How to Get Out of a Quarter Life Crisis

Our public narrative about what to do with our life is pretty clear. After graduating from high school and possibly college, you get to work. Sure, you might need a few internships or low-level jobs before you actually start working, but by the end of your 20s – and of course your 30s – you’ll be on a pretty clear career path. Great, but that rarely happens. He also overlooks that indefinite period, somewhere between 25 and 30, when you take stock of your life and wonder what the hell you’re going to.

If this sounds familiar, you may be in a quarter-life crisis: an experience of confused identity, mistaken purpose, and hopeless transition. And if you are anything like me, you feel lost, anxious and panicky . But you are not alone, even if you think so, and there are many ways to make it a little easier.

My own quarter life crisis and why you are not alone

The monster I fought had many heads: I wondered if I was building my career the right way, should I not give up my last career, or if I would ever be happy with any career. In a sense, since I graduated from high school, I have had over 10 jobs in a variety of fields including IT, night security, joinery, gold mining, retail, catering and professional actor. I’m a writer, which is great, but I still don’t know if this is right for me or not.

Several years ago, over a year and a half, I moved to a new city, broke off a four-year relationship and changed apartment three more times, asking myself questions at every step. I looked in the mirror and asked, “ What the hell am I doing? “By now I should have become [the profession of the dream of the week] … ” Things didn’t go as I expected.

I tried desperately to keep the youth slipping from my fingers, but I needed nothing but the legendary stability that adulthood brings. It’s an excruciating feeling of fear, insecurity and an overwhelming desire that everything was just “okay,” even though I didn’t know what that meant. But I knew that I was not the only one who felt this way. This monster is a quarter-life crisis, and this is very real for many young people.

If you feel the same way that I do, it will help you understand why this time in your life is generally so hectic. Ran Zilka, director of data science at Happify and author of Your Life ‘s Journey: A Guide to Finding Inner Peace from Coast to Coast , suggests that it all starts with how you are treated between the ages of twenty and thirty. You are probably just graduating from high school or just starting a career. You may be living alone and paying yourself for the first time, but despite your best efforts, you are receiving mixed signals from society as a whole. Older people consider you a “child” and respect you as much as one person. And if you’re “millennial,” a phrase that has different meanings depending on who uses it, you’ll get even less respect.

It is difficult to make the smooth transition to becoming a “real” adult when the world tells you that you are not. This manifests itself in the form of “impostor syndrome” , which is difficult to get rid of. However, as Zilka explains, you still feel trapped in the “feigned adulthood” trap of making a commitment and trying to grow up but never reaping the benefits. In the end, you fall apart too much and everything falls apart.

What psychologists say about the quarter life crisis

According to one study by Dr. Oliver Robinson of the University of Greenwich , entitled Maturity Rebirth, Early Maturity, and the Quarter Life Crisis: Erickson’s Renewal for the 21st Century , this time your life breaks down into five main phases:

• Phase One: You feel trapped in your life choices, such as work, relationships, or both. You are living on “autopilot”.
• Phase Two: You feel, “I have to get out of this,” and you feel a growing sense that change is possible if you just take the leap.
• Phase Three: You quit your job, end a relationship, or break a commitment that makes you feel trapped. Then you detach and enter a time-out period as you try to rediscover who you are and who you want to be.
• Phase four: you begin to rebuild your life slowly but surely.
• Phase Five: You have new commitments that are more in line with your interests and aspirations.

Most people come to the other end in a better mental state, but this period of uncertainty can still lead to intense pain and confusion. In fact, as Zilka notes, the average age at onset of depression has gradually declined over the past 30 years , from the late 1940s to the mid-twenties , and psychologists believe the quarter-life crisis is partly to blame.

Robinson says this dilemma affects a certain type of people most: those who try . If you strive for success, have strong ideals, and set goals you want to achieve at certain points in your life, you are a prime candidate for the frustration and confusion that such a crisis often brings. Basically, by trying my best and aiming for the stars, I was getting frustrated. I’m sure many of you can understand.

What you’re going through is completely normal

It has always helped me to realize that I am not alone. And like Paul Angon, author of All Groan Up: Searching for Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job! , says that going through a crisis in your late twenties is like gas from steak and cheese burritos – it’s almost inevitable, and you’re not the first person to feel this way.

Happy, successful people from all walks of life have experienced similar crises. Even your parents probably went through what you are going through now. In fact, I only felt better after talking to my father about being in his late thirties. Turns out he was just as confused and nervous at times, but he survived and is now even better. People pretend that success or satisfaction is all they’ve ever known, rarely want to divulge their past difficulties, but this is just a projection. Nathan Gelert, Ph.D., a psychologist in Washington, says it also helps to find solidarity and talk to friends, who can feel the same thing:

The best and first thing you should do if you are feeling stuck or unhappy is to start talking to your friends. I fought in the same way when I was 20 – it helped me remember that my perception of “lag” was not entirely accurate.

The discussions I had with my friends were usually about the same thing: we thought we knew what we wanted out of life, but we didn’t know how or when it would happen. However, the fact that we could talk about it with each other made it feel like it was a team effort; as if I’m not the only lost child in the group of well-minded adults who figured it all out. Gelert also recommends trusting a mentor outside of work – someone with whom you can be completely honest. Your situation is not unique, no matter how lost you feel. Countless people have gone through this, and so have you.

Use this turbulence to work on your emotional intelligence.

We asked clinical psychologist Jeffrey DeGroat, Ph.D., for advice on how to survive this moment in life, and he explained that the true source of this type of crisis is often within us and not in our environment. To remedy this, DeGroat advises you to work on improving yourself and how you deal with situations that cause you stress. The benefits of emotional intelligence are well known and are an important part of the work of coercion. In fact, according to two studies, one in Psychological Perspectives and one in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences , emotional intelligence is the best skill you can learn during this transition. This allows you to respond to your feelings without losing control or letting your emotions slip away from you.

Researchers suggest that the ability to regulate your emotions will emerge with age and experience, but you can focus on a few key components to speed up the process. Start by being more aware of your feelings and how you react to the people and situations you face. If you are struggling with this, start keeping a journal and put your thoughts and feelings on paper. Writing how I felt – like this – helped me a lot.

Know what you are talking about . Listen to the words you use and ponder over them. How do you sound? How would you interpret what you said? Get into uncomfortable situations and be careful about how you deal with them . Develop a healthy outlook on your life, stop feeling sorry for yourself, and use the amazing power of gratitude . We are all stressed, but if you can take a step back and appreciate the good around you, you will see that life is probably not so bad. You are not your emotions . Just because you are lost right now does not mean that you are, or that you will always feel this way.

Decide what makes you feel trapped.

It is impossible to miss what you are going through, just as there is a way to miss that time in your life. You can, however, recognize the phases, give up and rip off the proverbial patch to begin the recovery process, Robinson said. The first phase of your crisis is the feeling that you are “locked in”, so you need to identify what makes you feel this way and then get on with it. But before you start to change your life drastically, DeGroat suggests that you first work on what worries you:

When I meet people in their twenties who feel lost, insecure and boring in their lives, they often believe that if they change their lives, they will find direction, confidence, and inspiration in their lives. In my work with these people, there are a few general changes that people decide to make, including leaving their loved one, changing jobs, and moving to a new city. If these changes don’t help someone get out of a truly toxic situation, I often find that the person’s unhappiness persists even after the change has been made.

So before leaving your job, think about how you can make the most of the job you have. If you feel that you are not moving up, DeGroat invites you to explore the positions that interest you. Explore the official job responsibilities, talk to people who hold those jobs, and ask managers for advice on what to focus on. on the.

If you feel the area you are in is not for you, Nicole Crimaldi, author of the tips blog Ms. Career Girl invites you to explore various side business or volunteer work and test the waters of your other interests. and career growth instead of immediately immersed in work. I started writing, for example, when I had free time working in an office. It started as a hobby that turned into freelance opportunities and then my job. Of course, I took a chance and jumped off the cliff of my quarry, but I had a parachute. If you have a college degree, don’t let it define you or what you are capable of. I have a fine arts degree in theater performance, and here I am, so … You never get what you like or can do well if you don’t try.

If your relationship is what makes you feel stuck, consider if you can address the underlying issues that make you unhappy before you go out of line. DeGroat invites you to realize that the problem may be in you , and that positive change can be as simple as changing your behavior. For example, you may feel like your girlfriend is a stay-at-home and interferes with what you want to do, such as meeting friends. In this case, DeGroat assumes that you are actually trapping yourself and you should just do these things and not part with her because you couldn’t be assertive. Of course, some things are not meant to be. If you’ve already tried to fix your relationship problems, understand when it’s time to end the relationship and move on.

And before you move to a new location, do some serious research to make sure you don’t just have Greener Grass Syndrome and it won’t get worse. Once you have solved even one major problem that makes you feel trapped, you can almost instantly move from phase one to phase three and start rebuilding your life.

Don’t dwell on other people’s lives or their main videos.

It’s also important that you don’t compare yourself too much to other people, especially those who are more successful. I struggle with this all the time, and let me tell you that nothing tires you more than being obsessed with the impressive feats and possessions of someone your age or younger.

Stop being jealous of people on Instagram . These are just the highlights. Don’t let the biographies of famous people who have starred in feature films, led countries, or won Olympic gold at your age, upset you because you need more time to figure things out . If you can’t find a way to use these stories for inspiration, stay away from them. And when it comes to romantic relationships, don’t feel obligated to look for the “one” just because so many of your friends are getting married.

Everyone has their own path in life, and you should focus on your own, and not on someone else’s. DeGroat notes that this time in your life also means a deeper awareness of your interests, rather than the interests of others who may be in you. So when you find something you like, keep doing it. The sooner you give up what is expected of you, the better.

Manage your expectations and be realistic about what you can change

Unfortunately, Robinson and Zilka point out that the phases of a quarter life crisis can actually repeat itself several times over the course of your twenty and thirty years. Therefore, when you reach the fourth phase, the recovery phase, it is vital not to set yourself up to repeat the same mistakes. You need to manage your expectations and put these unrealistic notions of how your life “should be” to bed. You don’t have to give up on your dreams , but be flexible and adaptable in your pursuit of those dreams. Stop thinking about your life as “I am not where I should be”, but more about “I am where I should be right now.” From my own experience, this is the hardest part. But a little acceptance goes a long way .

This time in your life is a transitional period and you need to stay grounded. You can’t fix everything overnight, so be patient and set realistic goals that you know you can achieve. If, say, you have a huge student loan debt, just focus on implementing the strategy . Kill the fantastic hope that in the future you will have a “big pay day” that will destroy it all, and sit down to make a plan. Once you start creating realistic, manageable plans to deal with your most serious stressors, it will be much easier for you to protect yourself from the same type of crisis in the future. The transition into adulthood can suck, but I know we would definitely be worse off if it never happened.

This story was originally published on 6/27/16 and was updated 10/23/19 to provide more complete and up-to-date information.

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