Have you ever felt like everything is wrong with your life, and you just aren’t happy with anything? And worst of all, you have no idea how to get out of the situation you are in?
Feeling like your life is miserable isn’t fun. I’ve been there. And I thought that I would never get out of it. Everything was too complicated, it wasn’t up to me, and I basically just couldn’t do it. But I did. And that’s why I want to share with you how exactly I got myself out of this situation, and how you can do it, too.
Before you start reading though, it’s important that you keep an open mind. Nothing can get better if you don’t believe it can. You do have a choice (and if you don’t believe me, read this).
Identify why you feel like your life is miserable
Identifying what makes your life miserable is probably the first advice that anyone will give you. But what I find particularly important is to identify only the things that make you miserable. It’s so easy to start thinking that everything in your life sucks when you’re in a bad place when really it doesn’t.
For me, the things that made me miserable were my health, living in a big city, and my job that was constantly stressing me out. But because of these things, my relationship also suffered, and I was at times inclined to think that I wanted to get rid of that, too. Thankfully, I didn’t. And once I fixed all the other issues, my relationship sort of fixed itself.
So, I suggest that you imagine what your life would be like if you changed one aspect at a time. This should make it easier to identify what actually needs to be changed, and what doesn’t.
Do you have a job that makes you miserable? An abusive relationship? Or is it your poor health that makes you so miserable? What would your life be like if you changed one of these aspects?
At the same time, don’t forget to be grateful for the good things in your life. Even if you feel like everything sucks, not everything does. And you don’t want to lose the good things because you only focus on the bad (believe me, I know how tempting that is).
Decide what you want in a non-miserable life
Once you’ve identified what parts of your life need changing, you need to know how exactly you want them to change. For example, if you don’t like your job, you can’t just quit and stop working altogether, no matter how tempting that may seem. Instead, you need to find something you would like to do instead of your current job.
It’s not easy to find ways to make your life better, especially when you feel like nothing works for you. But you have to remember that this feeling will pass once you start tracing the way back to a life you love.
Draw inspiration from past experiences you enjoyed. Remember why you enjoyed them, and how they were different from the miserable parts of your life.
I remembered how I loved living in a smaller town, as well as learning new things and working on challenging projects when I was at university. In the end, I realised that I wanted to move and that I would actually love to start my own business one day.
Sometimes, things only need little changes to get better. Sometimes, you got to pack up your life and leave everything behind (I kind of did that).
Define how you would love your dream life to be, even if it seems impossible. Nothing is impossible if you really want it!
Find ways to get out of your miserable life
Once you decided what you want your dream life to look like, you need to find ways to make it that way.
It’s important to focus only on what you can change. There’s no need to get stuck on things you have no influence over. Instead, let them be and choose how you want to accommodate them in your life.
In addition, you need to think everything through to the end. You don’t want to make changes just for the sake of making changes! Everything you do should get you closer to where you want to be.
In my case, I knew that I couldn’t get rid of my health issues, but I would be able to deal with them better if I worked from home. And I would be able to work from home if I started my own online business. So I started researching everything, collecting ideas, talking to people who might help me achieve my goal.
But I didn’t just do it. I worked out different plans to make money while I was trying to start my business, made sure that my boyfriend was on board, and incorporated my wish to move away from the city. It wasn’t a smooth ride, but I’m so glad that I took the time to think it through and come up with the best ways to do it.
Make the changes for a better life, no matter how scary it is
If you’re feeling miserable in your life now, remember that things can only get better.
I was terrified to start over, too. I was scared that I wouldn’t make it and I was scared of failure. But when you’re unhappy with your current situation, every thoughtful change you make is worth it. It might turn around everything like it did for me. And after all, failure is always better than not even trying!
I really hope that you found this post helpful! And please share your story with me if you like!
I love how in the first part you also mentioned gratitude. It’s so easy to focus on the negative, but our emotions come from our thoughts. So when we start feeling grateful about certain things, our mood instantly improves. Incorporating gratitude into my daily life has completely changed my perspective on things.
And this part ”Sometimes, you got to pack up your life and leave everything behind (I kind of did that). Define how you would love your life to be, even if it seems impossible. Nothing is impossible if you really want it!” love it 😀
I totally agree with you! Focusing on the positive does make you so much happier overall. I try to take a few minutes every day to think about all the things I’m grateful for. It also reminds me that I have to take the time to appreciate them!
I think w all have been under similar situations where we just wished things would get better on their own. But nothing works if you dont work. You have rightly inspired us all in this post to at least try to make things better- “failure is always better than not even trying”. Thanks for this.
You’re so right, nothing changes if you don’t change anything! I’m so glad that you found it inspiring!
This is so important. Depression and just overall unhappiness are so rampant nowadays. Thanks for sharing ways to help overcome it.
It is, and you can so easily feel like there’s something wrong with you when in reality, you’re just not on the right path is life… I’m happy that you liked it!
Such a good and important blog post. We’re the only ones who can make changes in our lives. And like you said, we have control over some things, but not others. We have to learn to live with the things we can’t change, but we don’t need to feel miserable.
Thank you! I also find that we often feel like we can’t change anything, but that isn’t true. For me, the biggest step was making the difference between things I had absolutely no control over, and others that I was just too scared to change.
I think we’re all one day or the other in this situation. But it is important how to get out of this feeling that makes you sad. To focus on the gratitude is so important. Not everything is negative even if you believ at this moment that there is just nothing good. I love this sentence:” when you start to look at things differently, things you look at change!”
Yes! A lot depends on your mindset, and the same situation can be perceived in completely different ways depending on your perspective. Gratitude for everything you already have is such an important part of being happy!
Wow! What a good read! Makes you open your eyes!
Thank you! 🙂
great post. like you pointed it we do not have control over certain situations and we have to focus on what we can control and let go of what we can’t control.
Thank you, I’m happy that you liked it!
I really like the sense of personal responsibility you emphasise in this post (and a few others I’ve read too. As others have mentioned as well, the distinction you’ve made between identifying what you’re unhappy with separate from your entire life and what you can and can’t change is an important one. A distinction that seems to take people a lot of time to realise (if they do), which is probably why you’ve emphasised it!
I do feel like this distinction doesn’t come easily! We’re so used to thinking that we “have” to do certain things and that we don’t have a choice, even though it’s not true. So I find that realising that you do have a choice really is the first step to taking control of your life.
That is so true that sometimes things only need to change a little to get better. It’s like sitting in an uncomfortable chair for hours and then getting up to stretch your legs! Also, I like how you emphasize separating the things you cannot change from those you can change. Usually in the process of making this distinction, we’ll discover that we’re more in control than we initially thought!
Exactly! Sometimes all it takes is to understand that you have the ability to make changes. A lot in our lives is up to us, and we’re free to get rid of the things that don’t work for us.
Hello from France, thank you very much for this article ! You did everything I’m dreaming to do, but as you say it’s not easy and it’s scary because you know what you loose but not what you’ll win… for that I’m really scared and I keep my job which is far, really far from the professional life I dream… I would love to ear from you how you did it and how it worked!
Hi Gatha, so cool that you live in France as well! I know exactly how you feel, it took me 2 years to finally make a change. It’s especially hard when no one seems to believe that your project is possible.
In my case, I decided with my boyfriend that he would find a new job outside of Paris so that I could leave my job to follow him (we finally moved a year or so after making that plan). But this way, I had unemployment benefits while I figured out what I wanted to do exactly. It took me about two months to decide on the type of business, and another two months to figure out the administrative stuff. There are a bunch of places in France that can help you throughout the entire process as well! I’d love to help you out with this, if you want you can email me (info@thehappilyproductive.com) because otherwise, this comment will get way too long! 🙂