How to Stay True to Yourself When Going Through a Quarter Life Crisis

One of the biggest struggles a twenty-something faces is major and abrupt, uncertainty.

“I don’t know who I am” …“Where is my path going?”…“What even IS my path?” Well, I hate to break it to you but nobody can tell you the answer other than yourself.

Here’s the positive part though… Most people need to reach a breaking point (aka. a crisis) in order to say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH” and start this journey. This is not just a bad day, no. It’s when you’re completely fed up with not knowing. So I guess this is a good thing…right?

Why you should be careful of the opinion of others

Do you often regret falling into the trap of allowing other people’s opinions and perception dictate your behaviour? If you said yes, please keep reading..

I said to myself I wouldn’t talk about the ego again, but when I saw this quote I just couldn’t resist.

Created by the ego—your role is different for each person in your life. Your best friend's perception of you is different than your sisters, which is also different than your partner’s, and so on. They could all be good perceptions—explaining how kind, caring and grounded you are as an individual. But not everybody you encounter will have pure intentions.

Listening to everybody’s opinion during such a major transition period in your life can be detrimental. Why? Because living YOUR life in order to fit in other peoples perceptions, limits your ability to grow as a person.

The truth— each opinion and perspective is equal to the level of awareness they have within themselves. Here are some examples…

The awareness of their inaccurate assumptions from unconscious bias and beliefs.
The awareness of understanding the power of inaccurate assumptions and its relation to the “self fulfilling prophecy”.
The awareness of their defence mechanisms. Specifically projection, due to their unresolved insecurities.
The awareness of their attachment toward memories and roles they’ve created about you.

See how at times, the opinions of others may have NOTHING to do with you? Here’s 4 ways to stay true to yourself when dealing with a quarter life crisis rather than fall into conformity.

Stay Curious

First, become curious. Ask yourself these two major questions:

What is working for me right now?
What is not working for me right now?

Educate Further

Second, educate. Start increasing your self-awareness through educating yourself with books, podcasts, therapist appointments, deep chats, etc. Now, I know a lot of people who follow thetwentiesdetox love self-help books!

My favourite book for increasing self-awareness is called: A New Earth : Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle…Truly a GENIUS in explaining about the ego and ways of snapping out of the unconscious. There are plenty of books to help you with finances, emotional regulation, self-sabotaging behaviour, career guidance, and more.

Meditation

During times of transition, all we really want is GUIDANCE. Now, would you believe me if the best person who can give you advice is yourself? Well, specifically your intuition. Your gut instinct (intuition) is usually this very tiny voice that is almost always correct.

But why don’t we always make the right decisions? Intrusive thoughts. These thoughts have been developed from trauma or past experience with high emotion—being much louder than those tiny voices of wisdom.

If not careful enough, you can find yourself constantly second guessing your intuition by the SCREAMING of invasive thoughts begging you to listen. Another thing to remember is your intuition is never scary. It should never make you feel bad or unsafe. It is the knowing of truth.

Now, meditation is amazing at not only calming your nervous system down, but also allowing you to listen to what your intuition is really telling you. With regular practice, mindfulness can be obtained much easier without succumbing to the loud voices of the past.

Journaling

Lastly, journaling is absolutely amazing to promote self-discovery in your 20s I won’t get too deep into journaling here, as there is an entire blog post about the 5 Benefits of Journaling in your 20s. However, there are very different types of journaling practices with amazing—but different, purposes and outcomes.

Morning pages : Taps into your subconscious in order to understand what you may need to heal from. Tip: write really, really fast when doing this exercise.
Gratitude: Cultivates an abundant mindset by training your RAS to view more positives, while simultaneously raising your frequency.
Emotional processing: Provides clarity, emotional release, and ways to move forward with the situation.
Goal-setting: Provides a sense of purpose, and accountability to raise your standards.

I hope this article provided some comfort and knowledge on how to take the next steps during your transition period. Remember, you’re not lost. You’re on an exciting adventure of self-discovery. I can’t wait to see what amazing things you’re going to do.