Another year has rolled by and yet again resolutions have been made all around the world. From wild claims of not eating chocolate for a whole year to attempts at not drinking for a month, aspirations to learn a new language, or time to focus on a relationship or work issue, the statements have come in their millions. I haven’t really made any resolutions in the last few years, purely because I could never really stick to them. Having survived another year (and one none of us were even meant to survive), I decided that rather than give something up to better my life, I’d try new things. Not a novel groundbreaking movement to the world, but new to me!

I decided that I really had to become FAR better at my time management skills. I had to stop thinking it takes 20 minutes to get ready in the morning, 20 minutes to walk to work, and other bold statements of distance times (I was always apologising for being late to meet people). It’s going to be a slow (no pun intended!) process…but I’m working on it!.

Now, anyone who knows me will ascertain that I have always been a highly organised individual. Everything always seems to fall into place, partly through luck…but also my organising skills. So you can imagine it came as quite a shock to me to discover this incredibly disorganised secret character I had hidden in me. And then I got thinking…when had this all started?!

It took a while to pinpoint exactly when it happened, but when I did it all made perfect sense. I became single about seven months ago — and THAT’S when I lost all organisational skills! I guess it makes sense. This sudden onset of freedom has meant that I have no one to answer to or check in with. I do things when I want and how I want. Fun as it is, being organised seems to have taken a back seat at the moment, as I continue to do things on a whim and say no to very few plans.

In my bid to face my disorganisation, I stumbled upon the phrase ‘quarter life crisis’. Whilst in no means, shape or form do I feel I am having one, it was interesting to read how many twenty somethings go through them. Basically, it’s an identity crisis. In general, people have cruised through their teens and early twenties and things have just kind of fallen into place, particularly if they have been at university. You aren’t too concerned about ‘the future’, until suddenly you realise that life has sped up and you are closer to 30 than you are 20 and you still don’t have the faintest idea of what you want to do. It could be a case of having been in a career for a while, maybe even since leaving school, and realising that it’s not for you. The fear is that it’s too late to change the path your life is taking. It really is never too late.

A quarter life crisis will often result in one of four outcomes:

• Go back into education and get another qualification
• Go travelling
• Start up your own business
• Nothing

All of them will work for each individual case — only you can tell.

The society that we have become today, though, means that people are very quick to jump to conclusions. If you have had a bad spell at work, or a big argument with your partner, it has become too easy to leap at the first opportunity. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but equally, this generation of twenties needs to learn to face problems life deals you rather than run away at the first post.

So…what does 2013 bring you? Will you become privy to the quarter life crisis, or take on every challenge? If you do fall victim to a quarter life crisis, I would CERTAINLY back the travelling wing of escape, as you never know where it may take you…