matters.
Your mind will slow down quite naturally.
Your reliance on coping mechanisms will fade. Your stress levels will drop. Your mental health will improve.
All of these experiences often lead people to believe that there’s something wrong with them, that they’re broken.
But you’re not broken.
You’re just using a broken system to run your life.
