It happens to many people that, without knowing how they got to that situation, they compare themselves with others and notice how at some point in their lives they stopped being on the path that leads to what they would like to become, to what they would like to become. what you would like to be spending your time on.
This is what happens when we reach an age where we consider that we should have already achieved certain goals and, looking around us, We have the impression that the people around us have advanced in their lives and we have remained stagnant.
It is a type of discomfort in which dissatisfaction with what we do and with what we have achieved so far, which seem banal or meaningless experiences to us, is combined with low self-esteem to the point that it is difficult to know where one thing ends and where the other begins. Let’s see what to do in the face of this experience, and what to do.
The vital crises linked to that feeling of stagnation They are multi-causal and complex phenomena, so there is never a single cause or a single trigger. Now, there are several psychosocial aspects of special relevance when explaining the majority of these situations, and they are the ones that I will explain to you below.
1. The myth of personal success
The way we assess whether we progress or remain stagnant in life is usually mediated by the concept of “success,” or at least what we consider success to be. This, in turn, is strongly linked to a series of experiences that we do not consider positive because we give them meaning through our own means, but because through social dynamics have been praised for years, decades, as representations of everything to aspire to. In other words: in most cases, the more we become obsessed with achieving that concept of success, the more we are at the mercy of obsessions that have been artificially created simply to have something that represents the unattainable and the exclusive.
Here we have another example of the way our idea of “what we should become” It is strongly influenced by expectations that have been in place for a long time and that we have internalized and assumed as if they were our own. Gender roles make us feel certain behaviors as inappropriate for a man or a woman, and this predisposes us to feel alienated from much of what we would really be interested in doing with our lives.
3. Social pressure
At a more “micro” level, but staying within the scope of social phenomena, we have the social pressure that we sometimes receive from our family, our circles of friends, or even sometimes from the community that makes up our life. neighborhood or our town neighbors. Our way of imagining what we should become too It is delimited by what we believe these people consider acceptable or unacceptable, desirable or undesirable.
4. The fear of opening up to new projects and experiences
Not everything is due to what comes to us from outside, from the society in which we are inserted or have been inserted; There are also personal aspects that lead us to self-sabotage in the processes of personal development. And one of the most important is the fear of giving ambitious new projects or new lifestyles a chance.
There are those who maintain an overly conservative perspective when deciding what to do with their own lives and decide, for example, that once they reach a certain age they can no longer choose another professional career, despite having evidence that they learn on their own about other disciplines for their own interest and who, even despite not dedicating themselves to it, have made great advances, which could be multiplied if they invested more hours in it, and even though precisely at that stage of life they already have an economic stability that It allows you to experiment more with what you do. Furthermore, this fear leads to self-confirmation bias, reinforcing that vicious cycle of passivity in the face of opportunities for change that appear on a daily basis.
If the discomfort is very intense and/or has been part of your daily life for several months, the most effective and recommended option is seek professional help in the context of psychotherapy ; In this way, your case will be attended to in a personalized way and you will have continued support throughout the process in which you are given guidelines and exercises to better manage your emotions and the way in which you interpret your reality and relate to it. But beyond the scope of therapy, there are some general tips that can help you; They are the following.
1. Reorganize priorities and reconnect with your own values of the present
In most cases it is necessary to re-examine ourselves and not assume that what we want corresponds to what we liked a decade or more ago. What it’s all about is starting from the present moment and treating ourselves like a real person, not as a continuation of someone who existed a long time ago and who set expectations that have not been met. To do this, putting our concerns and thoughts into words in a journal is usually very helpful.
2. Propose at least one exciting long-term project and start from there
This project should not even be profitable nor should it be professional in nature; The important thing is to break with the routine and enter a dynamic in which we can demonstrate to ourselves that we have a great capacity to learn that does not radically decline with age; once you have taken that step, It will be much more spontaneous and easier for you to continue proposing things that are meaningful to you.
3. Stop seeing failures as something purely negative
Gaining experience and exploring opportunities involves making mistakes and failing; There are no short cuts. What it is about is making decisions responsibly and anticipating the possible complications that may arise and the implications of things going wrong, to improve. our resilience in the face of crises.
Related article: “How to learn from mistakes: 9 effective tips”
4. Do not have celebrities and influencers as references
If when you think about success you think of those people it is precisely because have been selected to represent that, because they are good at pretending to have self-improvement, money and fame, and they withstand the test of generating constant content about their lives without people getting tired of seeing it on social networks, advertisements, etc. But that does not mean, by any means, that you should have those figures as references.
5. Share your experiences with others
Personal development is never a purely individual phenomenon, and the only way to fully enjoy it is, in the vast majority of cases, to share our experiences, our achievements and failures with other people. This can be done by moving to incorporate into our social life the possibility of talking with people with projects or hobbies similar to ours, or with people interested in listening, talking about it and conversing from the role of learners or simply curious spectators. This type of social networks act as an element of motivation and support, even in the first phase in which we turn our lives around and start something exciting.
Do you want to start a process of psychological therapy to face an emotional crisis?
If you feel that you are going through difficult times and need psychotherapeutic assistance to turn the page and experience progress that brings you closer to happiness, I invite you to contact me.
My name is Pigeon King Cardona and I am a General Health Psychologist; I can offer you my services in person and through the online therapy format via video calls.
