It isn’t you. It’s that the world you built your life around has quietly changed beneath you.
Most people, when something stops working, do more of it.
More effort. More persistence. More application of what worked before. It feels like the right response because it has been the right response. Until now.
The difficulty is not capability. The people who feel this most acutely are often among the most capable. They have built something real. A way of living, of relating to others, of making sense of the world. That foundation has not collapsed. But the conditions it was built for have shifted.
The world does not announce these shifts. They accumulate quietly. The approach that worked five years ago works a little less well. Then less again. The feedback is subtle enough to dismiss for a long time, until it is not.
Relationships that once felt straightforward now carry unexpected friction. Beliefs that organised life reliably now produce doubt instead of direction. Ways of operating that felt settled are meeting a world that no longer responds to them in the same way. The life that was working has not dramatically failed. It has gradually become less recognisable.
This is not a personal failing. The world has genuinely changed, and changed faster than most people’s ability to adapt their approach to it. The instinct to persist with what worked before is understandable. It is also the thing most likely to delay the recognition that something more fundamental needs examining.
A life that has stopped working is not a verdict. It is information.
If this feels close to home, you are not alone. Take a look at Radical Conformity Principle 10 – Flow With the World and Principle 5 – Eyes Wide Open.
Colin Gautrey, May 2026
Further provocations:
Gautrey writes extensively for senior professionals adapting to a new world.
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