Finding the right path in life is often not easy. And knowing whether we’ve found him is another thing. You can read here what psychologists say are signs that we could possibly make adjustments.
With our lives we are usually given a variety of possibilities and options and, on top of that, a very responsible task: to live authentically and choose a path that makes us happy. Because it suits us and is in line with our personal values, skills, beliefs and desires. Most of the time there is not just one path, but many that meet these criteria. And yet it is sometimes not that easy to find one of these paths.
It can be that other people confuse us simply because they live differently than we do. Or that certain people have demands and expectations of us that we find difficult to ignore (for example our parents). Sometimes we just slip into some current and let ourselves drift without really realizing that we never independently decided to jump into it.
No matter what the reason is, if we notice that we are not in one of our possible lanes, it would be good to use the indicator and change lanes. But how do we notice something like this? Psychologist Bella DePaulo suggests based on the publication Becoming Oneself: The Central Role of Self-Concordant Goal Selection by Kennon Sheldon (published in Personality and Social Psychology Review) to perceive the following points as warning signals.
5 signs that you are not completely in harmony with yourself
1. You often feel ambivalent about your goals, plans, and decisions.
No matter whether it’s about everyday things like meeting a friend or about groundbreaking life goals like applying for a job or saying yes to a marriage proposal: when we after Often feeling torn about our decisions and wondering whether we made the right decision can be a signal, according to Bella DePaulo, that the path we are on doesn’t really suit us. There are always phases or days when we doubt what we are doing. Do I even want to meet my girlfriend tonight? Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person? Such thoughts are normal and legitimate – as long as they don’t bother us constantly or over and over again. If we are in harmony with ourselves, if we have healthy relationships and pursue goals that correspond to our personal values, then over time such doubts disappear because we enjoy what we are doing and feel that it is right.
2. It feels like a struggle to see your plans through to the end.
It’s completely okay to try things out and just let them go if we realize they’re not for us. The Spanish course is a mess? How about salsa dancing? If we feel like we have to fight ourselves to stick to something we want to do, it may not be the right thing and it would be better to let go and take a different path. It is true that effort is usually necessary to pursue or even achieve our goals. But if we identify with what we are doing, these efforts feel challenging and sometimes even attractive and can be accomplished with a reasonable expenditure of energy – without having to fight internal battles.
3. You downplay your goals and purpose in life when you talk about them with others.
If we stand behind what we do and it aligns with our values and beliefs, we are usually happy and enthusiastic about telling other people about it. It feels good to share it, maybe we even feel some pride, in any case we enjoy talking about it. If, on the other hand, we don’t like to talk to others about our lives and our projects and instinctively downplay them, this can be a sign, according to Bella DePaulo, that we ourselves are not really convinced that we are doing something worthwhile or that we are not particularly successful at it feel. And then it’s probably not right for us.
4. You feel social pressure to pursue the goals you set for yourself.
According to the psychologist, if we do something primarily because we believe that others expect it of us or that we will not be accepted otherwise, it is very likely that it does not match our personal goals and ideas. In many cases, we actually fulfill social expectations without really making any effort to do so – because our society is fairly open or because it doesn’t care about us (it doesn’t know us) and because people who are close to us are, at best, not very specific place expectations on us. Therefore, if we primarily follow our own compass and live authentically, we usually don’t feel very strong social pressure in what we do – or don’t do. In addition, our personal development, our growth, which we perceive and feel, is more important to us than the opinions of other people.
5. You mostly feel compelled to pursue the goals you have set for yourself.
Most of us have to work to make money to pay our rent, our pasta, and our salsa class. In a way we are forced to. But feel do you have this compulsion all the time? Do you find him to be particularly strong and present? Or could you also imagine living your life in a similar way to how it is now when you are completely free and financially independent? For example, because you enjoy it, are good at what you do or see value? When we live in harmony with ourselves, we can usually want what we need and feel less forced into our tasks than fulfilled by them.
Source used: psychologytoday.com