Have you ever felt lost? Unsure of what to do next? Not had clear, specific goals? Confused as to what job you want?
Well, if you are struggling with all this, you my friend, aren’t alone. A recent study indicates that about 60% of the millennials suffer from quarter-life crisis. Well, that’s every six out of 10, take a second to wave “hi” to your neighbour suffering from the same problem as yours. While most believe that quarter-life crisis can strike at any age between 25 and 35, this new research indicates that one can suffer from quarter-life crisis as early as the age of 18.
So why is it that an 18-year-old under so much pressure?
The answer is very simple. Let’s rewind our morning routine, wake up by 8 or after (if it’s a weekend), check your phone for WhatsApp messages, then check Instagram or Facebook and then feel bad about how others are enjoying their vacation, studying abroad, or be in shock when your classmate is getting married or having a baby. More often than not, most of us measure our life in terms of how well others are doing in their life. This causes us to put ourselves through a lot pressure and undermine our self-confidence. Suddenly we feel that what we are doing in our life is not all that great, suddenly all our achievements seem worthless, just because right now you are not on a fancy “vacation abroad” or “getting settled” (as they say).
As much as I could preach about each of us having our own path and our own destinations, these “self-assuring words” are just a temporary solution. Of course, you are going to feel better once you tell yourself that your path and destination are different, but that is just going to last until the next “friend” on Facebook posts a picture of him/her enjoying a vacation in Italy, or updates a status — “feeling elated as I got promoted”, and you are back to wallowing in a pit hole of self-pity.
So, let’s look at this from another angle. Let’s just break down this entire demon-sized issue into three small pea-sized segments. I find it easier to solve a problem if it is broken down, kind of like math (but much less of a struggle).
Most people (now I am praying you fall in this category) face quarter-life crisis due to one or all of three reasons.
A. Unsure of where you career is going or what you what to do in your career or just life in general;
B. Frustrated because you are not able see any clear goals or growth for yourself, again in terms of career, or life;
C. Pressure to “get settled” (I am still trying to figure out what this means exactly: is it getting married, having kids, having a stable career, or being a home-maker. And who exactly is defining when we are “settled”?)
And let’s be honest here. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn aren’t doing you any good with those constant “status updates”.
So what do you do? You obviously can’t deactivate your Facebook account and uninstall Instagram: then how will the world get to know when something amazing happens in your life! So that option is definitely out of the window. Let’s try another method, then, like I said problem-solving like math (multiple ways to get to the same solution).
Now the most important solution (and this is going to sound boring but it works) is to have a plan. Yes, turns out the easiest way to not stress yourself about being lost is to have a plan in the first place.
So, chart out a plan for yourself, and I am not talking about 10-year plans and all those long-term dreams which may or may not remain daydreams. I am talking about short-term plans: what are you going to do in the next one to three years? And when I say chart out that does not mean writing down “buy an Audi in two years”, no, that’s a statement. It hardly qualifies to be a plan. To chart down a plan means to break it down, to be specific to the last dot. Say, which Audi model? What’s the cost? What’s the saving plan? What’s going to be the down payment and the loan amount? Tenure of the loan, method to repay the loan, back-up plan to pay EMI if I fail to do so (feel free to include “help from parents” for this one). How to make sure my Audi doesn’t get foreclosed? And so on.
Now it’s not enough if you just plan. You should work towards achieving it. The main reason for the failure of plans islack of dedication to stick to the plan (yes, again as obvious as it is). So why the lack of dedication? It could be because you set unrealistic goals (like me trying to become a professional ballet dancer in six months, like that’s going to happen). So, set realistic goals. Another reason could be that “the plan” wasn’t your plan. So once I went to an art class (again read unrealistic goal) and I wanted to draw a house, an old Indian-style house (that was my plan). Then suddenly I saw the kid next to me was painting something on the lines of modern art (or maybe I couldn’t figure out what it was) and the kid sitting in front of me was painting Mona Lisa. I panicked and tried to do whatever these two kids were doing. In the end I had something that looks like Mona Lisa’s face dipped in VIBGYOR and then broken down to construct a house.
My point is, don’t get influenced and don’t panic when you see other’s plans. Maybe theirs is more fun, more hip, or even fancier. But it’s THEIR plan not YOURS. So, when you chart out a plan make sure it is what you want to do and not what others are going to do, only then will you be dedicated to it or else the result would be like my art class project. The same applies for the “getting settled” problem as well. Don’t “get settled” because the neighbour auntie wants you to, or because you best friend is “getting settled”.
Now the final part and this is important (I know I have said that earlier, but this is also equally important). Don’t beat yourself up if your plan doesn’t work out. Sometimes it so happens that the plan was never meant to be. So that’s ok. It can happen that you meticulously planned, worked towards it and finally it didn’t work out. That’s okay, the important part is to figure out what went wrong. Maybe the plan didn’t match your strengths and your area of interest, maybe you were putting efforts in wrong side. It’s like trying to fill a bottle with a hole in it, it can never be filled, no matter how much effort you put in. You need to fix the hole or get a new bottle. The same works for plans: fix that hole in the plan or get a new plan. Simple! Don’t stress yourself about not being able to fill a bottle with a hole — why would you do that to yourself? The key is to accept your failure by understanding what went wrong and then trying to fix it.
While I know this wouldn’t be a complete guide to all your problems (also good time to share that I am no certified therapist.) I do hope you have found some kind of idea on how to tackle this tiny problem that you may or may not face someday.
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