Busting the quarter life crisis

A young team leader working with the BPO industry says: “This morning I had plain Greek yoghurt, then a salad for lunch. Then I came home and ate the whole kitchen!” Looks like a quarter-life crisis is happening.

“Hey, what’s up? How are you doing?” The terse, predictable and automatic reply comes, “Great!” It is a courtesy. An expected polite greeting and an exchange of pleasantries, but does not reveal anything worthy.

Many young people post beautiful and interesting stuff on their Facebook pages, but as I said in my seminars, “Facebook is a billboard, not a diary.” People put on good stuff, but do not reveal the pain and turmoil happening in their lives as the dreaded “QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS” hits them.

The term seems foreign to many, especially those who belong to another generation. I see a puzzled look on their faces every time I mention this in my seminars. They have heard of the midlife crisis, but do not understand this thing called “quarter-life crisis.”

One young person explains, “It is that feeling when you are not necessarily sad, but you just feel really empty and that you are getting nowhere in life.”

Wikipedia defines it as a “period of life ranging from 20s to 30s, in which a person begins to feel doubtful about their own lives, brought on by the stress of becoming an adult.”

According to The Boston Globe, the quarter-life crisis occurs in one’s 20s, after entering the “real world.”

The symptoms are often feelings of being “lost, scared, lonely or confused” about what steps to take in order to transition properly into adulthood. Unemployment and choosing a career path is a major cause for young persons to undergo stress or anxiety.

Early stages of one living on their own for the first time and learning to cope without parental help can also induce feelings of isolation and loneliness. Most parents are not aware of this. Millennials have an excellent way of putting up a persona of happiness and effectively conceal all traces they are experiencing inner turmoil.

What many young people do not know is that this phase is very normal. Their parents went through it. Perhaps the biggest difference is that their parents did not hide it, but dealt with it. The young are not to be blamed.

Faulty parenting could be one of the culprits. Many Millennials have grown up with parents espousing popular misguided encouragements like, “You can do anything you want to as long as you work hard for it.” Now that they have grown up, they discover this is not true. Even if they work hard for it, some things they want to do will not happen because it is beyond their strength and competence.

“You can be anything you want to be.” Others spread this cliché mouthed by motivational or some cultic religious speakers screaming: “Just believe, confess, visualize and claim your success and it will be yours…” And now that they are beyond their adolescent stage they are beginning to realize that many of the things they heard were false hopes and misplaced optimism.

These type of nonsense were not accepted by the older generations as they were taught and reminded to face adversity and deliver hard work to achieve success, not instantly, but through the course of time.

If you are in your late 20s or 30s and you are going through this remember these timely reminders:

1. THIS IS NORMAL!

You are not the first person to feel this way. All the achievers, leaders and successful people I know from all walks of life have experienced similar crises. And I have too. You may be surprised to know that even the “born rich” have to face their own crises too.

2. STOP COMPARING YOURSELF WITH OTHERS!

You have heard of “fake news,” and you don’t believe them and that’s good. Now there are “fake success” of “false people” whose photoshopped and air-brushed photos posted on their digital spaces do not reveal their true conditions. Do not believe them either. They are not real. But you should be.

3. FOCUS ON PASSION, PRODUCTIVITY AND PURPOSE!

I thought I was alone in this kind of thinking until I met Todd Henry through his podcasts and his books echoing the same sentiment.

I could have organized another conference on leadership or excellence, but working together with Stephen Ku of Worldwide Womb, we decided this time we would bring in Todd Henry.

Todd is a famous author and podcast superstar who will share ideas on creativity and productivity together with other speakers like Vic Gregorio and other industry leaders. We will talk about passion, purpose and things that are designed to bring people to live fulfilled lives and increase productivity.

Once in a while a speaker who is worthy to listen to would come and Todd Henry is one of them. For none-millennials like me, we can all learn from him as we learn how to lead our people and our children to live happy and productive lives. See you there.

(Bestselling book author Todd Henry, Francis Kong and Vic Gregorio will discuss passion, productivity and purpose in this year’s most exciting conference “Die Empty” on Nov. 9 at Samsung Hall, SM Aura. For registration or inquiries contact April at +63928-559-1798).