Transition from 20's to 30's

Perhaps it's time to stop reaching your goals and strive for a purpose in life instead, a life of meaning and significance.

This piece of guidance I have gleaned from a psychologies magazine I recently read.

The transition from your twenties to your thirties is a real mind screw. It creeps up on you very slowly. One day you look up and suddenly you have as they say: 'a wife and 2 kids, how did they get there? You don't know'.

I don't have a wife and 2 kids, firstly because I am a woman and secondly the slow creep up has been ever so slightly noticeable.

I remember at 26, someone I met at a really memorable social party said of me that I didn't come across as a 26 year old, that I had the 'lack of insecurity' of someone in their thirties, and I made a mental note.

Yes now I can do things, feel things, ignore things and be myself with a greater sense of understanding rather than acceptance, like I did in my twenties, but I can't remember when I changed.

Things I do now that I would never do in my twenties:

have lunch on my own in an expensive restaurant
make an effort to call that guy back instead of playing by the rules
dress for comfort rather than fashion
take far less risks that would affect my safety
laugh off very young guys hitting on me
advise people younger than me
pick up heavy things
not over-indulge in anything intoxicating
go out without make-up
leave the house for milk without first taking a shower on a Sunday morning
buy property
save money
feel broody when around babies
actually contemplate having a child
try to make a relationship work instead of running away
feel envious of young, beautiful twenty-somethings
consider dating a guy that might not 'up' my shares on the social exchange
desperately working on my changing body shape
diet
exercise
ignoring kids behaving badly in public
not going to clubs anymore because they make me feel old
not having any worthwhile goals and feeling stagnant

I seem to like lists as you may have noticed. But really this behaviour crept up on me and I am wondering if this is normal.

So my dilemma right now, is a confusion of where to go, what to do, what do I really want in life, how do I get there, will this make me happy?

And none of the answers leave me satisfied or clear as to what to do next. So I want a life of purpose, but do i really know what purpose and how do I change things so that I can fulfil that purpose an still survive, and most of all will it bring me happiness?