Why you feel like a stranger to yourself lately

Hi friend,

There's this phase nobody really warns you about. The one where the old version of you clearly doesn't fit anymore, but the new one hasn't fully shown up yet.

You're not who you were a year ago, but you're not quite who you're trying to become either, and living in that gap is uncomfortable in a way that's hard to put into words.

It doesn't feel like growth. It feels like being stuck. Which is the cruel part.

The old you had an identity. Familiar routines, familiar opinions, a familiar way of seeing yourself. Even if that version wasn't working, at least it was consistent.

The new version is still forming, still figuring out what it actually looks like in real life rather than just in your head.

So you end up in this weird middle ground where the old habits feel wrong but the new ones aren't automatic yet.

And one bad week can make you question whether you've actually changed at all.

You have. You're just not done yet.

What makes this harder than it needs to be is the expectation that growth should be clean and obvious. Like you decide to change and the new version just arrives fully formed.

But most of the real shift happens quietly, in the background, in ways you can't measure while you're in it. You only see it looking back, when you realise you handled something completely differently than you would have before.

The other thing is that people around you are still responding to who you were, because that's the only version they know. They'll say things that don't land the same way, offer advice that no longer applies, make jokes that feel off.

It can make the whole transition feel invisible, like it doesn't count because nobody else can see it yet.

That's not a sign it isn't real. It's just a sign you're ahead of the perception.

I don't think there's a clean way to speed this phase up. Trying to force the new identity before it's ready just creates another version of performance.

What actually seems to help is staying honest about where you are, not pretending to be further along, not romanticising the discomfort either, just accepting that this uncomfortable middle part is the actual process and not a detour from it.

You're not lost. You're just not finished. And those two things feel identical from the inside, but they're completely different situations.

Until Next Week
Lorenc - Founder of Success Skill