For many students, college is probably the first time they are confronted with a feeling that goes on to often become a constant companion of most of their 20s and even 30s. This is the feeling of a ‘low grade anxiety’ -of something not being right, despite by the benchmarks of the world everything being right. You have perhaps managed to make it to the most elite of the institutions of the country, gotten exposed to and worked with the best of talent, and yet you feel drained, empty and somewhat non excited. Many young people enter college with high expectations, only to find themselves feeling directionless and uncertain about their future. This sense of being lost often stems from a critical gap: the lack of intentional self-development during these formative years.

We often tend to ignore this feeling, and move on - because that is characterized as the natural and more powerful thing to do. March on is what soldiers do. But ask a soldier to march on without knowing which country is theirs and/or what are they fighting for and you can anticipate a rebellion. When it comes to our own lives tho, we march on like soldiers fighting the battles that come at us without asking the very fundamental question of ‘Who’ are we fighting for?

This is the irony of the modern education and societal systems. We have created systems and conditioning that skip the most fundamental question answering which anchors the development of the rest of the aspects and most of the adult life.

The question of ‘Who am i’.

An Identity Crisis

And instead we have devolved into treating the human as an economic unit and anchored his or her development, around ‘employability’, ‘skills’ and ‘productivity’.

To put it via the soldier analogy - we have trained the soldiers in the skills, efficiency, and tool usage without giving them the identity of their country and the core purpose they are fighting for. No wonder, an inner rebellion in the form of a ‘low grade anxiety’ persists in many where there is a seed of perception or self-awareness.

In the safe and familiar confines of our homes, this feeling does not arise because we do not have to make choices or decisions that depend on having a guiding system. Most of the things are pre-defined and given to us, whereas as we enter the adult life is when for the first time we are pushed into situations where we require a sense of self.

Development and exploration of self and identity, was the core of the human teenage for much of the history until industrialization. Every culture had norms, rituals, and rites of passage that helped create a sense of ‘who am i’ by providing a set of values, preferences (borrowed or biased perhaps), rooting identity, and career pathways. This was accompanied by social integration via duties and responsibilities being conferred and peer groups acting as training grounds for cooperation and alliance building. Play, risk, and exploration formed another pillar of adaptative learning

As industrialization and financialization has progressed however, smaller family sizes, increased economic overwhelm and the evolution of educational systems from character development to a focus on ‘technical skills’ and ‘knowledge acquisition’ has stripped the youth of the formative experiences that focus on self and character development and give them a chance to understand themselves - their values, strengths, passions, and purpose. Students excel in classes yet feel empty because they haven’t developed the self-awareness needed to make meaningful life decisions.

This has led to an identity and agency crisis.

Students are being shipped into the real world to fight the day to day real life without a grounding.

This is perhaps why you feel lost. You are fighting a battle without knowing your strengths, the cause you are fighting for, or the terrain you are fighting on.

There are quite a few downstream effects of this lack of ‘self-development’. More specifically:

How It manifests

Opting for safer and prescribed paths:

Without mechanisms and time for introspection, students move through college on autopilot, following prescribed paths without questioning whether these align with their authentic selves. The prescribed paths work well till a certain point but true success demands mastery, and depth in the field. It is then, that one finds him/herself unable to commit to the field and immersively give it one’s whole self. Prolonged friction, disconnection and lack of commitment reduced the growth and learning, thus impacting satisfaction and even economic return.

Think of it like an investment in a fund - an investment today into things that are not a good fit for your portfolio will give much lower returns in the longer run due to effects of compounding. Safer and prescribed paths therefore can delay the inevitable confrontation with finding your true self but can not avoid it for eternity.

Paralysis in choices and decision making

Students get conditioned to seek approval from peers, parents, and institutions rather than developing their own internal value system. This dependence on external validation leaves them rudderless when faced with decisions that require self-knowledge. College offers unprecedented freedom and choices regarding majors, careers, relationships, and lifestyles. However, without a strong sense of self, this abundance of options becomes paralyzing rather than liberating.

Students don’t know what to choose because they don’t know who they are.

Comparison Culture and The Pressure To Have It All Figured Out

The constant exposure via social media to curated versions of others’ lives intensifies feelings of inadequacy and confusion. Instead of focusing on their own development journey, students measure themselves against unrealistic standards, further disconnecting from their authentic path

Society expects young people to declare majors, choose careers, and map out their futures by age 20. This pressure is unrealistic given we have stripped them of all the mechanisms and societal systems that enabled them to have this clarity and understanding.

Disconnection From Purpose and Meaning

Without investing in self-development, students struggle to identify what gives their life meaning. They pursue conventional markers of success—grades, internships, job offers—without understanding whether these align with their deeper purpose, leading to achievement without fulfillment.

What can you do

Why you feel lost is perhaps not because of you. It is perhaps because society has stripped you of the systems, mechanisms and perhaps even awareness of the role development of self plays and the importance of developing it in teenage years. This realization dawns much later in life but as the awareness grows, the ability to realign and make changes decreases.

If you have these systems, and mechanisms via family or other channels - leverage them and make self development your most important priority. If you do not have access to support systems or mechanisms to help do that - learn about it and try to take it on your own. But most definitely pursue it because you can not walk without developing a spine and the ‘self’ is the psychological spine.

The Pattern We Know All Too Well

How many times have you heard (or even said), “I’m just here until I find something better,” or “I’m trying to pivot to something new”? Beneath these words lies a deeper struggle: we are working, but feel disconnected, hoping the next career step will be the one that bridges the gap between our true selves and the professional lives we inhabit.

This is the “urgent optimism” at play - the belief that our next move will solve the friction between who we are and the work we do. But urgent optimism often leads to “blind turns,” those reactive decisions driven by external blame: a toxic manager, a stifling work environment, insufficient pay, or uninspiring tasks. We think, “If I just change this one factor, everything will fall into place.”

The Problem with Blind Turns

Imagine being stranded on an island with a tsunami looming on the horizon. Your first instinct is to flee, hoping the next island will be safer. But even if you escape the wave, you might find the new island just as inhospitable or worse.

This is what happens when we let fear or dissatisfaction drive our decisions. When a curveball comes our way, our brains go into overdrive, prioritizing survival over clarity. Instead of stepping back to analyze the situation, we cede control to our subconscious, which scrambles for a quick fix based on the stories we’ve told ourselves: what we think we’re good at, what we aspire to be, and what we believe others expect of us.

The result? Another blind turn. And the cycle repeats.

Breaking the Cycle

The good news? You can break free from this pattern. It starts with two key realizations:

1. The threat you feel is often exaggerated.

2. The disconnect is as much internal as external.

Step 1: Question the “Threat”

The next time you feel the urge to make a hasty career move, pause and ask yourself: Is this a real, immediate threat to my well-being? More often than not, what feels like a crisis is a perceived threat - either societal (what will people think?) or monetary (will I run out of money?).

The societal threat is largely an illusion, and even financial concerns are often more manageable than we fear. By reframing your relationship with money—not as something to accumulate, but as a reflection of the value you provide—you can ease the sense of urgency and buy yourself time to think clearly. This pause is critical. It calms your stress response system and creates space for deliberate decision-making.

Step 2: Turn the Lens Inward

Once you’ve paused, the real work begins. Think of it like a game of Lego. When a piece doesn’t fit where you thought it would, what do you do? You don’t throw it away. You examine it, figure out why it doesn’t fit, and look for a place where it belongs.

In the same way, reflect on your current situation:

• What were you expecting from your work that you didn’t get?

• Which part of your identity feels misaligned—your values, your strengths, or the story you tell about yourself?

• Is the mismatch about the work itself, the environment, or the way you approach it?

This introspection helps you understand what truly needs to change. Sometimes, the answer isn’t a new job, but a new perspective on your current one. Other times, it’s a recalibration of your expectations or goals.

The Hardest Part and the Most Rewarding

The most challenging step is defining the parts of your identity against which you’ll evaluate your career. This is a deeply personal process, and it evolves over time. Who you are today is not who you were five years ago, nor who you will be five years from now. But by committing to this inner work, you’ll build a foundation for purposeful choices choices that align with your values and aspirations, rather than reactive fixes.

And yet, when it comes to our career we let the ‘market’ shape the trajectory and direction of it. Although it can be argued that the choice of the type of work, or the places we work at have an equally profound impact on the quality of life. In essence, we ‘cede control’ of our journey to forces external to us - which is weird since we love to be ‘in control’.

This behavior is slightly surprising but perhaps can be explained in the context of ‘scarcity mindset’ in certain cultures. For some of us, who grew up in cultures which have intense competition or a large population vying for a small portion of ‘tickets to prosperity’ - we are conditioned to think in terms of ‘scarcity’. Therefore, our instinctive response to an opportunity presented to us is to grab it and minimize the risk of losing it. However when it comes to career design - this same behavior sometimes proves counter productive as it leads us to grab the ‘first opportunity’ that comes our way during recruiting or changing jobs. This reflexive action thus takes us away from patiently searching and locking an opportunity that is a good ‘person-market’ fit and rather sends us spiraling down a circular loop of potential dissatisfaction.

The other impact of this ‘scarcity’ mindset is in how we avoid confrontation, asking for fair progression and rewards once we secure the job. Time and again, we see immensely talented people stuck in their trajectory because there is an intrinsic fear of ‘shaking things’ up by asking for a raise, promotion or a role that you really think is ideal for you. Looking from outside, this fear mostly stems from the conditioning that there is such an intense competition that if you are too demanding - somebody else is at the door to replace you.

Lastly, this all needs to be understood in the context of the hierarchy of needs. If we are in the zone where our basic needs of ‘food, shelter and clothing’ are endangered - the scarcity mode will stick and behold us from truly caring about the ‘person-market’ fit. But for many of us, that is not the case. We have worked, gained experience, and qualifications to create a stream of livelihood income for ourselves. It is rather the conditioning of ‘scarcity’ that however still persists. We chase the slight increase in paycheck, or a title because it helps us feel more ‘reassured’ - a bit like serial dating.

The world has evolved very rapidly in the last 2 decades. 20 years ago - a degree, progressive promotions and a tenured career was perhaps the best route out of ‘scarcity’. But in the internet era - the cone of opportunity is way more broader. It presents probably the best opportunity in a long time to really take something we cherish and are good at - and find ways to create streams of income around that for livelihood and beyond. A bit like startups - we can take one niche audience and find a way to repeatedly add value using our capabilities and talents. And once we have this locked in - we can scale, expand and truly unlock the flywheel of growth. That is the magic of ‘person-market’ fit but first we need to confront our ‘scarcity’ mindset.

How many times have you struck a conversation with someone about work and they have responded with a variation of an answer that could be translated to “i am dissatisfied/just here till i get something better/trying to pivot to something else”. Essentially, being engaged in a work while feeling a disconnect and looking to find a place to bridge that disconnect. There is a hope that the next move we make will somehow turn out to be a move that will eliminate the friction that exists between us as our ‘selves’ and the large space of the life that is dominated by the work we do.

That is the urgent optimism aspect of the phenomenon - hope that the next throw of the dice will yield the result we are looking for. The second part of the phenomena is what we do as a result of this urgent optimism - it is the ‘blind turns’ we take.

The connection between the two lies in the fact that we blame the external factors for the friction between us and the work in the first place - the manager, the work environment, the salary, the non challenging work and so on. And so if the reason for the consistent feeling of heaviness or dissatisfaction that we feel carrying around with respect to our work it is but natural to feel that changing the variable we blame for the friction will fix the feeling.

Think of it as you being trapped on an island where you feel unsafe and a wave of tsunami closing in. Your first instinct will be to hope that you can land on another island where the wave of tsunami is not coming in - although even in the absence of the tsunami you could have perished on the island and there is an equal chance that the new island is as unsafe as the one you rescued from.

We take the blind turns when we encounter a ‘tsunami’ or a ‘curveball’ because our brain forces us to correct our trajectory to avoid the threat it feels. At that moment - instead of logically analyzing our situation, and formulating the best road to take, we cede control to our subconscious. In the urgency of avoiding the painful threat looming over our heads, our subconscious plays the stories we have told ourselves, our strengths, our aspirations, our talent and so on over the years and rushes us to find a solution a.k.a turn to take.

And the loop goes on - sometimes forever. But there is hope and it is not too difficult to break the pattern.

The fallacy of this trap lies in two aspects - a) the false sense of threat and the resulting cede to subconscious and b) the externalization of the disconnect between ourselves and the work.

The next time we find ourselves taking a ‘blind turn’ in our work journey, what if we stopped and asked a questioned if there was a ‘real threat’ to our survival if we were to avoid the rush of making the decision and buying some time. More often than not - it is either a monetary or societal threat we feel, and while the societal threat is more an illusion the monetary threat is manageable most times if we re-frame our relationship with money from that of accumulation to that of remuneration for our value provided to society. Removing the sense of immediate threat allows us to calm the god-damn amygdala and buy some time without feeling ‘anxiety’ of having to fix something that gone awry.

The second step is what you do with the time you bought - that is where you turn the lens inwards. Let’s play a little game here to visualize this - if you are playing the lego game and a piece does not seem to fit where you think it should, what would you do? Our first instinct would be to examine the piece in the hand and try to find ‘why’ is it not fitting where we think it should. That would be followed by trying to find ‘another’ place in the set where the conditions for its fit are more ideal. Perhaps in the same way, we need to first break down what we ‘expected’ our work to be like and what ‘part’ of our identity did not like what we rather got. Did the environment not align with a value we dearly hold, or was it that the experience did not align with story we carry about ourselves, or was there a mismatch of our vision and the reality of day to day activities.

The hardest aspect of this whole journey is defining the ‘parts’ of our identity against which to evaluate the external markers. That is a reflexive definition in itself and true only at any given point of time - continuously evolving.

Brianna West in her book ‘The Mountain is You’ introduces the concept of Conflicting needs. When one part of you pulls you in one direction, and the other part of you pulls in another - your brain gets jammed unable to make a decision.

In neurological terms - our brain leverages stories to make the choices that it thinks essential for our survival. Therefore when it encounters a situation where it encounters two possible scenarios or outcomes on a decision where our survival is threatened but no clear differentiation is offered on which of these two paths offers better chances of survival impact - it jams. When we are going somewhere, we don’t get stuck trying to figure do we take left turn or a right turn if we do not know the direction - we simply make a turn and course correct if necessary. However, if it is a new job or quitting one to try something new - we can spend hours agonizing over the choice.

Conflicting Needs At Work & Career Choices?

In countless conversations with peers, friends, and mentees i have found that when it comes to work - we usually deal with two pairs of conflicting needs. Either it is the ‘growth vs balance’ pair or the ‘autonomy vs stability’ pair at play that gets one stuck in the career.

Autonomy vs Stability: Human beings do not like their survival being threatened - that is the reason change is hard for us. Whenever things around us feel unfamiliar, create a risk of basic survival or introduce volatility - it comes with a bout of anxiety or nervousness. Therefore, to minimize this jittery feeling we seek stability - in our health, in our family and in our jobs. But joining a job also means giving up slightly on another fundamental need of autonomy. Autonomy is usually a high need in those individuals who have either a significant level of self-awareness, a vision, high ego or a philosophical/creative bent of mind that seeks time for rumination and marination. Joining a set of individuals in an organization usually brings with it a set of defined norms, boundaries and ceding to hierarchy which can be stifling for such personalities introducing a set of conflicting needs

How Conflicting Needs Inhibit Career Growth

This behavior is understandable when seen through the lens of survival. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that when our basic needs—like food, shelter, and security are at risk, our instincts prioritize immediate stability over long-term planning. For many, this survival mode persists even when basic needs are no longer in jeopardy.

Scarcity thinking keeps us chasing incremental pay increases or titles that provide reassurance but don’t necessarily lead to career satisfaction. It’s like serial dating: temporary gains mask deeper misalignment.

Making Grey Decisions

xxx in her Ted Talk on “How to Make Difficult Decisions” talks about the fact that in such situations we are looking for a black and white answer when none exists. Reframing the question in such situations to “Which of these leads to the design of life that i can work with” allows us to step back and create some distinction between the two choices that helps get the brain unstuck. Turns out contrast is important in choices!

Thinking in Bets

Annie Duke in her book ‘thinking in bets’ frames life as a series of choices that influence the trajectory. The distinction she creates is of thinking between life as ‘one big decision’ vs ‘several small decisions’ and if we think of it a series of small decisions we cede some of the fear associated with getting the decision wrong. The other concept she introduces is of resulting where we tie the result or the outcome of our decision with the ‘quality’ of ‘our decision making’ and in an indirect way to ‘ourself’. This is what many experienced stock market veterans also espouse. You can analyze all the information at hand, make the right move and yet the market can prove you wrong. That is however not a reflection on you or your decision quality! You win some, you lose some. But rewiring our brain to think in terms of bets helps break this association and allows us to view it differently and break some of the brain’s short circuitry in times of conflicting needs

Getting Unstuck

Ultimately - if we find ourselves in situations where we can spot these pairs of conflicting needs at play, the worst play we can make is to remain stuck there. Action produces information and information produces decisions. Reframing our choice between the options helps bring differentiation to the alternatives which reconciles the conflicting needs, and thinking in bets helps us commit to a choice that seems worthy and keep moving.

Ready to Break Free?

Your career is one of the most significant choices you’ll make. Don’t let fear or external forces dictate it. With the right mindset and strategies, you can take charge of your professional journey and unlock your full potential.