On a scale of one to 10, how content are you with your current life?
Are you stoked about every little aspect of it, or do you feel it could use a shake-up? You might have spent a long time getting to where you are today, and now that you’re here, your gut is telling you that it might be time for the next chapter. Here are 15 signs you’ve outgrown your current life and what to do next.
1. You don’t relate to the people around you.
You might have outgrown your current life if you don’t feel like you relate to your friends or even people in your wider social circle. For example, every time you all plan to meet together at a bar on Saturday night, you find that the conversation is always the same—how work’s going and how hungover you’re all going to be on Sunday. You’re over it, and you need to look for friends who have bigger aspirations than this that you can relate to.
2. It feels like everyone around you is changing.
If you’ve outgrown this chapter of your life, then it might be the opposite—you might find that your friends are the ones who are changing. Every time you meet up for brunch, the conversation always veers towards getting married and having kids. You haven’t given either of these topics a second thought, but everyone else seems to. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about these things yourself (if that’s what you ultimately want).
3. You’re constantly feeling unhappy.
No matter how much you love your job, family, friends, and dog, you find that you carry a feeling of discontent everywhere you go. Nothing seems to fill this gap, no matter how much you try to distract yourself. You love work, but doing the same job every day doesn’t challenge you like it used to. You walk the same route with your dog every day. You have the same conversation with your mom on the phone every Sunday night. It may be time to try a new job, take a different route with the dog, or discuss a different topic with Mom.
4. Your interests are changing.
You’ve always been into hiking, cooking, and reading. Whenever your friends describe you, they talk about how good the cookies you bake are or how much you love to disappear on the weekends into the woods. However, you’re finding lately that you aren’t as interested in these things anymore. Hiking has started to bore you, and baking cookies takes too long. It’s time to switch things up and try something new, like pickleball, pasta class, or swimming.
5. Your new goals don’t align with your current life.
If you’ve outgrown this stage of your life, you might find yourself setting new goals for the future that don’t relate to your current situation. For example, your biggest goal is to plant a garden and get some chickens. However, you live in an apartment in the middle of the city, so to do this, you’ll need to move further out, where you can find a house with a bit of land.
6. You daydream about a different life.
If you don’t like where you’re currently stationed in life, then you might catch yourself fantasizing about what your life could be like. When you’re sitting at your desk in the office, you find yourself slowly drifting off the task in front of you, thinking how much you would love to live by the beach and teach yoga at a local fitness studio.
7. You feel like you’re on autopilot.
If you aren’t happy with the current state of things in your life and feel that you’ve outgrown this chapter, then you might find yourself simply going through the motions instead of being present. You no longer drive to work with the music loud or beg your friends to meet you for lunch at the local bistro. You simply drive to work, sit at your desk, and then drive home again. Perhaps you need to revive some of your old habits to shake things up.
8. You try to fill the void.
Sometimes, if we’re not happy with our present circumstances, we turn to an activity to fill the gap. This could be anything from shopping or social media to alcohol or exercise. Whatever it is, you find yourself doing it more and more because when you do it, you don’t have to think about how unsatisfied you are. Perhaps if you did some soul-searching and figured out what you wanted to change about your life, you wouldn’t have to fill the void as much.
9. You have a vision board — but it’s wrong.
A vision board is just that—a vision board, which means that it doesn’t necessarily reflect your current life. However, if you’ve had the same vision board for two years and nothing on it has come true, then it might be time to change it up. You could pick a couple of images on your vision board to actively work towards, or you could try creating an entirely new vision board, filled with goals you want for your life.
10. You compare yourself to others.
How much time do you spend scrolling on social media every day? Hours? Most of us are guilty of whiling away our spare time through our phones, and a downside to this is that it can cause us to compare. You’ve probably started looking at other people’s Instagram content with jealousy, wishing your life looked like that. If this is the case, then you’re most likely stuck in a place in your life that you want to you could get out of.
11. You dream of new surroundings.
If you’re sick of the same old right now, then you probably find yourself dreaming about vacation or traveling. All you want to do is book that trip to Japan that’s been on your to-do list for two years, or spend half a year in Australia on an exchange program. The allure of somewhere completely different from your current surroundings is tempting and appealing.
12. You feel burned out.
You are not satisfied with your job or friends anymore, and you feel burned out. You used to love going to work and catching up with your friends on the weekends. You relished the chance to sit down quietly in your favorite chair and read a book or try out a new muffin recipe. Now, everything feels exhausting, even if it’s supposed to relax you. You no longer feel you have the energy to care about any of it.
13. You don’t text people back.
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If you aren’t happy with how things are going in your friendship group right now, and you wish to find a new group of friends, you might be bad at communicating with them. You’re part of a group chat, and while notifications for the group chat always come up, you never participate. You are also bad at replying to your friends when they try to call or text you.
14. You’re neglecting your responsibilities.
If you’ve outgrown your current situation, one of the biggest signs could be not caring about it as much anymore. You might normally be a neat freak, but now you can’t seem to bring yourself to vacuum once a week or change the sheets. You also don’t take your dog for a walk as much as you used to—now they’re lucky if you walk them twice a week.
15. You’re reading lots of self-help books.
Perhaps you’re not usually the type to seek answers in a self-help book or podcast, but you can’t get enough of them right now. You’ve ordered two self-help books from the library that your friend recommended, and you listen to a podcast about changing your life for the better while you wash the dishes every night after dinner. You’re searching for growth and change and trying to discover what this looks like for you.
