 If you've ever felt like you should have been further by now, this video is for you. And if you've ever felt like everyone else is farther ahead or your life is somehow over and that there's never going to be enough time to do the things that you want, then I hope this video helps you. Hey guys, Alex Hein here over at Modern Health Monk. So before we jump into this video on your quarter or mid-life crisis, download the free journaling worksheet right below this video, because the point of it is that it's going to help you figure out exactly what you want from your life and how to design your dream life going forward and get your shit together to actually make it happen and not repeat this all over again. Now for me, the wake-up call came at 23. I had just graduated my undergrad degree in biology and environmental science and I didn't know if I wanted to go into traditional medical school or go into something like an environmental science type profession. You know, I love the outdoors and I loved medicine and I didn't know what I loved more. But the wake-up call came once I entered the real world, as it does for so many college grads, because I was 22 and I had moved back home. I got my first job as a teaching assistant in a high school in New York, primarily the tutoring center in the school. Even though the job was pretty good, I mean, I worked from nine until four. It was pretty easy. It was pretty relaxed. They paid me a full-time income and I didn't really feel like I was overworked or it was that hard. But in general, after about seven or eight months, I started to get a weird feeling. And I don't know if you've ever felt this, but I would leave that job. And even though everything was technically fine, I found myself eventually blasting music and racing home because those 15 minutes were the most exciting 15 minutes of my entire goddamn life. And that's when I realized that I was probably in a rut because I had lived a whole 12-hour day, but the 15 minutes when I was blasting Drake and whipping down the highway to go back home was the only time I really felt happy and I really felt alive. For me, that's what triggered it. But for you, it might have been different. Maybe it was moving back home. Maybe it was something that just came from a breakup or a divorce, or maybe you know someone that died or got really sick, or maybe you have been really sick. Now, whatever it is that has hit you or affected you as part of your quarter-life crisis, whatever it is making you be in a spot where you feel very existential about life and very philosophical and you don't know what you want or if you're on the right path, it doesn't matter if it's a quarter-life crisis or a mid-life crisis. You know what it feels like. You feel lost. Now, I want to share the two observations I've made about why people enter these crises. And I have coached hundreds of people in their early to mid-20s, which is honestly one of the highest periods in a person's life, entire life, where depression is a major, major association. One of the other ones is also near the end of a person's life, especially if they don't have much family or a significant other alive. But believe it or not, psychologists have found that that early period in your 20s is one of the highest periods of depression. And of course, you're in the real world and you're trying to figure out what the hell to do with your life. It's the area where your dreams sometimes die and the more realistic, pragmatic version of yourself is born. But there's two scenarios here that often lead to it. It's like in The Matrix, which pill and which path. The first one is that you're having this quarter-life crisis because newsflash, you haven't lived life deliberately at all. And what that means is that when you are young, you have a dream or a vision of yourself, a fantasy of how you would like your life to be. You visualize yourself traveling around the world or becoming a professional athlete or professional musician or moving to New York or LA or Shanghai or Paris or doing a year around the world, walking the Camino de Santiago or taking the motorcycle from California down to Argentina. And then adulthood happens. Now, some people hold onto those dreams, but many of them get talked out by their parents. Their parents say, you know, ah, motorcycle from California to Argentina, probably going to get killed by the cartel. Or someone says, you know, why would you go to Paris? I mean, you're going to make a lot more working in New York City anyway. Or you're in California and you want to move to New York City and people are like, ah, New York's dirty and smelly and there's no sunshine and it's cold. Or like me, you wanted to book a one-way ticket to China, go on some adventure. And people are like, China? You want to go to the land of Communists and wet markets where they eat pangolins and shark fin soup? Like, why would you ever want to go there? So you've entered the states of life where very often dreams go to die. It's the adult graveyard. And before you think they have to die, they don't. But if you listen to adults who have lived their life realistically, then it probably will die. But the first reason is that you're having a quarter or mid-life crisis is because you had a dream and you aren't doing shit about it. You have a fantasy or a dream of what you want to do and you probably actually can do it, which is the crazy part. But you're not taking any daily action towards it whatsoever. You wanted to be the musician. You wanted to go to LA to make music. You not only are not living in LA, but you're not even making music on a daily basis. You wanted to be a writer, but you're not even freaking writing on a daily basis. You wanted to be a YouTuber. You haven't even uploaded a goddamn video. You wanted to create some future version of yourself, but you are not taking even one hour a day of congruent action towards that. So you feel lost because you aren't being congruent with yourself and the dream, which right now is a fantasy that you have. You're not doing anything to make it happen. So of course you feel lost. Now the other path in the Matrix is clock watching. Meaning you're too busy watching other people build their dreams or falsely post that they are on Instagram that you think, you think everyone is ahead of you. And realistically some are, some are, some are way behind you. But what you think is that everyone is more perfect than you. They have their life figured out more than you. They have more money saved than you. They know exactly what they want more than you. They're doing more things towards what they want than you. And they know exactly what they want and they're on that sole path. And you're not. So if you were in the latter category, then the reason why you're having a crisis is because you feel like you're being left behind. And everyone else is on their path and knows what they want. Why can't you just figure it out? You feel like every day that you are living, not in alignment with what you want, people are just smoking you. They're going after their dreams. They're making those job moves. They're finding those dream partners. They're going all around the world. They're doing what they really want. They're living life. And for some reason you aren't. So I find that this encompasses most people. Either there is something you know you want. It may not be the whole dream, but it's a piece of the dream. You just aren't doing shit about it. And you need a real reality check because you haven't even dedicated one hour a day for a month towards building that goal and that dream life. Number two, YouTube is you watching other people do stuff or lie and post that they're doing stuff that. Again, you're taking time away from being congruent and doing what you actually want to do. But the illusion is that they're leaving you behind and they're leaving you in the dust that they are doing something towards their dreams and that you aren't. Now the solution regardless is take daily action towards your goals and dreams. If you don't know what you want, start taking time to figure out what you want. And if you have an idea of what you want, then put aside one hour a day on your freaking calendar, on your phone, on your fridge, on your wall, on your mirror, and make sure you actually do that one hour towards your life. Whether it is writing the book or finding love or moving to LA or New York or to Shanghai, or it is just having an amazing friend group and creating memories and adventures. Take congruent action for an hour a day towards your goals and your dreams. And a year from now, you will forget that you were ever in a quarter or a midlife crisis because you will be well on that path towards becoming the kind of person that you want and living the dream that you've always wanted. So take action every day towards your goals and dreams. Don't pay two seconds of time towards your friends and social media and put your ass in your seat and do the work. That's what I've got for you today guys. I'll catch you soon.