Feeling stuck? It’s common to have moments in life when you’re unsure of your direction and begin to ponder changes. When those thoughts become more frequent, you may need to do some serious soul searching.
Whether or not you should take action on those thoughts is entirely up to the individual. Try by asking myself one question:
Do I feel useful?
In any role you have, you should feel like you’re making use of your talents. You want to have value in your days and feel like there’s a purpose to your work. These two elements are the keys to happiness, and they’re both implemented when you feel useful.
Often, people will enter a role with a lot of optimism. They think they can make a difference and improve the lives of others or design a useful product. Then, they find themselves doing menial tasks that are unfulfilling and don’t lead to any type of advancement.
That’s not to say you should be immune from doing any task you find uninteresting. There are time you will have responsibilities that are boring and tedious, but that shouldn’t be all you’re doing. When you determine whether or not you feel useful, take a wholistic view. Don’t be hyper focused on a single task or day.
If you do find yourself in a position where you don’t feel useful, then it’s time to reevaluate. This is why you’re feeling stuck, and now you need to find a way to improve your life. There are a few ways to determine this, but they’re mostly personal. Ask yourself what you would be doing if you didn’t have these useless responsibilities. Or, you can ask what you hoped you’d accomplish by taking on this role. With these answers, try to identify what’s lacking and how you can work toward having a more meaningful life.
Usefulness should be your objective in each role you take. Without a sense of usefulness, you will quickly get bored and become dissatisfied. We need to be valued to grow professionally and enjoy the process. Don’t assume you need to change everything in your life, but when you’ve been unhappy for a period of time, don’t be afraid to pivot. This is how you develop, even if it’s not in the same way you thought you would.