Feeling Stuck? How to Recognize When It’s Time for a Life Change

When You Know It’s Time to Change

There comes a moment—sometimes gradual, sometimes startling—when the fork in the road becomes impossible to ignore. You can feel the truth rising in you like heat: you can’t keep adding fuel to the same old fire without risking burnout, breakdown, or the quiet ache of staying stuck.

This moment is both terrifying and electrifying. It’s the threshold of growth.

Much of the work I do with clients lives right here: in the courage it takes to acknowledge what is no longer working, to stop abandoning yourself, and to take one honest step into the unknown. And I’ve been there too. I reached my own point of no return—one that pushed me into choices I never imagined I’d have the bravery to make.

Here are a few of the shifts that carried me forward:

I Stepped Into the Light

For years, I stayed “safe.” I wore the metaphorical sunglasses—staying comfortable, staying helpful, staying the strong follower rather than the one in the arena. It wasn’t intentional, and it wasn’t all bad. Many of us become incredibly successful in our supporting roles. But comfort can also become a hiding place.

Eventually, I had to admit the truth:
I had put myself on the sidelines of my own life.

Stepping into the light meant acknowledging the line I had drawn years earlier… and finally choosing to cross it. It meant letting go of the identity that fit, but didn’t fulfill. It meant allowing myself to become more—not because I lacked anything, but because something deeper in me was ready.

I Changed the Way I Spoke to Myself

The pressure of today’s world is relentless. Expectations—professional, relational, parental, cultural—often leave us feeling behind, brittle, or not enough. I watched these patterns in my clients, and I saw them in myself too.

Something powerful shifted when I gave myself permission to stop living according to those external demands.

When I stepped out from under the “supposed to’s,” the shape of my future changed. Possibility came rushing in. The fear didn’t vanish—but the self-criticism did. And without that constant internal friction, I had room to imagine something better.

A Hope for Your Own Threshold Moment

Wherever you are in your own season of change—whether you’re tiptoeing toward it or feel like life has shoved you into it—my hope is this:

May you find the courage to face what you’ve been avoiding.
May you notice the space between who you are today and who you’re becoming.
And may you trust that the steps you need will reveal themselves as you move.

Carl Rogers wrote, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

I have found this to be profoundly true in my life and in the lives of countless clients.

When you stop fighting yourself… you create the freedom to grow.

So take a breath. Take your time. And when you’re ready—take the plunge.
Your next chapter is already waiting for you.

Liz Higgins, LMFT-S, is a marriage and family therapist, speaker, and founder of Millennial Life Counseling in Dallas, Texas. She specializes in relational wellness, inner child healing, and helping high-achieving entrepreneurs, parents, and couples build lives rooted in clarity, connection, and self-trust.

She is also the host of The Millennial Life Podcast, where she explores the deeper stories and patterns that shape how we love, parent, lead, and grow. Through her clinical work and writing, Liz blends evidence-based therapy with compassionate insight toward relational wellness.