Is Your Life Still Right On Track?

Stuck In A Rut  

Is this you?

There are days when you're just functioning, and moments when you hate your job so much that you just feel sorry for yourself. The result? Dissatisfaction, frustration and a cynical outlook on life. Is that really all life has to offer? Another day you have to get through?

It doesn't matter why you ended up in this dead end. Perhaps it has to do with decisions that others have made at some point in your career. Or perhaps you once chose a path out of ignorance that seemed the safest, most lucrative or most comfortable to you by external standards. In doing so, you lost sight of your own aspirations and suppressed your own wishes.

Make your own values count

That's why now is the time to reclaim your personal wishes and goals. Find out what adjustments you can make to your current job.

The good news is: your dead-end job does not mean you're stuck for life. You can turn around, walk out and choose a new direction at the crossroads. You can make a course correction. Trust your intuition and your own judgement. You can decide for yourself what success and a career mean to you.

Perhaps you don't have the energy for a new direction at the moment. Or maybe you are afraid to lose out on benefits and you don't want to change in order to maintain your standard of living. But in that case, think again about what this is really about: your enjoyment of life and your well-being outside of a predetermined professional scheme. What do you want to be proud of when you sit in your armchair at the age of 80 and look back on your life? 

3 tips on how to go forward

1. Go back in your mind and think about the happiest moments in your life. What do they have in common? What characterises them? If you are not happy in your job today, what do you conclude from this? What dreams or wishes are there that have not yet been realised?
2. Take a serious look at a compass for your life and your work. It should include your most important values, your own definition of success and career, and your most important goals. The word "your" is important here - and not the goals and definitions of others. Use the compass to develop an alternative idea for your life and work.
3. Make a list of your career options. These are possibilities that are open to you now or could become realistic in the near future. Make them visible by putting them on paper. And then work on your list, add to it, cross out the unnecessary, make a shortlist with your most attractive options. Work on realising them.

Last but not least

If you're stuck on your own, get help. Find someone you can talk to about a possible new direction in life. You want to know again what you get up in the morning, live and work for - it's about nothing less than your health and satisfaction.

Interested to find out about other test results? Scroll down for an overview.