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Key points
- It's way too easy to let time fly by while you are in the wrong situation and distracted by daily minutia.
- if you haven't done so in a while, try scheduling a good block of time to ask yourself five key questions.
- You may need to adjust or fine-tune your current situation or, in some cases, make bigger, broader changes.
- Be proactive and consider doing such a re-evaluation every three years. And enlist the help of others.
Someone I know once told me that every three years he re-evaluates everything in his life. That's re-assessing everything, his current job, his career, his social situation, and his relationships. After each of the periodic re-evaluations, he decides at the time what to keep, what to change, and what to discard.
So, it shouldn't be too surprising that he's changed job responsibilities, job titles, or even jobs every, oh, three to four years. He hasn't changed spouses every three to four years, though. The original one has apparently survived the purges.
Now this doesn't mean that you have to go through Madonna-esque transformations every three years. However, it does make sense to do such a periodic re-evaluation. After all, it's way too easy to let time fly by while you are in the wrong situation. You may be too wrapped up in the daily minutia of everything to see the bigger picture. Plus, inertia can be powerful, keeping you going like an oil tanker in the same direction. The trouble is. you can wake up years down the road and wonder where all the years have gone and why you didn't make a change much earlier.
Think about it. When traveling somewhere by car, do you just switch on the engine, turn the wheels in one direction, put a cinder block on the gas pedal, and tell the car, "OK, let me know when I run into something?" No, the only way to make sure that you remain pointed to the right destination is to keep monitoring the situation and make appropriate adjustments along the way.
Ask yourself these 5 questions
So, if you haven't done so in a while, try scheduling a good block of time to ask yourself the following five questions:
- Am I truly happy with my current situation?
- Will my current situation get me to where I want to go in life?
- Is my current situation aligned with my values and principles?
- Does my current situation allow me to be who I really am?
- Do I feel that my current situation is right? Does my gut tell me that this is right?
If the answer to any of the above is "no," then your current situation isn't fully working for you. It's time to make a change, at least some kind of change.
Change doesn't need to be drastic
Such a change doesn't necessarily have to be a wholesale, burn-everything-down change. For example, your newlywed spouse probably wouldn't want to hear, "You've got three years before I re-evaluate our marriage and find someone else."
The changes could simply be just slight adjustments or fine-tuning of what you already have. Maybe it's simply about spending a little more time listening to your significant other. Maybe at work the solution could be shifting around your priorities and responsibilities a bit. This would be akin to being in the right car and the right route in general but making sure that you are not drifting off the road.
But in some cases, substantial changes may be needed
Alternatively, your re-evaluation may call for bigger, broader changes. This doesn't necessarily mean dropping everything immediately and fleeing the scene. It does mean proactively taking action to transform your current situation for the better, though. Do this before the impact of your current misalignment further builds up. Don't want to wait until everything explodes or you're filled with that "rrrrrrrr" of regret.
Enlist the help of others
Moreover, don't feel that you have to change everything all by your lonesome. Tell others around you that you are aiming for a change. They could offer valuable support and even good ideas for your next move.
Seeing how others react could show how truly interested they are in your well-being. How about something like, "I feel like I am in a bit of a rut. Can we brainstorm on how we can change things for the better together?" Who knows, maybe this could be a major positive turning point in your relationship with the other person.
What if, on the other hand, your supervisor, your workplace, your significant other, your friendship circle, or whoever is responsible for your current situation is not willing to acknowledge your concerns and help you improve your situation? Well, then it may be time to move on up, in the words of that 1993 M People song, to someone or something else. Your current phase could have run its course, leaving you caught in what's like the fourth season and beyond of the TV series Community after that show had jumped the shark.
The three-year mark is an important one
Why is the three-year mark a good time for such re-evaluation and potential ]shifts in direction? Well, one year may be too soon. It can still be a honeymoon period after your last set of changes. You may need to give your newest phase time to settle in and manifest itself. Two years may be a bit too short, too. Three is when you can get a much better sense of how things will look going forward. As they say, one can be an accident, two can be a coincidence, but three is a trend. And what's become a trend is not likely to change on its own.
