Have you ever thought about the quality of your life and what you are doing with your life? I don’t mean a fleeting thought but rather a serious assessment of where your life is at right now? Life gets so busy that we end up on the treadmill of life, rushing from one thing to the next. We end up never getting around to really looking at the answer to the question, “What am I doing with my life?”
For many of us, this isn’t really a question we feel comfortable asking ourselves because deep down we know that we have gone off track. We intuitively know that we aren’t living the life we would have liked. We could be in the wrong job, the wrong relationship or doing things that we don’t get much pleasure out of. There are many reasons that we end up going in the wrong direction. Peer pressure, societal pressure or not knowing ourselves as well as we should. I am often astounded at how many people don’t know what would make them happy. These people are so far removed from their essential selves that they have lost meaning in their life. They just get pushed around from one life event to the next without any real control over where they are headed. Your essential self is the person you were when you were born. As you grow older, your social self starts to take over. Your social self is moulded by those around you. Your parents teach you what is right and wrong. You learn the word “No”, and you learn to say “Please” and “Thank you”. The older we get the more rules apply to how we behave. This stifles our essential self and it’s easy to lose access to that part of ourselves in favour of being accepted by others and pleasing others in order to receive validation and approval.
We forget about whether we still approve of ourselves.
Finding your life direction
Ask yourself the following questions to help you figure out whether you are still on the right track:
Are you mostly unhappy and unfulfilled in your life?
Do you feel as if something is missing?
Are you happy in the job you are doing most of the time?
Do you feel loved and secure in your relationships?
Do you like yourself most of the time?
The more you answered “no” to the above questions, the more likely it is that you have moved too far away from your essential self.
How to get back on track
What did you enjoy doing as a child? Could you incorporate some of these activities into your life today? Did you enjoy drawing, dancing etc? have you stopped doing these things? Find a new hobby in line with what you love and what you are good at.
If someone told you that you only had 6 months to live, what would you do with that time? Of course, in reality, we have money constraints that might not matter as much if we only had 6 months to live but this question can still tune you in to what you might prefer to be doing. You can then try to include this or use this new knowledge/awareness to change your life for the better.
Think about times when you are involved in something and the time flies. This might be because you actually love what you are doing. Introduce more of what you love into your life – is it being in nature, sport, animals? Always ensure that you make time for fun and playfulness in your life. To me, it is one of the most essential ways to spend your time in life.
Take time out to be childlike, regain your creative and inspired spirit that might have been crushed by all the rules we have to live by as adults. Care less what others think, this is the antidote to finding your true self.
Mandy X
Author: Mandy Kloppers
Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.
