Feeling lost in your 20s? You can free yourself quickly

Feeling lost in your 20s? You can free yourself quickly and maybe quicker than you think. The tips below may inspire you to take some new actions so you can get yourself to a place of feeling better fast.

Feeling lost in your 20s

Feeling lost in your 20s is kind of normal

Feeling lost in your 20s is (unfortunately) part of the process

If you’re feeling lost you might be feeling embarrassed about it, or like you’re being ridiculous. Aren’t the 20s supposed to be some of the best years of your life? You’ve got a bright future ahead of you. You’ve got your youth. And most 20-year olds are also in great physical health. You should be feeling grateful and excited not feeling lost. Right? 

The answer to that is: NO! Feeling lost in your 20s is part of the process. You’re still figuring your life out. Most 20-year olds don’t have it all together. Most have bouts of uncertainty about their direction in life. Take a moment to tell yourself to breathe and chill out. It’s okay to be feeling lost in your 20s. It’s also not that hard to find yourself again.

Here’s why you are feeling lost in your 20s…

Statistically, the occurrence of feeling lost in your 20s is growing rapidly. This is due to a variety of factors but the biggest reason is the Internet. It has changed the way people live and work globally. It’s opened up so many pathways of opportunity. If you’re in you’re 20s your bound to be confused and more than previous generations were.

You’d think having more options would be a good think. You’d think it would give you freedom but that’s not true. Options complicate things. Too much information coming at you warps your energy. It makes you confused. This is why feeling lost in your 20s is a growing experience. There’s a name for it: The Quarter Life Crisis. And you can experience a quarter life crisis anywhere form 20-40 and multiple times!

Feeling lost in your 20s can feel isolating because you think you shouldn’t feel that way. Most people don’t share openly about feeling lost which is why it’s not often talked about. But feeling lost is 100% normal. So take that too heart. It might help to remember that you’re not alone.

How to free yourself when you’re feeling lost in your 20s….

Accept the process

The first thing to do when you’re feeling lost in your 20s is to accept that feeling lost happens. It’s happening to you now. It will likely happen again. Periods of feeling lost is a human experience. Life is not perfect. There are ebbs and flow to the journey. When you’re lost, simply consider that you’re in an ebb period and you’re on your way to clarity. It will come. This time will pass. The way you feel will pass. It’s inevitable.

After you normalize what you’re going through by owning that this is part of the process for everyone then you can take some actions to feel better as soon as possible, gain clarity and jump back into action.

Ask yourself these questions…

It might be time for you to ask yourself some deeper questions about your role in this world and what you want to do with your life. When you answer these questions it will help you formulate future you’d like to see yourself achieve. When you decide what you want and you begin taking action you’ll feel much better. The questions to ask yourself when you’re feeling lost in your 20s are:

1) What do you want your life to be about?

2) What you want to contribute to this world?

3) What do you want to experience in life?  

These are the questions to start to consider. You may have some answers. Or you may not. It doesn’t matter whether you have answers or not. What matters is that you start to think and get curious about these things. Start exploring and researching options conceptually. Start visualizing your future and thinking about what you’d like it to contain.

What do you love to do now? 

What are you passionate about?

Answer these questions and start taking actions in that direction. Let your passions, your heart, your deep desires lead you and figure out how to fit the rational pieces in. For instance, if you want to be a musician go be a musician! But if you also want to make money figure out how to combine those two things. The easiest way is to find someone who is doing what you want to do. Start learning, start modeling them. It’s definitely a place to start.  But remember: Passion first, logistics second.

Do lots of different things

Explore. Dip your toe in new experiences. Think about what you’d like to do and try. Then, take ACTION. Go try them. Test the waters. The sooner you are able to discern what you want and don’t want the sooner you’ll see a clear path. Don’t stay in your box. Get outside yourself! You’re options are limited by what you know. And so, be in the pursuit of gaining new knowledge. It will give you an edge. It will help you see the direction you want to go in.

Go to work on you

In a world that conditions us that success is about external validation, the best thing you can do at this time in your life is go to work on you. Learn how to communicate like a master. Discover how to become influential. Learn how to control your emotions. This is what truly gives you the power in life to do anything.

Emotional intelligence training – focusing on building your personal skills of thinking and communication – will allow you to achieve anything you want. When you work on your own personal power you take that power everywhere you go. You experience a new way of living. You learn what success really is.

Tap into the resources around you, seek out new ones. Learn how to generate ideas. Discover how make money from ideas (aka build businesses)

And then, learn how to shift your emotions so when you feel bad you can flip the switch to feeling good. It’s powerful and it will give you strength when you are confused and feeling lost in your 20s.

You can start now. Start here. Go read some articles or grab so free personal development tools. If you want more info on quarter life crisis, grab this: Quarter Life Crisis ebook – free copy 

Related articles:

 

Feeling lost and confused? How to free yourself

Feeling lost and confused happens to everyone one or more times (usually more)  in their life. It’s an excruciating experience. Being directionless is mentally agonizing. This is because when you have no plan for your future because you’re unclear about your next steps, you’ll be paralyzed when it comes to taking action and making progress. You’ll feel and be totally stuck. So what do you do to gain some mental relief? How do you free yourself from feeling lost and confused? Read on…

Feeling lost and confused

Feeling lost and confused?

Feeling lost and confused? How to free yourself

Like a seasoned surfer that surfs the waves you need to do the same. You’d never see a surfer trying to surf against the wave, against the current? That would be illogical. It would be totally ridiculous.

So the first thing to do when you’re feeling lost and confused is allow yourself to feel that way. Don’t resist it. Just be in the space of being lost and confused. Do your best to stop trying to solve your problem. You will want to because people are inquisitive. Humans like to know WHY. We like to solve things, especially our problems. Though, when you find yourself trying to force yourself out of feeling lost you’ll make it worse.

The first thing to do is to get that you feel lost and confused right now. Know that it’ll will pass soon. Surrender to how you feel. Continue to engage in your regular life. Do your best to relieve your mental agony by pursuing activities you enjoy. Having some fun just for the sake of it is a good way to handle feeling lost and confused.

Consider what you used to do for fun when you were a kid. Paint? Sing? Dance? Play a sport? Pick one activity and go do it. It’ll connect you to you and may drum up some inspiration. It might even be the thing that frees you.

Feeling lost vs. feeling lost and confused and totally in the dark!

There are two types of feeling lost. Sometimes you find yourself feeling lost simply because you haven’t decided what your next actions are. Sometimes it takes simply considering your options and choosing your next action. When you start to take new actions you’ll feel better. You’ll gain traction.

But sometimes, it’s far worse. You feel lost and totally and utterly confused. No matter what you try to do you have no idea where you’re going in life. The more you try and solve the problem, the more you entertain ideas and mentally visualize possible futures, the less clear you feel. The experience is one of being completely in the dark or in a fog in your mind. You question everything. You question your future, your past, the actions your taking now. It feels like a full on existential crisis.

There’s a term for feeling lost and confused that many spiritual leaders use: “the dark night of the soul”. When you’re in a dark night period it’s suggested that it’s because you come out of a major period of personal transformation (many times it comes after a major personal failure or loss). It’s like you’re shedding a piece of who you used to be and a new, more advanced and full of wisdom you is going to emerge.

What this means, is the dark night stage you’re experiencing is a GOOD THING even if it doesn’t feel like it.

What to do about feeling lost and confused

Once again, the best way to get through it is to surrender and wait it out. It’ll pass. The sooner you surrender the faster you’ll speed the process. The faster you’ll get to feeling great again. And when you are feeling great you will be bursting with ideas and inspiration and power!

Surrendering doesn’t sound fun though, does it? Especially when it feels so excruciating when you don’t know what to do. Or if you are depressed. So how do you relieve the mental agony? Here are three tips…

Step 1: Believe in something bigger than yourself

Anytime you feel yourself being pulled down by the negative emotions you’re going through that’s when you have to dig deep and conjure up some major belief. Believe that this stage will pass like all other periods in your life. Emotions are transient. They don’t last forever even it feels like they will.

Believe that when the fog clears you’ll wake up one day with major inspiration. Believe that a more powerful you is emerging. If you’re able to grasp onto these beliefs it will help. If these beliefs don’t work for you think of some empowering ones to have. You might want to simply keep saying to yourself :”this will pass soon”.

Step 2: Be a tad more selfish than usual

Do what you got to do to feel better. That might mean sleeping in one day (or more than just one). It might mean having some alone time away from friends and family. It might mean sitting on the couch watching reality TV and eating some ice cream and crying. Allow yourself to feel the negative emotions. Don’t indulge them but feel them. Let yourself purge. Allow yourself to be imperfect. Let yourself be human.

It’s okay to fall off your “keeping it all together wagon” sometimes. Just don’t get stuck in it. DON’T pity yourself. DON’T be a negative tornado around other people. And communicate with the people you love. Tell them: “I’m feeling a bit directionless and uncertain right now I might need to have more alone time than I usually do so I can work through it”, or “I’m sorting out what’s next for me and it doesn’t feel great. If I’m being too negative please know I’m working through something and it’s not about you. I won’t feel bad if you need some space away from me right now”.

DO take positive actions – like going for a massage or taking a bath – to lesson the emotional sting. Go an get lost in an activity.

Step 3: Ask empowering questions

You’re in control of what you say to yourself and other people. Be aware of what you ask yourself. Most people in a dark night stage find themselves asking questions like:

  • “Why is this happening”
  • Why me?”
  • It’s all their fault”
  • Will this ever end?”
  • “Am I depressed”.

If you ask yourself a disempowering question you will get a disempowering answer. You’ll reinforce your negative swirl.

Instead, ask: What’s next for me?

A better question to ask is: “what’s next for me?”, “Universe (or whatever God you believe in), what would you have me do right now?”. Ask positive questions. And remember: The quality of your questions match the quality of the response you get.

If you’re feeling lost and confused, today take one action forward. Action is the fastest way out of feeling lost. Any action. Action equals new results and it will move you forward when you’re stuck. So, if you cling to any advice in this article let it be this: Take one new action.

You may also want to read: