"It's been a great year on paper. Promotion, targets hit, boss calling me indispensable. So why do I feel... empty?"

I've heard some version of this question a few times in the past couple of months.

If you're feeling something similar right now, know you're not alone.

This feeling is more common than you realize. And it doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It doesn't mean you're ungrateful or broken.

It means the rewards you're getting don't satisfy what you care about most deeply, even if you aren't yet sure what that is.

That discomfort? It's information.

We're taught early to pursue certain markers of success: the degree, the title, the salary. But we're rarely guided to stop and ask what success even means to us.

So we end up chasing a version of success that was handed to us. When that version doesn't match who we are, the result is this quiet, nagging tension.

It's disorienting when what you've built starts to feel like someone else's definition of success.

What people often miss is that the discomfort isn't the problem. It's the signal.

Restlessness, hollowness, Sunday night scaries. These aren't signs you're failing. They're data points alerting you that something's off.

One more thing. Being good at something doesn't mean it will fulfill you. Competence alone isn't enough to sustain meaning.

So if you're feeling this, get curious about what the discomfort is trying to tell you.

What signals are showing up? Name them. Then ask, “What are they pointing to? What's missing, or what needs to shift?”

Just doing this can bring surprising clarity. Once you understand what's causing the tension, you have agency.

I've been there. In my most recent role, I had most of what I thought I was looking for. Good salary, amazing manager, and a rockstar team I cared about deeply. And still, the discomfort came back. So I sat with it.

I realized I'm wired for work that's service oriented. One on one, relational, depth over scale.

That realization gave me agency to choose differently. And when I did, the discomfort lifted.

If this resonated, give yourself permission to get curious about the discomfort instead of trying to fix it.

Sometimes the most important work is just listening to what your restlessness is trying to tell you.

Growth is cyclical. Clarity deepens each time you pause to reflect.