u/Think_Visual_5098

I’m in my mid twenties in the UK and have been struggling with this for quite a while now.

I grew up in a small town in a very small, low income working-class family. I didn’t go to uni, but have worked my way into a corporate HR job at a global construction company, earning a relatively decent income for my area, and my age (35k + bonus) with some opportunities to progress and travel internationally. I’m ambitious and enjoy my job, but I’m still early in my career.

I’ve recently bought a modest first home with my partner. We’ve put a lot of our money into it, so leaving the house or moving away genuinely isn’t an option for at least a couple of years. It’s lovely and I’m happy we’ve managed it at our age, but I’m struggling with feeling ‘settled’ before I’ve experienced everything I wanted to.

I have lovely long term friends, an amazing close family and a good relationship, and I genuinely appreciate all of it. I’m active, see friends regularly, take trips and sometimes travel for work. From the outside, on instagram, my life probably looks almost perfect, and plenty of it is.

But I still feel so restless and unfulfilled. I’ve always been fascinated by huge cities and imagined living somewhere exciting, travelling for weeks or months and becoming really successful. Sometimes the gap between the life I imagine and the one I’m living actually hurts. Then I feel guilty, because there’s nothing obviously wrong with my life.

Before buying the house, anxiety and the thought of leaving everyone I love held me back from moving. Most of my friends are happy staying local. Now I wonder whether I’ve missed out, even though I know logically I’m still young.

I like structure and stability, but I also crave adventure, financial freedom and something bigger - huge - to work towards. I don’t have a business idea or an obvious route to that life, so “just follow your dreams” feels quite difficult to act on. I also don’t feel as though a single person around me shares these ambitions.

Has anyone felt this way and actually found something that helped? How do you work out what “more” means and take realistic steps towards it within the commitments you already have?

I know a lot of the replies will focus around being patient, appreciating what I have etc and I fully understand that, but this feeling is genuinely painful to me, it is like deep down I KNOW I am destined for more and I just can’t get rid of that feeling or push it down, it’s completely overwhelming

I’ve just been offered my dream job completely unexpectedly and I’m honestly so happy and excited! The only downside is I don’t start for another couple of weeks, so I now have to survive my current job knowing I’m leaving.

I have no notice period, which is lucky because my current workplace is genuinely awful. My manager has verbally abused me in front of everyone tried to humiliate me, and literally said to me, “I would speak like this to a white man as well” after making racist comments. It’s an incredibly toxic environment and I cannot wait to get out.

I need the money, so I’m planning to hand my notice in next week, meaning I’ll have a few days off before starting my new job. But I’m already mentally checked out and have absolutely zero motivation.

My role is heavily sales/business development focused, so if I’m not actively bringing in business or showing results every day, I get questioned about it. I obviously want to do the bare minimum for my final week, but I don’t know how realistic that is without being caught out 😂

I could take sick leave, but I’ve never done that before and feel weirdly unprofessional about it, plus I need the money.

What would you do? How do you survive that final week when mentally you’re already SO done?

Hi all, just looking for some advice.

I applied for an internal TA role about a month ago but didn't hear back. I thought it was perfect for me - same niche industry I've worked in for years, exactly matches my experience, and the office is very local to me. I messaged the TA Manager on LinkedIn after the advert closed, and he apologised for missing my application due to the volume of irrelevant CVs. He was really impressed and arranged a phone interview ASAP.

The phone interview went really well and felt more like he was selling me the role than interviewing me. He then arranged a Teams interview with the director. Although it was initially postponed, the director pulled it forward to the next day because he was keen to meet me. He even opened a slot in his busy schedules for this. He told me I seemed "perfect" for the role and asked me to come in for an in-person meeting as soon as possible, so I took annual leave to attend that week.

The office meeting went well too, although a slightly awkward vibe on their side. They were friendly, we got on well, chatted about personal things, and again seemed to be selling me the role. They said the next step was an internal discussion with HR. HR even emailed me that evening asking how I found it, and I replied saying I was really keen to continue.

Since then, nothing. It's now been 3 days of complete silence. We'd already agreed salary, which was in budget, they liked that I have a shorter notice period, and I've even sent a polite follow-up asking about next steps with no reply.

Is this normal, or does it sound like I'm being ghosted?

recently changed jobs after being in my previous role for a few years, I’m only in my early 20’s and it’s all I’d ever known. I left because I felt like I’d become too comfortable and wasn’t progressing, even though I genuinely loved the people and had an incredible lucky work-life balance.

My old job was very flexible, shorter hours, low pressure, and I had a lot of freedom in my day. But I also felt like I was stagnating and not really pushing myself or developing.

My new role is quite different. Same industry similar job but It’s more performance-driven and higher pressure, and the expectations are definitely a lot higher. The working style is also quite different to what I’m used to which I’m finding hard to adjust to.

That said, there are positives – the commute is much better (I can walk to the office), there’s flexibility in other ways like being able to take a proper break in the day (e.g. going to the gym), although i’m finishing a lot later. The role itself should also be better for my long-term career progression, if I can perform well

I think I’m struggling with the shift from a very relaxed, comfortable environment to something more structured and demanding. I’ve noticed the culture is quite different – less supportive day-to-day and more focused on performance, which isn’t what I’m used to.

It’s still early days, so I don’t want to make a snap decision, but I’ve gone from really enjoying my day-to-day life to feeling quite overwhelmed and questioning whether I’ve made the right move. I’ve genuinely cried every day so far.

Has anyone else gone through something similar? How did you figure out whether it was just an adjustment phase or genuinely not the right fit?

i’d really appreciate any advice to get me through the first few months. Worried if I leave after just 3-6 months it’ll look awful on my CV and hinder my career