You feel stuck in a predicament, unable to escape. Your dreams remain unfulfilled, and there’s no hope for the future. This is normal; you can find a solution to your feelings of despair and helplessness.
However, there’s no solution to becoming accustomed to this feeling. At every stage of life, we set goals related to work, relationships, and more.
Yet, everyone reaches a point where they lose their bearings and go entirely off course. Typically, this feeling surfaces at each life decade’s end, not just during the midlife crisis as commonly believed.
The quest for life’s meaning usually begins around age 28, peaks at 29, and then gradually fades by the time one turns 30. This cycle repeats with each passing decade.
Some people successfully resolve it in the decade’s final year, while others struggle. That’s why Adam Alter, a marketing professor at New York University’s business school, studied people experiencing this stage. He identified three perspectives:
- It’s a common condition.
- Not realizing how common it is worsens the situation.
- Helplessness can stem from internal or external factors. External causes occur when people lack the resources or finances to achieve their goals. However, this applies to only 10% of cases. In 90% of cases, the cause is internal, and overcoming and changing it is possible, returning to the right path toward success and achievement.
5 Secrets to Help You Break Free from Feeling Helpless
This article discusses the internal aspect because it is subject to human will and can be changed.
Adam Alter, author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most, discusses several secrets, including:
1. Simplicity and Focus
You don't have to change your life if you feel hopeless or stuck completely. Sometimes, it’s enough to identify the specific area that needs adjustment to regain your natural life rhythm.
Take sufficient time to evaluate different aspects of your life and pinpoint the issue that requires fixing. Is it as simple as changing jobs or letting go of a toxic relationship? Or is it deeper than that?
The answer to the lack of fulfillment and purpose in life is frequently straightforward and calls for making a particular change, such as in a relationship or a job.
However, this can have a negative impact on people because they feel compelled to change aspects that they believed offered stability. You will constantly need to adapt and update because sometimes more than the first try will be needed to solve the issue.
For example, Google wasn’t the first search engine—it ranked 22nd initially. Similarly, Amazon wasn’t the first online store. In other cases, radical life changes—such as switching to a new job or taking an entirely different life path—require consistently fresh ideas.
2. Generate Creative Idea
Eliminating mental blocks that prevent unrestricted thought is an essential first step in developing new ideas.
Take out a blank piece of paper and write down everything that comes to mind without holding anything back. Never rule out any idea as impractical or nonsensical. Silence your inner critic to write freely.
Research has indicated that constant thought processes and mental activity generate original ideas. In addition, people who spread their interests throughout many facets of life will have a broader range of options at their disposal, which will lead to better and happier outcomes in many areas, including work, relationships, love, and many others.
Everyone knows the famous saying: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," which means not directing your attention and energy towards just one thing. Diversification gives you more possibilities and freedom of choice in the future.
Even when you feel incapable of thinking, keep trying. Creativity requires perseverance. Many people give up after the first failed attempt due to mental fatigue. However, the same people can produce more creative ideas, with a little encouragement.
Set a target for how many ideas you want to write down in each session, and don’t stop until you achieve approximately 50% more than required, even if it takes multiple attempts.
3. Testing and Applying Ideas
Now take the ideas you’ve written down and start putting them into practice. Truly successful ideas are the ones that have been tested, proven effective, and successful in practical situations because they are important, relevant, and positive.
Research has indicated that a balanced approach to idea implementation and ongoing exploration bring luck and professional success. This involves testing and verifying many ideas until you find the most promising one. Once you do, focus your energy and efforts on it, and continue to develop it.
Pay attention to your acceptance or rejection rates to ensure you’re on the right track. During the exploration phase, be open to trying all available opportunities to identify the most promising ones.
Once you find that, direct your focus and energy toward it, and start saying no to new experiments. Even if you don’t have a clear execution plan, try anything available until you eventually discover what suits you and concentrate on it.
4. The Midway Crisis
Sometimes after you make a decision, you discover that the path is harder and longer than you had anticipated. At the midway point, a struggle emerges between stopping and maintaining the current situation or continuing to strive for the desired goal.
Don’t worry; this is a common phenomenon in psychology called the "goal gradient effect." Initially, you feel great enthusiasm and drive to achieve the goal, but gradually, that motivation wanes. Around the midpoint, you might feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and sometimes even tempted to give up.
Pursuing life goals is like running a race. The challenge lies in not precisely knowing how long it will take to achieve the goal. Maintaining the same level of drive and dedication becomes challenging, especially when the goals are significant and open-ended, such as happiness, work, and health.
Remember that everything has an end, but the criteria you set for your goal determine how quickly you’ll reach it. When facing the midway crisis, break down your goal into smaller, achievable steps. Celebrate progress and keep moving forward.
5. Excellence Over Perfection
Prioritizing excellence allows for achieving good results while allowing continuous improvement. It fosters a growth mindset. On the other hand, perfectionism seeks flawless outcomes, causing anxiety and stress. Often, inadequacy stems from striving for perfection.
Idealists often play the role of a demanding boss, but they impose these standards on themselves. They perform their work exceptionally well, earn more money, and secure better jobs. However, they often lack happiness because they're always stressed and anxious.
The optimal solution is to strive for excellence, which enhances human capabilities, contributes to their development, and makes you in a better and more creative state, instead of perfection, which drains human energy and abilities, leaving them in a state of incapacity, preventing them from enjoying their journey towards achieving their goals.
Summary
1. Simplicity and Focus
The first step to a solution when you feel stuck and unable to move forward is figuring out where the problem is and fixing it so that it gets redirected back onto the correct path. If you succeed, there’s no need to undergo the entire upheaval of changing your life completely.
2. Generate Creative Idea
Strive to create new ideas as much as you can to have a wide range of available options. Luck favors those who are well-prepared and have numerous choices.
3. Testing and Applying Ideas
It’s essential to apply and test ideas in real-life scenarios until you identify the successful ones. Once you do, focus your energy on them, invest in their development, and stop testing further.
4. The Midway Crisis
Divide your goals into smaller tasks to avoid exhaustion or feelings of helplessness around the midpoint of your journey.
5. Excellence Over Perfection
Perfectionism robs you of happiness and satisfaction, so try to make your work special rather than perfect.
Remember that life’s path isn’t always clear and easy. Occasionally, you’ll encounter failures, but they ultimately lead to success if you learn from them. As Thomas Edison said, “Most of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Final-stage errors are a sign that you're getting close to success, so keep going. Keep learning and benefiting from every experience. As German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche first stated, “What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.”
In Conclusion
The greatest human advancements come from rising determinedly from adversity and learning from mistakes. Never give up on making the changes you want—there's always time. What you may perceive as your failure could signal the start of a better period or even a new chapter in your life.
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