Why Your Life Sucks (and What to Do About It)

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

If life sucks then it’s time to grow REAL…it’s really that simple.

If you’ve ever felt like your life is on a treadmill of mediocrity, filled with frustration, emptiness, or an unshakable sense that something is off, then you’re not alone – it’s one of the most common ‘problems’ of the human condition and it’s something that we all deal with at some stage in our lives.

Here’s what you need to know to get out of this state of sucking ‘stuckness’ and to get back on track: your life sucks because you’ve deviated from your real path. You’ve somehow become out-of-sync with yourself, running on autopilot, reacting instead of creating, and drowning in the noise of a fragmented self trying to make sense of itself in a fragmented world.

Thankfully, this isn’t just about ‘bad’ luck, external circumstances, or some cosmic joke at your expense -no, the real reason you’re stuck is because of underlying emotional baggage—shame, guilt, and/or trauma (in the worst cases) – and the tangled dance between the Ego and the Shadow Self (aka the Shadow Dance) that keeps you trapped in cycles of self-sabotage and a life that isn’t as REAL as you want it to be…and the more real it becomes, the less life SUCKS.

The ‘good’ news is you don’t have to stay in this situation for the rest of your life because there’s a roadmap back to wholeness, purpose, and realness that anybody can follow and that will stop your life from sucking if you commit to the REAL ACTION that it asks you to take.

This article will break it down step-by-step and get you moving again.

Let’s dive in:

How the Ego and Shadow Went to War (Why You’re Fragmented in the First Place)

You weren’t born this way and your life wasn’t ‘meant’ to SUCK from the get go – nobody comes into the world ashamed, fearful, or pretending to be someone they’re not.

The truth is that you were born whole but ‘life’ taught you to be fragmented and to identify with the ‘parts’ of yourself and not the whole. That took you off a REAL path and now life ‘sucks’.

In short, you were born for UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE, but – somewhere along the line – you got the message – directly or indirectly – that certain parts of you weren’t ‘acceptable‘:

Maybe you were too loud, too sensitive, too bold, too creative (we can be conditioned to disown both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things about ourselves but they’re all real and we need all of them) – maybe you were told to “man up”, “stop crying”, or to “behave like a lady”; perhaps life hit you with rejection, abandonment, or pain, and you concluded (often unconsciously) that being your true self was dangerous.

This is where fragmentation begins.

To help you survive all this and to deal with it emotionally etc., your mind splits into two main forces:

The Ego – The part of you that tries to create an acceptable identity to fit in, be loved, and stay ‘safe’. It focuses on control, creating an ‘acceptable’ self-image, and chasing external validation.
The Shadow – The parts of you that get suppressed, buried, or disowned. This includes your real desires, emotions, and even strengths that didn’t seem ‘acceptable’ at the time (according to standards and judgements that somebody came up with because of their own Shadow Dance and the parts of themselves they weren’t ready to face).

The Ego and Shadow were never meant to be at war – originally, they were part of the same whole but once shame and fear entered the picture, a battle began:

The Ego works overtime to maintain an illusion of control. It creates masks, pursues validation, and clings to beliefs that make life feel predictable and safe so that we keep uncomfortable emotions (most commonly shame) at bay.
The Shadow lurks in the background, waiting to be acknowledged. It seeps through in moments of anger, jealousy, depression, self-sabotage, or self-doubt but is always running the show beneath the surface of our lives because it needs to be made conscious so that we can fill the Void and feel WHOLE again.

Most people live out their whole lives experiencing the tension of the Shadow Dance, trying to suppress their Shadow while letting their Ego call the shots and lead them more and more deeply into fragmentation and the Void that is opened up when we are disconnected from the TRUTH about ourselves, the world, and reality.

This is why life starts to suck – they feel restless, anxious, and empty because half of them is missing.

But at some point – if they’re lucky – something starts to wake them up.

It could be a crisis, a loss, an existential breakdown, or simply the quiet realisation that they’re not really living in a REAL WAY (which is why you’re probably reading this article and landed on this page).

When that happens, they’ve reached a turning point – a crossroads between UNREAL (fragmentation) and REAL (wholeness). The only way forward is integration – learning to bring the Ego and Shadow back together into a whole, real, and aligned self.

If you want your life to stop SUCKING then it’s time to do the same.

Here’s a roadmap to get you started – if you take the REAL ACTION, you will get the RESULTS:

How Do You Get Out and Stop Life Sucking? (The Roadmap Back to Realness)

The way forward isn’t about some quick fix or fake positivity – it’s about rebuilding from the ground up by following the transformational process of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action (this is the process that I walk my coaching clients through – you can also read more about it in my book Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World):

1. Awareness: See the Truth Without Flinching

You can’t change what you don’t see – so the first step is to wake up to what’s actually going on in your life and the patterns and conditioning that are holding you back from your REAL life.

It starts by asking yourself some of the QUESTIONS that will break you out of the ways of thinking that have led to you currently being ‘stuck’ and thinking that life sucks:

Where are you playing small?
What emotions are you avoiding?
What patterns keep repeating in your relationships, work, and habits?
Where are you reacting to life when you could be creating it?
Etc. Etc. Etc. (these are just examples and there are an infinite amount of questions, depending on your current situation and where you’ve already been in life).

Self-inquiry is key here:

Journaling, meditation, or simply sitting with your thoughts instead of numbing out can help you get brutally honest with yourself. Of course, working with a coach like me can speed up your progress here too.

One of the key points here is that it’s not just about intellectualising things at this stage – you also want to feel them. If you carry shame, acknowledge it; if you’re afraid, sit with it – Awareness isn’t just about understanding – it’s about experiencing reality without running from it so that you can see who you really are and see what life is (and when you see yourself and life clearly then life as a whole has to suck less because the only reason life sucks is because you currently don’t see these things).

2. Acceptance: Stop Fighting Reality

Once you see what’s going on, your next instinct might be to fight it – to beat yourself up for past mistakes, deny uncomfortable truths, or try to force immediate change. This is your ego trying to regain control by causing resistance (preventing you from acting on or accepting what’s real) and distortion (showing you illusions instead of truth to keep you trapped in the illusion that life sucks).

Real acceptance isn’t about resignation – it’s about recognising where you are without resistance and distortion so you can ACCEPT IT:

If you’ve wasted years on the wrong path? Accept it. Now move forward.
If you’ve built your life around external validation? Accept it. Now choose differently.
If you’ve been living in fear? Accept it. Now work through it.

Acceptance sets you free because it removes the friction of avoidance and helps you find a solid foundation on which to BUILD a life that doesn’t suck. In short, when you stop fighting reality, you finally have the energy to change it.

3. Action: Do Your Best and Let Go of the Rest

Once you see clearly and accept where you are, the only thing left to do is act.

But this isn’t about mindless hustle or forcing outcomes – it’s about taking REAL ACTION – action that aligns with your deepest values and moves you towards a deeper sense of wholeness and connection instead of that fragmentation that’s currently making life suck.

To do this, you need:

A Vision That’s Bigger Than You

The brutal truth is that most people drift through life because they have no compelling reason to move forward – without this compelling reason they just end up kind of ‘coping’ with life and falling into whatever is thrown at them (being an EFFECT instead of a CAUSE).

Get clear on what matters to you and create a REAL VISION for where you’re headed – this isn’t about ego-driven goals (money, fame, validation) but about what you’re here to build, create, and contribute as an extension of your own REALNESS.

Goals That Bridge the Gap

Once you have a vision, break it down into GOALS:

What can you do this year? This month? Today?

Small, consistent steps compound over time – this helps you to master the mundane and transform your life over time.

Daily Habits That Anchor You in Reality

Once your vision and goals have been set, you can start to figure out the HABITS that will shape your reality day-by-day as you close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in the future (your vision).

The secret weapon with daily habits is to build and COMMIT to ones that support your nervous system, mind, and body so that you stop running on autopilot and escape the outdated conditioning of EGO – this will also allow you to start integrating the SHADOW and moving towards wholeness with increasing frequency (if you actually DO your habits, move towards your goals, and realise that VISION).

Here’s what actually works:

Regulate Your Nervous System – Most people are stuck in fight-or-flight mode. Breathe deeply, slow down, and cultivate stillness.
Get Into Your Body – Stop living in your head. Train, move, and reconnect with your physical presence.
Master Your Mind – Your thoughts aren’t reality. Learn to observe them, question them, and replace the ones that keep you stuck. This free ‘Thought Log’ tool will help you do this: Hamster Wheel Thought Log
Stretch Your Comfort Zone (Without Panic) – Growth happens in the stretch zone, not the panic zone. Push yourself, but don’t break yourself.

The Final Piece: Make Your Values Valuable to Others

One of the biggest reasons people feel lost is that they’re too focused on themselves – this just makes life suck because none of us are made to focus on ourselves alone (we need others to go deeper into relationships and to keep growing through our own ‘stuff’).

The bottom line is that a REAL purpose comes from contributing to something bigger. This doesn’t mean self-sacrifice or being a martyr – it just means finding ways to give while growing yourself at the same time.

The formula?

Identify what you truly value.
Develop real skills around it.
Share those skills in a way that benefits others.

As you do this, you’ll start to build a real community:

Find people who align with your path; surround yourself with those who push you to be better. Nobody grows in isolation.

Bringing It All Together

If your life sucks, it’s not because you’re cursed or broken – it’s because you’ve drifted too far from what’s real. The only SOLUTION is to start to put yourself back on your own real path by working to disrupt and heal the SHADOW DANCE, cultivating a VISION for yourself, breaking this down into GOALS, and then taking daily action with your HABITS so you can keep growing into yourself and with others.

To start turning things around:

Wake up – See your patterns and conditioning for what they are by raising Awareness.
Stop fighting reality – Accept where you are without resistance so you have a solid foundation on which to build.
Take real action – Build your vision, break it down, and move forward daily with the right habits.
Regulate your nervous system – Get out of survival mode.
Master your mind – Stop letting thoughts control you.
Give while growing – Make your values valuable to others.

And most importantly, trust yourself and trust life – do your best, and let go of the rest because only if you really TRUST can you LET GO of ego and stop things from sucking.

This is how you stop living in a fragmented, frustrating existence and step into REALNESS and – once you do – your life won’t suck anymore.

It’ll be real.

Stay real out there,

Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.

It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.

This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).

Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.

Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.

Real Always Works

If life sucks then it’s time to grow REAL…it’s really that simple.

How the Ego and Shadow Went to War (Why You’re Fragmented in the First Place)

How Do You Get Out and Stop Life Sucking? (The Roadmap Back to Realness)