Making a Major Life Change

I've been going to college for four years in some sort of art related field. At first I was involved in the fine arts, and then in the industrial design industry. Yesterday, I made the decision to leave my school, take some time off and decide what I really want to do. 

It was a very emotional day for me, potentially saying goodbye to a career path that I've spent several years working toward. However, the decision felt that it was the right one to make, and understanding that I needed to make a change was an important component to that. There were a few simple ways that I went about deciding to leave school, and I'll lay them out for you here as I believe they can be applied to many situations.

• Am I happy when I am here? The first big indicator for me that something wasn't working is that I was becoming extremely dispassionate for a field that once excited me unlike anything else. I felt that when I went to my classes my passion and drive for the arts was slowly being pulled out of me and molded into something I did not want to be. My artwork has always been very expressive and emotionally driven, when I moved into the design world the lack of expression began to leave me cold. Asking yourself if you are happy can be a complicated question, and not an easy one to answer. But simplifying it a little and asking yourself if you are happy in that specific area of your life can make it a little easier to answer, especially when comparing it to other aspects of your life.
• Do I feel better doing something else? Even though I just started doing this blog at the beginning of January, I've found myself wishing I had more time for it and wishing I had more time to go back to painting, which was another hobby I'd really enjoyed in the past. When I see that a post is getting a lot of views it excited me unlike going to class every day, and I realized that I felt better and my self esteem was much higher when working on this. The contrast between the boost I get from blogging and the emotionally draining experiences I was having in class became really apparent to me as time went on. If you find that you are happier doing a hobby you've picked up than you are at your actual job or chosen major, it may be time to consider a revamp of what you're doing.
• Can I see myself here in the future? When I saw the future as an industrial designer. It didn't excite me, I saw myself becoming boring and doing the same thing day-in and day-out. I began to crave variety, and I feel a change is what I need in order to do that and explore my other options. If the future you currently see for yourself makes you miserable, that is probably a big sign that something in your present is not working for you.
• When I come home, how do I feel? Often when I came home from class I felt really beat-down and unmotivated because I wasn't having success anymore at school and it began to effect how I felt in other aspects of my life. I haven't really done much in the past several months besides go to school, go to work, and do homework, and it was really beginning to effect my overall outlook. I think that if a negative situation has really infiltrated into other aspects of your life that would be a definite indicator that it is time to change it or cut it out.
• If money was not involved would I still be here? This was the question that really sealed the deal for me about leaving school. I asked myself that if I did not have any money invested in school already, would I still be here? And my answer was that I would have been gone already. I may have some unnecessary student loans now, but if that is what it took to figure out what I really need to do with my life then it was necessary and I can move on from it. I think this question would be an essential one to ask when evaluating where you are in your life.

Have you made any major changes as of late? What did you do and how did you go about it?