Read This If You’re Feeling Like You Have No Clue What You’re Doing In Life
“Know that the ‘best possible you’ may not be as successful as your neighbor, but that’s okay. The best you may not be as thin as your sister, but that’s fine. The best you may not be as talented, as dynamic, or as outgoing as your co-worker, but that’s alright, too. Be comfortable with the person God made you to be. You can’t get distracted and lose your focus by comparing yourself to others. Run your own race.”—Unknown
Do you ever just look around and feel like you’re the only one who doesn’t know what they’re doing in life? Because I will be the first to admit, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.
Not enough people tell you that you aren’t supposed to have life figured out by your 20’s, or even by your 30’s for that matter. There is no set timeline.
We all go through the process. Go to grade school, graduate, go to college, graduate, then join the real world and get a big-girl job. Because that is what we are supposed to do, right? We are certainly led to believe so. Maybe this is what creates so much pressure for young adults which leads to more confusion, uncertainty, and stress from not believing you have a purpose if you have not yet found your calling.
Do I even have to list all of the successful millionaires that dropped out of high school and then went on to do incredible things anyways? That should be enough for us to realize that not everyone takes the same path, but it’s not.
It took $200 for a 1-hr session with a therapist for me to be told I shouldn’t have life figured out and if I did, that would be more concerning. I will say it was entirely worth it all just to hear it and to actually believe it for the first time. Sure, I’ve heard even my grandmother say she still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, but it never quite made me feel any better when so many people my age are either already continuing their education in the field they love, working full-time salaried jobs, getting married, having children, and all of the above.
I went to college directly out of high school, because that is what we are expected to do. You can’t possibly disagree with that when every person you talk to is constantly asking where you’re going to college, what you want to major in and so on. Unfortunately, I was never one of those kids that knew what they wanted to be when they grew up at the age of ten. Sure, I had hobbies and things I liked, but committing myself to doing one thing for the rest of my life always intimidated me. How does someone just choose?
I guess the truth is not many people do know exactly what they are doing.
The problem lies within believing that everyone around you has his or her life together and in perfect order. We must stop thinking that everyone else has it all together. Comparison is the thief of joy after all.
I tend to fall under the patience lacking, instant-results needed, perfectionist category where if I do not believe I can do something perfectly, I simply do not do it at all. This way of being certainly has not helped me and I have since tried to start embracing the fact that “done is better than perfect” mindset that I hear exists. I’m resistant to trying something out if I am unsure I could see myself doing that one thing for the rest of my life when really I couldn’t possibly know without having tried. I have come to find out how important trial and error truly is.
Failure is key, because it will lead you to where you need to be.
It is so important for us, especially at a young age, to be reminded that it is OK to not have everything figured out. When we are busy rushing from one step of the process to the next, we should keep in mind that our process is going to differ from everyone else’s and the best part is that we get to choose our own path. 