I was happy. Until routine hit. I switched jobs. Wrong move. I switched again. Still wrong. And then I got so scared of choosing the wrong thing that I stopped choosing at all. The problem wasn’t the circumstances. It was me.

Coming from consulting I loved the speed, the hustle, the colleagues, the travelling, until I wanted to establish a life in Hamburg. When I did, I was excited for corporate life, which I thought meant more time for friends and all kinds of sports. The switch showed me that corporate is a whole different culture to consulting. The motivation, the team spirit is all so different and it just hit me. It wasn’t what I was looking for. And it took a while to adjust and I to figure out what it was that was missing. Trying out so many things I started missing the consulting world.  I missed the people, the speed and the willingness to change. So I took the next job that sounded great. I had an interview with the entire team beforehand to make sure that on a personal level there was a connect as well as on the job related level. I even moved to another town, expecting to move more towards the expectations I had formed. Somewhere in the middle between my consultancy and corporate experience. It turned out: Moving was a mistake. Especially during Covid. No family. No friends nearby. And for the first time I had to sit with myself – with no distraction, no next opportunity to chase. That’s when it hit me: I had been optimizing everything around me based on what the world was telling me. And I got it all wrong. So I stopped doing anything out of fear to do the wrong thing. And I am still learning.

It took me years to ask the right questions. Not „Why is this happening to me?” but „What does this tell me about what I need? Researcher Tasha Eurich calls this self-awareness – and her data is humbling: 95% of people believe they’re self-aware. Turns out, only 10–15% actually are. She defines it as two things: knowing yourself from the inside, and understanding how others see you from the outside.

The key is not to ask why – but what. What does this tell me about what I need? Acceptance is the key. Self-awareness is the compass. Therefore, I’ve been asking myself three questions every day: What went well today? What didn’t go well? And What can I do to be wiser (or smarter) tomorrow?

One question changed everything for me: when do I forget the time? Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this flow – a state of complete immersion where challenge meets skill. Not 100% of the time. But enough to notice.

Motivation is what drives you, not the success. The best recent example for me was the Cyborg (Arda Saatçi) who did not meet the goal of completing 600 km in 90 hours but also was to meet his mom at the finishline to have ice cream with her. Even though he did not make it in 90 hours, he completed to run the 600 km to have ice cream with her. That’s the motivation.

The key is simple: notice where you find flow. Use that as your compass. For me it’s conceptual work and long runs – both require skill, both push me further. That’s my sweet spot. Yours will be different.

I optimized everything. Money. Output. Career speed. Passion. Everything except the one thing that mattered: what I actually wanted. I used the Band-Aid of society instead of asking myself the real questions. For me the key is to accept what is today. I used to optimize from the outside in. Now I try to go from the inside out.

I am still searching. But I’ve stopped starting with the big questions. I start small. What went well today? What didn’t? What do I need tomorrow? Step by step. Feel it more than think it. I don’t have it figured out. But for the first time, I’m asking the right questions – and that feels like enough.