A few days ago, I woke up to a text from my best friend urging me to listen to a podcast. “You have to listen to this,” she said, “I felt so seen that I almost started crying.” Rave review for a podcast, I thought. I followed the link, and it took me to an episode titled “Feeling Lost in Your 20s? You Need to Hear This” from The Mel Robbins Podcast. I was intrigued and had vaguely heard of Mel Robbins from the “Let Them” theory and 5 Second Rule, so I clicked play while I did my morning routine. The following 58 minutes consisted of me aggressively nodding and yelling, “She gets it!!,” feeling like she had peeked into my brain and spilled all my secrets. Safe to say, I felt so seen I almost started crying.
To give the briefest of recaps, she introduces a three-part framework explaining why the twenties are so damn challenging, and afterwards gives three pieces of advice — all backed up with scientific research. By the end of the episode, she proposes a 1-month challenge where you pick an aspect of your life and commit to working at it for, well, a month. As cheesy as it sounds, I was inevitably influenced, so here I am committing to the cause.
“Feeling lost in your twenties is normal.”
As I write this, sitting cross-legged on my childhood bed using my teddy bear as a neck pillow, I am two months post-grad and lost doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. After I graduated from college, I moved back home for a well-deserved break, hoping that time would give me some clues as to what my next step should be. I spent May catching up on shows I missed during the semester, like The White Lotus and The Four Seasons, hung out with my hometown friends before life took us in different directions, and, my personal favorite: slept in. A lot.
While I enjoyed bedrotting and still consider it part of my weekly routine, I started feeling a bit purposeless. I missed waking up and having an assignment due at midnight (I know, weird) or going to that core class I always looked forward to. I knew the logical answer was to start applying to jobs, but every time I opened LinkedIn or searched job boards, a sense of dread washed over me. I’m not kidding. My entire mood would shift, and it was only a matter of time until I got overwhelmed and slammed my laptop shut. Afterwards, I would immediately turn on my phone and open TikTok, so I could tune out my brain for a few minutes. Those minutes quickly became hours, and suddenly half the day was gone, and I hadn’t done anything productive with my time. As you can imagine, this made me feel even more overwhelmed, so I opened Instagram to shut my brain off and well… you can see where this is going.
“No decision is a decision.”
In the episode, Mel touches on this exact phenomenon called decision paralysis. She argues that our generation is so overexposed to what everyone else is doing that we end up doing nothing ourselves. One minute you’re searching through jobs, then you take a small social media break where you’re flooded with perfect morning routines, ideal career paths, people moving abroad, or New York City — or actually, not to New York City because it’s too expensive and crowded — and why you subscribe to that lifestyle when you could stay home saving money and spending time with family, because who knows how much time you have left with them???
Sigh, even typing that stressed me out. Now imagine that mental spiral every time you try to unplug or reset. It’s not just exhausting, it’s paralyzing.
To illustrate this behavior, she brings up a research study about the paradox of choice. In the experiment, the researchers set up two jam booths in grocery stores, each with a different number of samples. The first booth offered six samples of jam, and the second offered 24 samples. The research concluded that people were more likely to buy jam when there were fewer options. Now I’m not a scientist, but if sixth grade taught me anything, it was the scientific method. Let’s say, for example, you replace jams with cities to move to post-grad, and everyone is making cases for why New York City has the best nightlife, Boston is the cleanest, Austin is the cheapest, Miami has the best weather, and so on. The more options you’re presented, the fewer places you’ll want to move to because you can’t lock in on one.
“There are no wrong decisions if you learn something from it.”
The worst part about decision paralysis is when it slowly but surely creeps into self-doubt territory. And boy, do I know about self-doubt. This blog was actually its most recent victim. It took me about a month to get my website looking exactly how I wanted it to, and the only thing left was writing the articles — pretty important for a blog. However, once I opened that Google Doc and started typing away, I suddenly wasn’t sure about the font I chose for my headings. Would Montserrat look better than Playfair? And that accent color, why did I choose coral? I don’t even like coral that much. In fact, maybe I should start the whole thing from scratch, color scheme and all…
Are you noticing a pattern? This back and forth lasted for way too long, to the point where I questioned if making a blog was even a good idea. Clearly, I was able to override these thoughts and get back on track, but looking back, it’s scary to see how perfectionism and overthinking can easily become your worst enemy.
How did I get to this point? Easy, by internalizing this one quote from the podcast that left me speechless: “There are no wrong decisions.” Mel explains how she began her professional career by hand pasting stamps at a law firm, then cycled through different positions, including one she absolutely hated and some she got fired from. While at an advertising job, she started training to become a life coach and motivational speaker, which later led to becoming an author and podcaster. I really resonated with her trajectory because I often question whether or not I made the smartest decisions in college. Last fall, I was a social media marketing intern, and while I didn’t absolutely hate it, I knew it wasn’t for me. For the longest time, I thought I had made a huge mistake, wasting precious time I could have spent interning somewhere closer to my interests. However, hearing the twists and turns in her career calmed down the little voice in my head telling me I’m running out of time.
Instead of dwelling on every “wrong decision,” I shifted my mindset to feeling grateful I made them. It’s better to know what you don’t want, because it gets you closer to what you do. Think of it like putting the filters on when you’re online shopping. For example, I know I don’t like skinny or super baggy jeans, so I filter those out and buy my bootcut jeans. This applies to so much more than your professional life; you can use it for relationships, self-care, traveling, lip combos, the color scheme of your blog, literally anything else. As long as you know what you don’t want, you’re on the right path. And if you’re currently somewhere you don’t want to be, then take it as a good sign and go ahead and change it. But also remember that there’s no rush. If an extra year at that job you despise means you can pay off your student loans, then hold off on resigning. There is no timer ticking down your twenties, and the moment you realize that, the lighter you’ll feel.
“I’m not behind. I’m on my own timeline. It hasn’t happened yet because it’s not meant to happen yet.”
While all the context, research, and advice gave me clarity, what truly made me absorb the message was knowing I wasn’t alone. Mel prefaced the episode by saying she heard the same theme across everyone in their twenties — the existential question of “What am I doing with my life???” Yet, if it’s so common and normal to feel this way, why am I not hearing about it? I can blame social media, individualism, or even the pandemic (that’s a topic for another time), but the fact is that not talking about it and pretending we have it all figured out is hurting more than helping. So, at the risk of sounding corny, that realization pushed me to start this blog. I want it to be a place where I can rant about and analyze the complexities of this weird transition period, and hope that at least one person feels seen.
I’ll finish this off by taking a page out of Mel Robbins’ book and proposing a challenge. This one doesn’t have a time limit or really any set rules; all you need to do is talk. Talk to your parents, your friends, your significant other, your siblings, really anyone who will listen — and complain. Yes, complain. All those frustrations and pressures you’re putting on yourself are not gonna go away by getting your dream job or finding the perfect boyfriend. Those are external things that might make you feel better, but not if you’re using them as a crutch to compensate for not having it all figured out. And a reminder: You don’t have to!! Trust me, I know it’s easier said than done, but what do you really have to lose?
I like it very much!!
I love it! ….