You’ve made it into the new year. You want to feel excited about what’s ahead, but something still feels off.
If that sounds familiar, you might be in a transition you haven’t fully named yet. And the usual questions—What do I want now? What’s my plan?—aren’t helping. So, I want to offer you something different.
Just one question that can cut through the noise and help you hear what’s really wanting to come through in your life. Spending time with it might finally help you feel more alive about this new year.
When the New Year Feels Off and Old Questions Fall Flat
At the start of a new year, most people ask the same questions:
- What are my goals?
- What do I want to accomplish?
- How can I be more productive?
- What’s my word of the year?
These questions work well when we’re clear on what matters to us, or when we’re just trying to fine-tune life or push ourselves a little farther along the path we’re already on.
But if you’re in a life transition where something is shifting, those questions can feel hollow or even confusing.
Here’s the truth: you can’t build a future from a story that’s already expired. And if you’ve outgrown the life you’re living, no questions about goals are going to fix that.
Naming the Moment Your New Year Feels Off
Those standard New Year’s questions assume that you already know what matters to you right now. They assume your job is to push forward, grow, improve, and evolve on the same track.
But when you’re in a life transition, even if you haven’t fully admitted that yet, your foundation is shifting. Something in you knows that change is afoot.
When that happens, those forward-facing questions don’t help, because you’re not in a goal-setting moment. You’re in a “what’s true for me now” moment.
Until you stop and face that, every new plan you make is going to feel disconnected, like you’re mapping out a future for someone you don’t even recognize anymore.
The Question That Helps When the New Year Feels Off
So what do you ask instead? What kind of question can meet you in this place and help you finally start moving ahead again?
Here it is:
“What isn’t working anymore?”
This question shifts your focus from trying to figure out where you’re going to finally facing exactly where you are. And when you ask that question honestly, something starts to move.
Let’s talk about why this helps, especially if you’ve been stuck for a while.
Reason 1: A Starting Point When the New Year Feels Off
When you ask, “What do I want?” and your mind goes blank, it’s easy to think that you’re lost.
But most people in transition aren’t lost at all. They’re overloaded.
When your system is overwhelmed, forward-facing questions just spin you in circles.
But if you ask, “What isn’t working anymore?” it’s different. It doesn’t ask you to predict the future. It just asks you to notice something real about your present.
You might not know what career move to make or what new purpose you want to embrace. But you may know that your current job leaves you drained or disconnected at the end of every day. You may know that you don’t feel like what you’re doing really matters anymore.
You might not have a plan, but you know this version of your life isn’t it.
Once you name what’s not working, you can start to imagine what might.
Reason 2: Quieting the Noise When the New Year Feels Off
One of the hardest parts of feeling stuck is the constant swirl in our heads.
- Should I stay or go?
- Am I overreacting?
- What if I regret making this change?
The longer we spin in that space, the harder it is to hear our inner selves.
When we ask, “What’s not working anymore?” we’re not forcing ourselves to make a decision. We’re not trying to fix anything. We’re just noticing.
Noticing creates space.
Let’s say you’re in a relationship that used to feel right, but lately it tends to drain you. Maybe you’ve grown, maybe they haven’t, or maybe you’ve both stopped being honest with each other and no one wants to admit that out loud.
You don’t have to know what to do yet. Simply naming that something has shifted—that it’s not working the way it used to—can calm the noise enough for the truth to start coming through.
Once that noise quiets down, you’re no longer reacting to fear or pressure. You’re listening. That’s when real clarity can start to form.
Reason 3: Finding Yourself When the New Year Feels Off
When you’ve been living in disconnection for a while, you start to lose track of who you really are.
You’re going through the motions, playing the roles you’ve always played, and doing the things you’ve always done.
Underneath all that, you feel distant from your own life.
Even when you want to change, it’s hard to know where to begin because the person you used to be isn’t quite here anymore. And the person you’re becoming doesn’t feel solid yet.
Maybe you’ve reached a point in life where everything looks fine on paper—your career, work, relationships, and stability—but something in you feels done, finished with this life-as-is. You’ve outgrown the old story.
You can sense that a new chapter wants to start, but you don’t know what it is yet. That makes it hard to trust any move you might make.
When you ask, “What’s not working anymore?” you stop trying to force answers from a version of you that’s already gone and start listening to the part of you that’s still alive underneath all the noise.
Sometimes, just naming one thing that no longer fits is enough to bring that part of you back into the room.
My Corporate Wake-Up Call: Seeing What Wasn’t Working Anymore
When I used to work for a corporation as a copywriter, the job was great for a long time.
Then several things shifted. Things in the office started going downhill. I could also feel that I was growing beyond this job.
I could feel that change happening, but it was like I was in this in-between place. Things at the corporation were getting worse and worse, but I couldn’t quite see the full picture of where I was going next.
Simply stopping and saying, “Okay, what’s not working anymore?” changed that.
This job at the corporation wasn’t working. I could look 50 years down the line and see the same kind of stuff going on, and I didn’t want to be there at that point.
Naming what wasn’t working helped me get really clear. When we get clear on “this isn’t it,” the door starts to open toward what might be.
For me, the next truth was obvious once I let it in: going out on my own as a freelance writer.
Naming what wasn’t working opened the door. Small steps through that door gradually created a very different life.
Sit With What Isn’t Working Anymore
I’d love for you to spend a little time with the question we’ve been working with:
“What isn’t working anymore?”
Give yourself ten quiet minutes tonight to ask the question and see what comes up.
It can help to journal your answers. Or you can take a walk and pose the question to yourself out loud. As you walk, blood flow increases to your brain, and answers can be more available than when you’re sitting at home or at your desk.
Another gentle technique is to hold the question in your mind right before you fall asleep and see what you wake up with.
The point is not to solve anything.
Just notice what answers come up. Whatever rises to the surface, let it be what it is. Write it down, and then sit with it honestly and see where it takes you.
After being with it for a while, you might go on to ask yourself:
If I stopped trying to hold this together, what’s one small move I might make?
Your answer to this question may reveal your next step.
NOTE: If you’re in a life transition and want more support with questions like what isn’t working anymore, I created a free Signals Journal to help you notice and track the subtle shifts in your life.
Featured image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.