Life Crisis Prevention

Lisa, 50 years old, has been in the same job, the same marriage for 20 years. If asked, she’d say that her life has been a good one, that she has been lucky, grateful. But the last couple of years have been different. She feels restless – on the job, in her marriage. She’s tired of doing the “right” things; she knows she doesn’t want to do the same for the next 20 years though she’s not sure what she wants to be different.

Sam is 33. After a tumultuous 20’s he has finally settled down – a good job, married to a wonderful woman, a new baby. But he too is restless – bored by routine, a sense of “Is this all there is?”

Research on adult development tells us that most of us move through 5-7 years of relative stability followed by 2-3 years of instability. Though Lisa and Sam are dealing with different content, what they share in common is their restlessness. Comparing the two, Lisa’s crisis is at a bit higher level. For her it feels big – what does she want to do with the remaining good 20 years she might have left. Sam probably feels less panicked, but he feels stuck and routinized. The challenge for both is how to do something different.

And these become the smaller and bigger crises that we all experience, culminating for many in the big mid-life crises where we leave our partners, quit our jobs, and march off into strange new directions.

Or not.

The psychology here is that we have outgrown our lives, our lives made of sanity-insuring routines and patterns. We’ve climbed some mountain – secured the partner or career or raised the kids – and now the view from the top has gotten... old. Time for change.

But crises are like pressure building up in a pipe that finally bursts. What we need to do is pay attention to the build-up and act before we explode. Here are some tips:

Pay Attention. Earthquakes start long before the actual event. There are seismic shifts that tell us that something is happening. We pass it off as sleep deprivation or indigestion or the holiday stress – it may be. But often the low level boredom or restlessness mean something. Pay attention, don’t sweep it under the rug. Take some time to figure out what is going on.

Be proactive. Rather than waiting for stirring and grumplings, check in with yourself on a regular basis. Don’t wait till things start to feel stuck or sink. Take stock every few months, a least every year on whether you life now fits and represents who you are.

Listen to your gut. Like Lisa, a lot of us are driven by our head, about what is right, what should I do. This is important in establishing values and priorities, but too much of this prefrontal thinking kills those subtle but important gut reactions that tell us when our lives are starting to go off-course. The don’t-likes, the impulse to do something different is too easily stomped down by our rational proper side. You need to keep your ear close to the ground of your life in order to detect those initial stirrings. You don’t want or need to be impulsive, but don’t want to be robotic and go on auto-pilot 24/7.

Learn to be honest. Even if our heads tell us being honest is good to do, it often takes years to develop this skill. It’s about being honest with ourselves about how we feel or then, the harder part, be honest with those around us, telling them how we feel and what we need. The sooner we can develop this the better. It’s about assertiveness and often learning to over-ride all that childhood stuff that kept us good and responsible and out of trouble.

Make friends with risk. Research has told us over and over that people tend to regret not what they did but what they didn’t do. Go for the want, learn to take the risk, desensitize yourself to the anxiety that naturally comes with change. Again, the sooner the better.

What this all comes down to is building change, any kind of change into your life. Crises aren’t are never about things – acquiring the big house or the trophy spouse or big job – but about how we run our lives. We need to shift gears and run our lives differently – usually less cautiously, more honestly, more fearlessly. If we can do that on the everyday level, the pressure doesn’t build, the explosion at 30 or 50 is less likely to happen.

It’s a practice thing. Listen and act.

Now.