I used to know myself. Once upon a time Myself and I were the best of friends, until life got complicated and broke us up. I still lose sleep over it all these years later.

Without a fundamental understanding of who you are and what you really want you're going to stagnate. And if there's a single thing the Quarter-life Crisis is all about is stagnation. After I graduated from University I quickly sank into the murkiest disenchantment. I stagnated for two years, and the questions I kept asking myself throughout were: Who am I and what the hell do I want anyway? I didn't know how to get myself out of the crisis. So what finally worked for me? Reconnecting with myself. Here's how I did it (and note, this is coming straight from a top life coaching firm located in Manhattan):

Open up a word editor and list these areas of your life:
1. Happiness with school/career
2. Your appearance
3. Sense of belonging (friends/community)
4. Your relationship to yourself
5. Your bad habits (smoking, biting your nails, over-eating)
6. Sex
7. Romance
8. Things you hate about yourself
9. Family
10. Money/wealth
11. Sense of control over your life
12. Things you've always wanted to learn
13. Things you've always wanted to do
14. Spirituality
15. Health

Ok, I know it seems like a long list that promises more than a bit of writing, but trust me, doing this was the first step to my full recovery. This is how I beat my quarter-life crisis.

A) After you make your list of 15 things that affect your daily life, rate them from 1-10 (10 being the highest and indicative of absolute perfection, 1 being absolute hell, while 5 is stagnant and the source of some pain, but with hope of change).
B) For any one that you didn't rate a 9 or 10, write out what a 9 or 10 would look like. Be descriptive and creative. Really try to go into your imagination and visualize what your heart wants.
C) Explain why you're not at a 9 or 10 right now? What do you think is going on in your life that is preventing you from having that perfect number?
D) Explain why it's not surprising that you would end up at this lower number in that particular area of your life. What happened to you in your life and family/friendship history that put you on the path to where you are now?
E) Why can't you have what you want in this area? What is getting in the way of your achieving satisfaction?

I will post PART 2 later so the analysis of your answers doesn't bias your responses to the questions above. I highly recommend you put some love into this because the results were magical for me. For a personal consultation/analysis of your answers email us: yourquarterlife@gmail.com. Note, this is completely free, motivated only by our desire to help you through this. Good luck on your journey!