There’s this weird time frame after college (or just your 20s) that everyone expects you to have everything figured out, but in reality? Everyone’s kind of just winging it. You have a degree, a steady job to pay the bills, and the freedom to do as you please, but instead of feeling exhilarated about your future, you feel—stuck.
It’s not uncommon. In fact, it’s a new normal for today’s young generations compared to those faced with less options and more guidance. The issue is figuring out when it’s social concern vs. a personal need for something more to help you work through it.
You Make Choices Based on What You “Should” Be Doing
This can be a major silent offender. You got that job because it was a good choice on paper. You’re dating that girl because she has a good personality and physicality combo your parents will approve of. You chose to move to this city over that city because people there are in your industry.
But when was the last time that you made a decision for yourself? When nothing feels completely right and everything is just for “show,” it’s time to take a look at things. Moreover, many of these “should” decisions create a facade of successful living: the right job title, the right location, the right partner, etc.
Yet people choose to live their lives like this for years without realizing how much of their decisions have stemmed from these invisible expectations until someone helps guide them through it. That disheveled gap between what’s being done and what one wants creates a low-key anxiety that never goes away.
Every Option You Have Feels Like The Wrong Option (or Equally Pointless)
You’ve researched various career paths. You’ve stalked social media to see what others are doing. You’ve researched personality assessments and published essays on different pros and cons. Yet every time you think you may have something, it either sounds horrible, or—meh.
However, that’s not what’s supposed to happen when people have a lot of interests. People have too many interests because they don’t know where to focus their attention. But when you find yourself functioning without a true attachment to why one thing would work better than the other for you, that’s when it’s an issue.
It’s not a question of there being too many good options; it’s this unfortunate realization that as much as you could do many different things, nothing seems worthy enough. When this process spirals and you need someone to bring you back down to focus on what’s best for you rather than what’s the noisiest option, that’s often where working with a Life Coach for Young Adults comes into play.
You Continuously Compare Yourself To Others
Social media is enough—but it’s always been easier said than done. Your friends have it all together. One’s just had a promotion from your class two years ago. Your sibling just bought a house. The kid you had in your English class is now getting married/starting a business/traveling the world.
Where does that leave you? Behind on everything—but no one knows what everything is or where you want to go in life at the moment.
The problem with the comparison trap is that there is always someone else doing something amazing—and thus your life looks subpar by comparison. But even worse is how others can get in your head so deeply that you’re not technically behind—you’re just using everyone else as a crutch to guide you in the opposite direction of finding your own.
You Have All This Potential But Can’t Seem To Channel It
Everyone tells you that you are smart. You’re talented. You’re capable. You’ve got it all down—from education, skills, maybe even opportunities—yet can’t find the momentum from it. You start things and don’t finish them. You have ideas but can’t act on them.
You’re capable of more but there’s always something keeping you stagnant. When this occurs, it’s where people go wrong because they want to blame it on external factors—in this case, everything you’ve accomplished has been for good, not bad—but it’s this consistent unproductivity that gets in your head.
Worse so is when it spirals into questioning if maybe that potential was never there to begin with—which is where it gets dangerous.
Your Friends and Family Don’t Understand What You’re Going Through
If you’ve tried to talk about your stuck position only to find people give you well-meaning advice that doesn’t pan out—this happens all too frequently. Your parents tell you that maybe you just need to work harder; your friends tell you that everyone feels like this; your partner thinks you’re overthinking everything.
They’re not wrong per se—but they’re also not helping. What’s going on is not something generic advice can fix; it’s something that’s happening right now that’s overwhelming for many young adults since they assume it would be better by now—less pressure, more guidance, clearer paths—when in fact, it’s worse than what came before.
Therefore, one of the reasons young adults seek coaching instead of discussing feelings with loved ones is because sometimes they need someone who is supposed to help them figure this out instead of just someone who loves them enough to want them to feel better.
You’re Functioning But Not Happy
Bills are being paid. You’re going to work. You’re maintaining relationships and responsibilities. From the outside looking in, you’re good!
But on the inside? You’ve disconnected from your own life by merely going through the motions without purpose or satisfaction.
It’s simple for the functioning-unhappies to fly under the radar without needing help because nothing’s wrong beyond assessment; that’s the danger of assuming everything is fine without believing otherwise until something catastrophic happens.
When in reality, nothing is catastrophic—it’s just not right—and you’ve been able to fool yourself for years that this was the way life was supposed to be when in reality there could be an engaged building process from day one.
What It All Means
Stuck post-college doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with one’s character or decision making—that’s merely something that should be navigated within reality sooner rather than later. It doesn’t mean everyone else has done their lives well either; it doesn’t imply that boasting potential means nothing’s working out; it means something different than whatever is being done is necessary.
It could be coaching, it could be therapy, massive life change or no change at all—it could simply be the permission to stop pretending everything’s figured out for once.
Those who benefit most from life coaching are those who want to do the work in figuring out what they actually want (not what they think they should) and having a life constructed from it—it’s not about having answers handed to them but support fostering them through their own investigations.
So, if several of these resonate with you, maybe it’s time to assess if some outside input could help foster going from feeling stuck from building a life that makes sense out of ideas from interactivity.
