If you feel flat, stuck, or quietly miserable, this episode will help you stop going through the motions and start actually living. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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Episode Overview:

Feeling miserable but can’t explain why? We need to talk… because there’s much more going on than you might realise. 

This week in the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast I’m talking about the flat, empty, and unhappy feeling that can creep in when your life looks fine on paper but it feels like you’re just going through the motions. If you find yourself wondering, “why am I so unhappy?” or even “am I depressed?” then this episode is for you. If you’re feeling miserable for no reason, feeling stuck and unhappy, feeling numb and unmotivated, or quietly asking “why am I so miserable?” while trying to keep functioning, then this episode will help you figure out a way forward. 

I’ll look at feeling sad, the difference between feeling miserable but not depressed, and actual signs of depression, and I’ll share practical mental health tips to help you stop numbing, start paying attention, and work out what that miserable feeling is really pointing at. If you’ve been stuck in a rut, feeling flat and empty, or searching for how to be happy and how to feel better about life, this episode will help you start making small and honest changes so you can find balance, find peace, and stop just going through the motions. 

👉 Ready to stop feeling miserable and start discovering how to be happier? Then let’s talk!

💡 TL;DR: Feeling miserable isn’t always depression; sometimes it’s the sign you’ve been going through the motions for too long and need to start making honest changes. Discover how in this episode. 🙂

New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:

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Episode Transcript:

How to stop feeling so miserable all the time

Be honest with yourself: most days feel like you’re just getting through them.

Just going through the motions.

The days and weeks seem to blur together somehow. You do everything you’re supposed to do, and yet you still feel flat and hollow and quietly miserable in your life… even if it looks like you have ‘nothing to complain about’.

And somewhere along the way you’ve decided that means there’s something wrong with you.

But there isn’t.

Because you’ve completely misread what that feeling actually is. And once you see it for what it really is, you can’t unsee it.

So, let’s talk about… how to stop feeling miserable.

Hello and welcome! I’m Jeremy Godwin and this is the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, full of practical advice to help you understand and improve your mental health.

Alright… let’s not beat around the bush or dress this up. You’re here because you feel miserable; not necessarily depressed, not in crisis, but just quietly miserable in a life that might even look completely fine from the outside… or maybe even ‘great’ to some people.

And you’ve maybe been wondering if you’re depressed or if you have low mood. And that is totally understandable. And maybe that’s the case. But there’s a big difference between depressed and feeling miserable. They’re not the same thing. And I want to be very clear about that before we go any further.

Depression is a clinical condition that needs proper diagnosis and proper support. And if that’s where you’re at, then I’ve got a whole episode on it which is Episode 188. It’s linked in the description, and I would genuinely encourage you to go and listen to that one. But that’s not what this episode is about.

This one is about the everyday kind of miserable. It’s the dull, flat, ‘feeling stuck’ kind… the ‘going through the motions’ kind that doesn’t show up on any test and that doesn’t have an obvious cause. Which is exactly why it messes with your head so much. Because when you can’t point to what’s wrong, you start to assume that you’re the problem; that you’re ungrateful, or damaged, or just bad at being happy, or that maybe you need to pop a happy little pill in order to sort yourself out.

And I want to take those ideas and throw them straight in the bin, because they’re wrong… and believing them is keeping you stuck. The feeling isn’t the problem. What you’ve been doing with it is. And that’s what we’re going to tackle today.

But before we go any further, here’s something quick that you can do the next time that flat and miserable feeling shows up and it’s going to cost you absolutely nothing but a little bit of honesty. So I want you to stop and actually name the feeling, instead of just reaching for your phone or a glass of wine to distract yourself or to soothe yourself. That’s it. Don’t fix it. Don’t scroll past it. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Just catch that feeling, look at it, and put it into words, like:

“I feel flat.”

“I feel stuck.”

“I’ve felt low for weeks, or months.”

Say it to yourself: out loud, plainly, and honestly.

Now… I’m aware that this probably sounds overly simplistic, but it matters. And here’s why doing it matters: because you cannot change something that you won’t let yourself look at. And most of us have gotten very, very good at not looking at things that we don’t want to. So this week, every time that feeling turns up, name it before you numb it.

Alright, let’s dig a bit deeper and let’s talk about…

What feeling miserable really is

So let’s get clear on what we’re actually talking about here, because everyday misery is often a pretty slippery little thing to try and pin down… and that’s a big part of the problem. Now, when I say ‘miserable’ I don’t mean ‘sad’. Sad has a reason: something happens, you feel it, and eventually it passes or you learn how to integrate it into your life.

This is different. This is the low, grey, flat feeling that sits underneath everything even when nothing’s obviously wrong. It’s waking up and already feeling like the day is something that you have to get through rather than something to be in, to experience. It’s that sense that you’re just going round and round in circles, doing the same things over and over and over again, and none of it really ‘hits’ anymore. It’s an ongoing state of: ‘Meh’.

You’re not in crisis. You’re just… flat. Switched off. Going through the motions.

And here’s what it actually feels like; I mean, you probably already know! It’s the Sunday night feeling that somehow… that dread… has spread across the whole week. It’s scrolling for an hour and feeling worse, not better. It’s being tired in a way that sleep just will not fix. It’s snapping at someone you love over nothing, and then feeling guilty, and then feeling flat again. It’s looking around at your life that… you know, on paper, other people would think that you should be happy with it, and yet you feel almost nothing. And it’s the quiet, awful thought that maybe this is just it now. Maybe this is just what life is.

Now… the problem is that most people think that the feeling means that something’s wrong with them, that they’re weak or ungrateful or broken or depressed or just not built for happiness like everyone else seems to be. And so they push themselves, and they push the feeling down and carry on because… well… what else are you supposed to do? “Keep calm and carry on.”

But that’s the misunderstanding right there.

Because feeling miserable like this is not some sort of flaw in you. It’s not a personality defect. And it’s most certainly not something you should be able to just snap out of. It’s a response. It’s your mind and your body reacting to something about how you’re living… and reacting completely reasonably.

The feeling makes sense. You just haven’t worked out what it’s responding to yet… because you’ve been too busy trying to make it go away.

And once you understand why this feeling shows up and why it sticks around, everything starts to look different. So with that in mind, let’s talk about…

Why you feel miserable

That flat and miserable feeling is a signal. That’s all it is. It’s not a verdict on who you are. It’s information about how you’re living.

Think of it like the warning light on your car’s dashboard. The light itself is not the problem. The light is telling you about the problem. And what do most of us do when that ‘miserable feeling’ lights up? We ignore it. We don’t look under the bonnet. We just put a bit of tape over the light so that we can’t see it anymore, or we just learn to put it out of our mind.

We never see it, right? That’s what numbing is. That’s the scrolling, the wine, the working late, the staying so busy that you never have to actually sit still with yourself and ask yourself these questions. But none of that actually fixes anything. It just covers the warning light.

And here’s the truth that you need to hear. It’s probably going to sting a little bit, so brace yourself. The reason you stay miserable is not that you don’t know what would help. Somewhere deep within you, you usually do know. You stay miserable because misery has become familiar… and familiar feels safe, no matter how messed up it might be, no matter how unpleasant it might be, no matter how uncomfortable or miserable it might make you feel.

You know exactly how to do this version of your life. You’ve got it down pat. Being honest about what isn’t working, actually doing something about it, making changes… all that is the scary part. Because that’s the unknown. Your brain wants to keep you safe, and how it does that is by prioritising the familiar.

And so, consciously or subconsciously, you choose the unhappiness that you know over the uncertainty that you don’t know. And you choose it over and over again every single day… often without even realising that you’re choosing it.

And that’s the cycle that sits underneath all of this. You feel bad so you numb it… but numbing it means that you never actually deal with what’s causing it. And so the feeling stays. And because it stays, it becomes normal. And then ‘normal’ becomes safe, and safe becomes a life.

Nothing changes because nothing changes.

We need to be really honest about what all of this costs you, because it’s not nothing. Look, it’s not necessarily going to be some great big, dramatic cost… and it probably won’t show up in the form of a major crisis. It’s quieter than that, and honestly, worse than that… a lot more insidious… because it costs you the years of your life.

It’s waking up at nearly 50 having spent two or three decades managing a feeling instead of actually listening to it; avoiding a feeling instead of actually listening to it. Because the most draining and exhausting thing you will ever do is to spend your entire life pretending that you’re fine when you’re not.

“I’m fine” is the most expensive lie that you will ever tell yourself, because you end up paying for it in the one currency that none of us can ever get back, which is time.

“I’m fine” will keep you trapped in an expensive lie.

The problem is that almost none of us ever name it for what it actually is. We get told that we need to be more grateful, or to think more positively, or we get pointed towards help for a clinical condition that maybe we haven’t got or that we have a mild case of. But none of that touches the real thing, which is feeling miserable about a life that’s quietly drifted away from what actually matters to you… not to mention our very human habit of looking anywhere except directly at the actual issue, right?!

But no more! Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. You can’t unknow what you now know… you know?! Because self-awareness is the first step to changing things for the better.

And we’re going to talk about how to make those changes right after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back! So now let’s get into the ‘how to’ part of this episode, and let’s talk about…

How to stop feeling miserable

Alright, so let’s discuss what to actually do to move forward. And I want to promise you upfront that none of this is going to involve blowing up your entire life or going and quitting your job on Monday, or, I don’t know, moving to Bali next week in order to find yourself. The smartest and healthiest way through this sort of feeling of being miserable is small, and it’s honest. It’s not big and dramatic. So we’re going to take that step by step.

So, here’s where to start. First…

Catch the distraction.

So the first thing I want you to do is actually about what to stop doing, and you already know what it is: stop numbing your feelings on autopilot. In fact, you need to stop right now thank you very much.

Look… I’m not going to tell you to never scroll on your phone ever again or never have a glass of wine… because that’s just not realistic and I’m not your mother. But there’s a huge difference between choosing to relax versus reaching for something to soothe you or distract you the second a feeling shows up that you don’t want to have to feel so that you don’t actually have to feel it. Right?

So this week, just notice when you reach for something. Notice the reach. Notice the moment your hand goes for the phone, or the bottle, or the to-do list, or the remote control… right when something uncomfortable surfaces. You don’t even have to stop it yet; I just want you to catch yourself doing it… because you can’t change a habit that you can’t see, and that ‘reach’ is the exact moment that the warning light is being covered up. Next…

Ask what it’s pointing at.

Right back at the beginning of the episode, ‘naming the feeling’ was actually the first step… and so here’s step two that builds straight onto that.

Once you’ve named it, ask it one question: what is this pointing at? Not, “Why am I broken?”, or, “What’s wrong with me?”, or, “What in my life is going wrong?” Right? Instead, it is: “What in my life is this feeling responding to?” And then actually let yourself answer it honestly, even if the answer is inconvenient, or uncomfortable, or maybe even confronting.

Maybe it’s the job that’s quietly crushing your soul. Maybe it’s a relationship that you’ve outgrown. Maybe it’s that you haven’t done a single thing just for you in at least three years.

Remember that the feeling here is information, so read the information and ask the feeling, “What is this pointing at?” You might be surprised how fast the answer comes once you stop running from it… because a lot of the time you already know, you just haven’t let yourself say it. Next…

Run an honest audit.

Usually I say, “do this if it feels right” or “try this or try that instead”, whatever. This one is: you need to do this. And this one is your actual job to focus on for the next week, right?

So take 10 minutes with no phone and look at the main areas of your life, one at a time. So: your work, your relationships, your health, how you spend your days, whether you’ve got anything in your life that’s just for joy and just for you. And when we talk about ‘health’, we’re talking about physical, mental, and emotional, as well as spiritual and social and financial. Those are all important. And even your work goes into that as well, right?

For each one of those aspects, I want you to ask yourself a very clear and plain question:

Where am I now?

And is this actually working for me?

Or have I just gotten used to the way things are?

Be honest with yourself here, because this really only works if you tell yourself the truth… as uncomfortable as that may be.

Look, again, you are not trying to fix everything overnight here. You’re just trying to find the one or two areas where the ‘flatness’ is really coming from. That’s the diagnosis… and you can’t treat anything until you’ve got a clear diagnosis. Next…

Stop waiting to feel ready.

Okay, let’s have an honest conversation about where most of us get stuck in life. And I really want you to take this one on board.

You are going to be tempted to wait until you feel ready.

How do I know that? Because it’s what we all do, right? We wait to feel ready, or motivated, or like we’ve got all of the energy, or until Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Stop waiting for any of that, because the perfect moment is not coming.

Motivation follows action, not the other way around.

And so the piece here is to change one small thing first, and then to let the feeling of, “Oh, I actually can do something!” build within you from there, bit by bit. And that starts with doing one small thing. Not 50, not changing your entire life… one thing. Pick the smallest and most honest change you can that’s connected to whatever your self audit turned up and just do that.

So if it’s about your job, then it might be updating your CV this week rather than going and rushing to hand in your notice immediately, right? Simple, straightforward, one step. If it’s that you feel like you’ve lost yourself, then it might be taking one evening a week that’s actually yours to be truly you. Or if you can’t figure out what that might look and feel like, the first step might simply be to do some research around what some possible options are and see what you want, right? What makes your heart sing?

Small and real actions beat big and imaginary ones every single time. And if you have trouble figuring out what it is that you want, check out last week’s episode about how to do exactly that. I’ll leave it linked in the description. Next…

Steer, don’t drift.

Okay, so then over time the real work for you to do… the bigger picture stuff… is learning to live more on purpose instead of just on autopilot. So in other words, stop existing and start living; which I covered recently in Episode 334, so you can check that out.

Now, why am I saying stop existing and start living? Well, it’s because misery tends to creep back in whenever and wherever your life is running by default; in other words, where you’ve stopped actively choosing and just started coasting instead.

So, you need to keep checking in with yourself. You need to keep on asking whether or not your life still fits the person you actually are and the person you actually want to be. You then make small course corrections as you go along… the way that you nudge a steering wheel while driving rather than, you know, waiting until you’ve completely drifted so far off course that the only option feels like blowing everything up.

That’s how you protect your peace for the long haul. It’s not about making one dramatic leap, but instead it’s about making a hundred small and honest choices day after day to stop coasting and start steering your life.

And by the way: if you want to go deeper on actually building a life that feels better rather than just a little bit less miserable, that’s going to be coming up soon in Episode 348, so that’s the natural next step after this one; follow or subscribe to never miss an episode. And if you sign up to my free mailing list, you’ll get every new episode just land in your inbox. And the link to do that is in the description or just head over to ltamh.com.

Consider what you’re going to do next. But please do something. Don’t allow yourself just to stay in this state, because it doesn’t tend to just magically solve itself.

Conclusion

So here’s what I want you to take away from this episode:

That flat and miserable feeling that you’ve been carrying around is not proof that something’s wrong with you. It’s a signal that something in your life needs your honest attention. And it’s a sign that you’ve spent a long time covering up the warning light instead of looking at whatever’s setting it off. The way out starts with you finally being willing to actually look at it.

So… what’s the one thing you already know isn’t working that you’ve been very carefully not looking at?

Because when you boil it all down, you stop feeling miserable by changing one small thing at a time… because nothing changes if nothing changes.

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by an unknown author, and it is:

Nobody ever tells you that emptiness weighs the most.

Unknown

Let me repeat that:

Nobody ever tells you that emptiness weighs the most.

Alright, that’s it for this week. If you found this helpful, please share it with someone who might need to hear it and leave a rating or review on your favourite platform because it really does help other people discover the show and the advice I share. And if you’d like to support my work, join my Patreon. It’s linked in the description below.

Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Join me next week when I talk about why you don’t have to believe everything you think, and check out my episode on figuring out what you want next. It’s linked in the description. I release new episodes every Sunday, so follow or subscribe to never miss one. Head to ltamh.com for transcripts and more.

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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2026 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.