Since many people have already provided good answers within the industry, I will leave my 1cent talking about how I came to handle it by moving away from the industry.
A few years ago, I started wondering the same as you. I have been in the "design umbrella" for about 8 years by that time. It wasn't 8 intense years like the ones you read on Medium, but it was 8 years doing design stuff. I changed my focus a lot, which made me what we call today a Designer Generalist. It was a nice ride, with lots of curves and much more good moments than bad ones. Still, I felt like I wasn't fulfilled. It wasn't entirely "design" the problem. I felt unfulfilled by the community and industry I was living in: ego, people trying to sell themselves as if they were products (still see many people arguing this is healthy), more tools being released and this strong feeling that if you don't learn it you will get behind, articles made up to look smart but far from reality, little honesty... and the one that made me change: too many people believing they were changing the World (spoiler alert: they were not).
I took the decision to step back and leave any project related to the tech world. For about 8-10 months I didn't check articles about design, didn't study it, didn't open a tech project. My idea was not to just rebel. I honestly needed this time to see things the way most of the people see it (i.e. non-tech people).
After many months and lots of new learnings in the offline world, I started missing the projects. Then, I realised what kind of project and career I wanted: I wanted to make an impact on people's live. Not change the World, which would be nice but less likely. I went for it. It's been 3 years since I started designing again and now I can answer most of the questions I had back then (on the other hand, I have plenty more ethical and health-related questions than I used to have before it :P).
I may hit a career crossroad very soon... but, to sum it up, I believe I don't have a design career goal. Design is my profession and it helps me achieve my life goals. As far as I am having fun and helping my colleagues/company progress without harm... it's all fine :) And if it's not, luckily design is only one of the infinite professions out there.
Since many people have already provided good answers within the industry, I will leave my 1cent talking about how I came to handle it by moving away from the industry.
A few years ago, I started wondering the same as you. I have been in the "design umbrella" for about 8 years by that time. It wasn't 8 intense years like the ones you read on Medium, but it was 8 years doing design stuff. I changed my focus a lot, which made me what we call today a Designer Generalist. It was a nice ride, with lots of curves and much more good moments than bad ones. Still, I felt like I wasn't fulfilled. It wasn't entirely "design" the problem. I felt unfulfilled by the community and industry I was living in: ego, people trying to sell themselves as if they were products (still see many people arguing this is healthy), more tools being released and this strong feeling that if you don't learn it you will get behind, articles made up to look smart but far from reality, little honesty... and the one that made me change: too many people believing they were changing the World (spoiler alert: they were not).
I took the decision to step back and leave any project related to the tech world. For about 8-10 months I didn't check articles about design, didn't study it, didn't open a tech project. My idea was not to just rebel. I honestly needed this time to see things the way most of the people see it (i.e. non-tech people).
After many months and lots of new learnings in the offline world, I started missing the projects. Then, I realised what kind of project and career I wanted: I wanted to make an impact on people's live. Not change the World, which would be nice but less likely. I went for it. It's been 3 years since I started designing again and now I can answer most of the questions I had back then (on the other hand, I have plenty more ethical and health-related questions than I used to have before it :P).
I may hit a career crossroad very soon... but, to sum it up, I believe I don't have a design career goal. Design is my profession and it helps me achieve my life goals. As far as I am having fun and helping my colleagues/company progress without harm... it's all fine :) And if it's not, luckily design is only one of the infinite professions out there.
Hope you all are having a nice day :) Cheers!