5 signs you're not living your own life and how to change it
How to tell if you’re living your own life or following someone else’s script (photo: Freepik)
Many people don't actually live their own lives. They build careers chosen by their parents, get married "because it's time," carry a heavy load of obligations, or try to meet expectations that were never theirs. This is called living according to someone else's script. Such a path often leads to emotional burnout, apathy, and depression. Ukrainian family and holistic psychologist Anna Bohomolets explains how to recognize if you're living a life imposed on you rather than your own.
Signs you're not living your own life
According to the psychologist, this is not a question with a quick answer, because it's like looking into a mirror that's hard to face.
"We all carry the voices of others inside us. It can be the voices of our parents, teachers, society, people we loved and didn't want to disappoint. They leave phrases in us: this is right, this is safer, this is what you should do, and often we don't even notice how we start living by those words," says Anna Bohomolets.
She adds that living by someone else's script feels like living "from the outside in": you make choices because they look good, are socially acceptable, or earn approval. But inside, there's often emptiness. It's like playing a role in a movie where the story was written by someone else.
Pay attention to these signs:
Your decisions are dictated by what's right
You often make choices based not on your own desires, but on the expectations of others—your family, friends, or society. If the voice in your head says "this is the right thing to do" instead of "this is what I want," that's the first warning sign.
You don't feel satisfaction even from achievements
On the outside, everything seems fine—a stable job, a family, success. But inside, there's emptiness. This is a typical symptom of living a script that isn't yours.
You often compare yourself to others
A constant feeling that others are living better is a sign that you've lost your own direction. Someone who knows where they're going doesn't measure their path against someone else's.
You're afraid of disappointing others
If the fear of letting someone down outweighs the desire to be honest with yourself, it's not your life. It's a role you're performing to meet others' expectations.
You can't remember what you truly want
If asking yourself "What do I want?" leaves you confused, it signals that external influences have long drowned out your own voice.
How to feel that you're living your own life
The first thing to notice is a sense of internal resonance. Living your own life goes from the inside out. It's not about constant pleasure or rosy fantasies. It's about knowing—even when it's hard—that this is "my choice, my path, my cost, and my reward."
"There's a very simple marker: when you're alone with yourself in the evening, do you feel warmth inside, even a little? Is there quiet satisfaction, like 'Yes, this was truly mine'? Or, on the contrary, a sense of burden and fatigue from having lived another day not in your own voice?" the expert says.
She adds that your own life begins where honesty with yourself appears. When you allow yourself to say: I'm tired, I'm interested in something else, this isn't mine. Even if others expect something different from you.
"These words are scary because they shatter illusions, but at the same time, they bring life back. We can live by someone else’s script for a long time and even be successful. But the inner emptiness will never disappear until we allow ourselves to rewrite the text. Live your own life, take the pen in your own hands, and allow yourself to write imperfectly, with ink stains, but truly, in your own way!" concludes the psychologist.
Earlier, we explained why our brain dislikes complex tasks and how to train it to think systematically.
