Are you settling for less than you think you deserve? Do you think life has more to offer you than at present? Are you less than content with the way things have worked out in life? Most people feel this way. 85% of people globally are unhappy in their jobs (staffsquared.com), 80% of Brits feel they are not matched to their current partner (Mirror.co.uk) and with soaring rates of depression and anxiety, we’re only getting more dissatisfied as a society. In short, we are settling. Settling for less than happiness.
As a child and in my young teenage years I certainly thought that many things were reserved for other people, such as travelling the world, living in a nice house, having loads of friends, getting plenty of party invitations, and being gifted in the looks department. Yet, I was content with my life, living in a house in a small town called Boksburg in South Africa and going on holiday once a year to the coast. As the years went by, I knew there was more out there. Opportunities weren’t coming my way, so I created them to move forward including pushing myself to apply and gaining a scholarship to a private school.
Throughout my life, I had to push myself to be more than what I was, and more than I could ever imagine. There was always this thought that it was easier to settle. I’d get comments such as ‘can’t you just accept the way things are?’ ‘Why do you have to keep challenging the dogma?’ ‘Why aren’t you happy with your life as it is?’
We all know those people in our lives who have settled. Maybe they are still living with overbearing parents, still in the same job they hate with the partner they fight continuously with and come across as completely dissatisfied with how their lives are panning out. Yet, do nothing to change its course. We stay in situations despite knowing they’re not fulfilling us because we are creatures of habit. Enacting change is difficult and scary. We become complacent and just accept that this is the way life is rather than taking that first step to proactive change. Without taking this first step, however, I may never have found true happiness.
Pushing myself took me on many detours to get to this happiness. One of these was the decision to go to Luxembourg. It sounded idyllic, like a dream for many, especially if you’re coming from somewhere like South Africa. I sold almost all my possessions; I left the country I grew up in to live in a place I’d visited only three times previously. The country was the complete opposite of what I was used to from the culture to the weather. The work wasn’t fulfilling, I had no friends, and it felt like I was doomed to be unhappy. I had the internal pain of loneliness, disappointment, and the entire office situation was cutting through me. I really struggled to fit into Luxembourg and couldn’t set my sights on what was next. I had so many hopes hung on this journey, that Luxembourg would provide this extraordinary and better life. It felt like I had no options, I knew I couldn’t go back, I’d sold everything! I was faced with the fact I had no visa to go anywhere else and no other job possibilities. It was a time I felt completely trapped. I was dealing with all the people telling me I could make it work and I didn’t want to face their disappointment in me.
I bought a house there, relocated my art collection and some furniture at a huge cost, creating a settled environment in a place where I was, personally, very unsettled. The most difficult was to deal with the expectations, especially those who gave me the opportunity to go there and believed in me in the first instance. The years in Luxembourg were the saddest years of my life, I hardly found the strength to live, and I tried very hard just to accept the situation. I was telling myself there isn’t such a thing as ‘the perfect life’, ‘I should be grateful’, ‘I should make the best of it’, ‘things will work out’, ‘I just need to get through this period’. I was afraid that any action I took would put me in a worse situation than what I was already in, so I settled in that unhappiness.
That was until I got the confidence to let go of the situation rather than sitting back and hoping for a miracle to happen. I knew that if I remained stagnant, it wouldn’t have been a life worth living.
Today, through life coaching, I help those who find themselves at a crossroads in their lives, who know there is more out there for them to look realistically at their situation and navigate to keep pushing forward. I help them to realise and open up their options, taking them into that first step into the unknown which is the most difficult to do alone. Change and the unknown are frightening prospects, but you don’t have to face it alone.
