Welcome to your Twenty-Something Crisis

Feb 20, 2008 - 10:14 AM PST

Are you having a “twenty-something crisis?” Okay maybe you’ve heard the term before and think you may be having one, but how do you know for sure? Here are some questions to help you figure it out:

• Do you feel like you’re in a “funk” - nothing is terribly wrong, but things don’t seem quite right either?

• Are you unmotivated, directionless or passionless?

• Do you feel a lot of pressure and expectations to do, have or be something that you can’t seem to figure out how to do, get or be?

• Are you freaking out because you don’t know what you want to do with your life? Or maybe you do know what you want to do, but you’re broke trying to do it?

• Do you feel stressed out by choices that seemingly will affect the rest of your life?

• Are you confused or totally disappointed by your career?

• Is drama taking over your love life?

• Are you drowning in debt? Feeling financially unstable?

• Do you wish you could go back to college because the real world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

• Could your self esteem use an upgrade?

• Do you feel like time is running out to figure out your life and “have it all.”

• Do you think you’re a failure in your parents’ eyes or compared to your friends?

• Are you over-analyzing yourself, your life and all your decisions?


If you said “yes” to five or more of these questions, chances are you are having a twenty-something crisis. Congratulations! Why am I congratulating you? Well first of all, you are part of a very large group of twenty-somethings who are realizing that this part of life is not always exactly the time of your life. And having a crisis is a good thing, it really is. One of the definitions of the word crisis is a “turning point; a crucial time in which a decisive change is impending.” So if you feel like you are having a crisis, know that you are at a pivotal point of your life when things are changing.

It just feels scary and overwhelming sometimes because it’s all new. We don’t have classes like “Living as a Grown-up 101” or “Intro to Figuring out your Passion” in college. As twenty-somethings, we’re thrown out into the real world with knowledge about aggregate supply and demand and perhaps we can recite a few lines from Nietzsche, but what real-life, real-world tools do we actually have? Not too many – but we’re expected to know what to do with the rest of our life? What a joke!

Your twenties are not about knowing who you are and what you want immediately -- it’s about figuring it out. Quarter-life can become the time of your life IF you take the time to really investigate who you are underneath all those roles you have played. It’s about uncovering what you want after you strip away all those expectations you feel. And it’s about realizing that you are indeed at a turning point where a decisive change is impending, but YOU are the one who gets to decide what direction you want your life to go. It does take some work and letting go of all the “should’s” in your life. Stop stewing in your twenty-something crisis and embrace it – there are lessons there to learn if you are open to discovering them. Stop thinking about the future so much and enjoy the present. You will only be twenty-something for this moment . . . welcome to your quarter-life.



Christine Hassler is an author, life coach and professional speaker whose mission is “transforming the twenty-something experience.” Christine left her successful job as a Hollywood agent at 25 to pursue a life she could be passionate about. But, it did not come easily. After being inspired by her own unexpected challenges and experiences, she wrote her first book Twenty-Something, Twenty-Everything: A Guide to Balance and Direction.

Today, she supports quarter-lifers in discovering the answers to the questions: "Who Am I, What do I want, and How do I get it?" As a professional speaker, Christine leads seminars and workshops to audiences around the country. She has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, and PBS, as well as various local television and radio shows, speaking about life issues and "Expectation Hangovers®" - a phenomenon she identified and trademarked.

Christine has two additional books coming out in 2008: The Twenty-Something Manifesto stemming from her experience counseling twenty-something's and is co-authoring Chicken Soup for the Twenty-Something Soul with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.


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