It’s difficult even to put a name to this condition. You could call it “painful confusion”, or “not reaching my potential in life” or “personal ineffectiveness” or even “existential malaise.”

Whatever you want to call it, this is what it feels like:

“I don’t seem to see things the same way as the people I work with. I have to be really careful around them because if they saw what I really thought of them, I’d be in trouble.

“There are many things in my life that other people envy, but which do nothing for me at all. It’s hard to talk to anyone about my dissatisfaction because usually they just roll their eyes and say “what’s the problem? There are people who would kill to have what you have. ”

“Sometimes I think there is a curse on me. I know I’m intelligent, well educated, capable, hard-working, but why does this get me so little in life, at work, in love? Why do so many people less intelligent, less hard-working find it so much easier to find the satisfactions they are looking for in life?

“I feel completely stuck, and stupid. Surely there must be a way, but why can’t I see it? It’s getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning. More and more I ask myself is there any point to it.”

If this is how you are feeling, the most likely reason is that early in your life, long before you were able to challenge or test it, you were given a story about what to do with your life, what is possible for you. This was simply a story, probably wrong, but you couldn’t know that. To you, it was “reality”. Some people fit neatly into these assigned life stories but many others, like you, don’t. Those around you thought they were giving you useful guidance, but they misdirected you. You were destined for a different path, but so long as you follow the one you were given you will never be happy or fulfilled. Success may come, but at a price. Then things got worse. As you followed the wrong path, you found success difficult. It came less easily to you than to others. So you started to doubt yourself.

You know that you aren’t moving in the right direction, but those who set you on that path early in your life also gave you unconscious blinkers. There are other more inspiring possibilities, but you unconsciously screen them out before you even notice them.

The task here is first to excavate, to drag into consciousness, the story you were told, and argue with it.Once we have pulled out what you were told and tested it, we can start to experiment with new beliefs, new ways of doing things, that will get you more of what you want. It’s almost impossible to do this for yourself – as the saying puts it, “you can’t see the label when you are inside the jar.” With help, though, it is possible, and the result can be transformation.