What happens when you realize you are not happy with where you are?
Maybe you should have gone to college but didn’t, maybe you started a family too soon, maybe you’ve driven important people away or even chosen wrong ones to be by your side.
Either way, there is a part of you that senses things are just not right but your conscious mind chooses to ignore the signs in order to avoid change.
It’s like realizing you have given so much to someone but failed to see how toxic and wrong they are for you.
That’s just how we humans are. We avoid change at all costs and we’re rarely brave enough to start our lives over (kudos for those who have though!).
Even if you try to fight it, your inner self will find ways to show you that you really do need to make a change, no matter how huge the change is and no matter how hard it would be to take the first step.
What are those sings, you wonder? Here they are:
1. You are looking back at your past through a pair of rose-colored glasses
For a person who desperately needs change, life as they know it, in the present, seems flat, dull and hopeless.
People in these situations tend to look back at their past as something perfect, even though they are aware, deep in their hearts, that things they are remembering weren’t that perfect.
For example, if you’re unhappy with your current relationship, you may be looking back at the relationship you had with your ex in a very unrealistic way.
You are probably forgetting about all the bad things that happened between you two and you’re most certainly concentrating on the romantic, fluffy, exciting things you two did together.
No matter all the wrongs he’s done to you, you only see the right things and that stops you from realizing you are actually with the wrong man right now.
If it’s your job you are unhappy with, I guess you are thinking of all the ways the job you had before was better, maybe even regretting quitting (if that was the case).
Yes, all of us revisit our past from time to time but if you catch yourself wandering off in your mind to candlelit dinners with your ex (or that time he brought chocolate when you were on your period), very often it is time to question what the things are in your present life that are making you unhappy.
2. You’re feeling indifferent
Nothing makes you happy anymore. Things that were a source of entertainment before are now boring.
Everyday little things that made you grin in the past, like having ice cream with your friends, simply no longer work for you.
From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, nothing seems to bring out the spark in you.
You are no longer excited by things, even if things happening to you are or should be exciting. It seems you can neither get very happy, nor very sad.
You seem to float in-between, untouched but generally dissatisfied.
Not being able to feel emotions to the core of your being is a clear sign you are not letting yourself feel something and that can often be your mind’s way of hiding your need for change.
3. Other people’s lives seem so much better
Every single one of us will sometimes feel as if our life is in a certain way worse than other people’s lives.
But also, in a neutral situation, there are occasions when we feel our lives are in a way better.
For a person in need of change, almost everyone’s life seems better than their own.
You might see a hungry person begging for money and still find ways their life is more exciting or more worth living than yours is.
If this isn’t a clear sign you need change, I don’t know what is.
Yes, the grass is usually greener on the other side but thinking pretty much everyone’s life is more thrilling than your own is a red flag in terms of needing a major change.
4. You’ve stopped caring about your appearance and health
If you reach a stage in your life when nothing you have planned for the future, or even for the rest of the day, makes you feel excited or energized, it is easy to fall into a rut.
You don’t spend much time picking out clothes, you’ve maybe stopped exercising under some fake excuse or you’ve started eating unhealthily.
Whatever one of the things above it is, you obviously no longer feel you have a need to prepare for anything, since you feel like you don’t even have a future.
If you really don’t have anything or anyone in your life to make you feel excited to get ready and go out, you should at least have enough confidence to want to stay happy and healthy.
If you notice this is no longer the case, it’s time to make changes.
5. You’ve made some new unhealthy habits or returned to your old ones
If you started smoking, drinking or developing any kind of addiction (even one of the harmless ones, like watching too much TV) or returned to an old lifestyle that was bad for you in the past, that’s probably a sign that you need to make a huge change in your life.
Your mind is trying to free all the negative energy buried deep within you and all that poison has to find its way out.
You falling back to your old addictions or new ones is your way of self-soothing and trying to help yourself forget about your issues rather than dealing with them.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: ‘I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.’
Some things you choose to do mark you for eternity and even though you have to live with your choices, you are also usually able to choose again and start your life all over again if necessary.
Yes, you have put a lot into creating a certain kind of scenery for your life, and breaking it seems like a waste but isn’t it a much bigger waste having to spend the rest of your life as a part of something you don’t enjoy?
Keep this in mind and try to find the strength to reinvent yourself.
After all, if you can’t make yourself happy, for sure no one else can do that for you.
