How to Stop Feeling Lost After Quitting People-Pleasing?
By Eva Nagy
First, I want to congratulate you; you did it.
You’ve done the hard work: therapy, healing, and deep self-discovery. Now you understand your patterns, needs, and boundaries. You realize people-pleasing helped you survive, feel loved, or stay safe, but it didn’t create the life you truly wanted.
Your relationships were one-sided. As the giver, you always showed up, reached out, initiated, and invested energy in others. All that giving left you drained and resentful. And when you needed support, only a few people showed up for you if you were lucky.
So, you did the work and changed the way you show up… and here you are…after all the effort, time, and energy, feeling lost, disoriented, and unmotivated. You might even feel a bit depressed, and maybe a little (or a lot) alone.
If this sounds familiar, you might be in what I would call the Post-Validation Void, No Man’s Land or the Dark Night of the Soul. It’s that uncomfortable place where your past doesn’t fit anymore, your present feels uneasy, and your future is uncertain.
If this is where you are, I hear and feel you. I spent years in this place, feeling like I had done something wrong, second-guessing my decisions, and sometimes cursing my healing journey, believing that being asleep or unaware might have been easier.
After getting through this time of transformation, I want to share three important insights I wish I had known when I was in the same place.
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”— Maya Angelou
1. Navigating No Man’s Land: Confusion Is a Sign of Expansion
It’s important to know that if you are feeling unmotivated and uneasy, it is completely normal. Feeling confused is not a sign that you’re in the wrong place, but that you’re growing and moving toward something new.
In the past, every decision you made was subconsciously fueled by the need for validation. That external need was your engine. Now that you’ve become self-aware, you realize that living this way didn’t give you the life you wanted, so you’ve shut that old engine down.
The only reason you don’t know what to do next is that you’ve never done this before. You’ve never consciously and intentionally created your life from a place of inner alignment. Your mind simply doesn’t have a blueprint for this level of self-leadership and emotional freedom, yet.
2. The Core Shift: Creating from Conscious Choice: It’s Up to You Now
In the past, external validation might have been your biggest motivator. You may have achieved a lot, but that drive came from survival, not alignment. It didn’t make you happy; instead it left you drained and disconnected from your needs and wants.
Now, in this space of “nothingness,” you have an incredible opportunity to shift gears. Feeling stuck or lost isn’t a setback; it’s an invitation to create from awareness.
The next chapter of your life won’t just appear; YOU have to decide what you want and take aligned (with your needs, wants, beliefs, and values) steps to create it.
For the first time in your life, what you create and how your life feels is entirely in your hands. This is the true power that comes from healing and self-awareness. Everything you’ve learned on your personal growth journey will come to fruition when you take your next step intentionally.
3. The New Driver: Pain Pushes with Effort, Vision Pulls with Ease
Another reason you might feel disoriented or unmotivated is that you don’t yet have a clear vision for your life, which is crucial for creating lasting change.
The need for validation can be a powerful force that moves you forward, but it requires constant, extreme effort and energy. Living that way is exhausting. Trust me, I know.
But now, you’re ready for ease.
And ease is possible when you have a vision that inspires you and you make decisions and take action fully aligned with who you are.
The great news is: the control is in your hands. You just need to take the wheel.
Create a clear vision and decide your next aligned step. That’s the new way of living your life: not from struggle, but from alignment.
Conclusion
Remember, being in the void isn’t a sign of failure; it’s the sacred space of your most profound transformation. By accepting confusion as a sign of expansion, choosing consciously, and dedicating yourself to your new vision, you step fully into the role of creator of your life.
If this message resonates with you, please share this article. You never know who might be in this exact phase of their journey — and needs to hear this message today.
About Me
Are you ready to live in alignment with who you truly are?
I’m Eva Nagy, a transformational coach who helps women turn their healing and self-discovery into aligned, joyful living. After moving through my own journey of burnout, loss, and rediscovering who I truly am, I became passionate about helping women who’ve done the inner work but feel unsure of what comes next. Through my coaching, writing, and podcast The Joy of Being You, I guide women to trust themselves, create a clear vision, and live in alignment with their true selves.
