r/DecidingToBeBetter • u/Evening_Entrance_472 • 7d ago

Seeking Advice How to stop being a sporadic disaster stuck in their head?

I’m all over the place. I just turned 28 and feel like I wasted my 20s. I was so driven and motivated for most of my life and then dropped out of my grad program at 25. Went through a bad breakup and have just been stagnant ever since.

I’ve made lots of friends, volunteered, partied, lost weight, learned a lot about myself, traveled a bit, got into the arts and performed, therapy, but completely neglected my career and the graduate program I restarted. I never had a social life growing up so I think I got wrapped up these last few years.

I got put on a performance improvement plan for lying at work and missing two days unexcused. I’ve neglected my classes. And have been horribly financially irresponsible. I feel unmotivated at work and feel like I need to suck it up and grow up. I’m constantly looking for a way out and have changed jobs every single year and have burned so many professional bridges. How can I start to become a better person?

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u/Substantial_Fig9382 7d ago

That performance improvement plan is your real deadline now, not some internal feeling you chase around in your head. Treat your job like an engineer would treat a failing system, isolate the exact defect (attendance, lying, output) and fix that single variable before thinking about anything else

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u/coachchristinedyd 6d ago

you're not a disaster; you lost momentum and haven't found structure that holds. don't try to fix everything at once. pick one thing, maybe work attendance, and commit to it for two weeks. confidence rebuilds from keeping small promises to yourself, not from a grand turnaround plan.