I feel that I am left behind in life: what to do?

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 life 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 reached certain goals and, looking around us, we have the impression that the people around us have advanced in their lives and we have stagnated .

It is a type of discomfort in which dissatisfaction with what we do and with what we have achieved so far, which seem to us trivial or meaningless experiences, is combined with low self-esteem to the point that it is difficult to know Where does one end and the other begin? Let's see what to do with this experience, and what it should be.

The main causes of this type of crisis

The vital crises linked to this feeling of stagnation 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 it comes to explaining most of these situations, and they are the ones that I will explain below.

1. The myth of personal success

The way in which we assess whether we are progressing or stagnant in life is often 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 by our own means, but because through social dynamics they have been extolled for years , decades, as representations of everything there is. what to aspire In other words: in most cases, the more we obsess over achieving that concept of success, the more at the mercy of obsessions that have been artificially created simply to have something that represents the unattainable and the exclusive.

2. Gender roles

Here we have another example of the way in which our idea of ​​“what we should become” is strongly influenced by expectations that have been working 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 like to do with our lives.

3. Peer 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 relatives, our circle of friends, or even sometimes from the community that makes up our neighborhood or our neighbors in town. Our way of imagining what we should become is also delimited from what we think 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 new ambitious projects or new lifestyles a chance .

There are those who take an overly conservative view of what to do with their own lives, deciding, for example, that at a certain age they can no longer choose another career path, despite evidence that they are self-learning about it. other disciplines for their own interest and that even despite not dedicating themselves to it, have made great progress, which could be multiplied if they invested more hours in it, and even though precisely at that stage of life they already have economic stability that It allows you to experiment more with what you do. In addition, this fear leads to self-confirmation bias, reinforcing this vicious circle of passivity in the face of opportunities for change that appear on a daily basis.

To do?

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 to 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 continuous 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 realm of therapy, there are some general tips that can help you; are the following.

1. Reorganize priorities and reconnect with the values ​​of the present

In most cases, it is necessary to re-examine oneself and not assume that what we want corresponds to what we liked a decade or more ago. What it is about is starting from the present moment and treating ourselves as a real person , not as a continuation of someone who existed long ago and who had expectations that have not been met. To do this, putting our concerns and thoughts into words in a diary 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 into a dynamic in which we can show ourselves that we have a great capacity to learn that does not decline radically with age; Once you have taken that step, it will be much more spontaneous and easy for you to continue proposing things that are meaningful to you .

3. Stop seeing failures as something purely negative

Gaining experience and trying out 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 to crises.

4. Do not have celebrities and influencers as references

If when you think of success you think of those people it is precisely because they have been selected to represent that , because they are good at appearing self-improvement, money and fame, and withstand the test of constantly generating content about their lives without the people get tired of seeing that on social networks, ads, etc. But that does not mean, far from it, 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 hearing, talking about it and conversing from a role of learners or simply curious spectators. This type of social network acts as an element of motivation and support, even in the first phase in which we turn our lives around and start something exciting.