Waking up one day, feeling like I've not achieved and accomplished the things I wanted and always dreamt about - a scary thought!
When we enter our 20's, we feel like the world is wide open to us, we feel young and like we have all the time in the world. But at the same time everyone expects us to make life changing decisions about our future, education, family and career.
When I turned 20 and ambitious as I was, I wrote down my personal 7-year plan. In principle a great idea, I wanted to be intentional about my 20’s, don’t leave anything to chance and plan the next phase of my life. The plan stated exactly by when I wanted to have achieved what, by graduated and then also by when I would have met my future husband and that I would be married with 26 and pregnant by age 27.
Now, what’s wrong with that plan?
Exactly, why on earth would a 20-year-old woman, that is super ambitious and about to get a degree from a well-known university make a plan that puts her on a clock for when she needs to be married and be pregnant by?
As a matter of fact, this is very concerning in many ways as these are factors that a human being can’t possibly influence and force. Finding a partner to get married by 26. Why would I be pregnant with 27?! And don’t get me wrong, I am a family person through and through and I do want to have family one day. But why and at what point was the thought planted into my head that all of this had to happen at a certain age?
And where are the real accomplishments?
Where is the ‘I want to earn $100K by the time I’m 21’ or ‘by the time I’m 25 I want to have been to 30 different countries to learn from various different cultures’. Something I actively could control and be intentional about.
All this made me think.
When I was 20, I made a plan that would tick all the by society seen as successful boxes, but I had very little understanding of what it was that Nicole actually wanted. And to be honest, how could I have had created a different plan at that point,
When we grow up, we hardly ever have to live and fully think for ourselves. No one has thought us in our childhood how to truly make up our own mind. Parents will have guided us, told us what and what not to do according to their beliefs of what’s best for us. The educational system tells us that we’re only as good as our grades and that we will only be able to succeed in life if we graduate and get a decent job. No one talks about what other options might exist. So, we grow up in this bubble and do our best to meet those standards. When we’re in our 20’s – some of these standards might start to simply not feel right. Like, being in a 9-5 job in insurance because it’s a well paid job. The best thing we can do early on, is to start understanding what values, beliefs and interests and hobbies really drive and motivate us us. What it is that WE want to get out of our 20’s, the next year, 3 years, OUR life.
Waking up one day and feeling like I've not achieved and accomplished the things I wanted and always dreamt about - This can happen, it happens to a lot of people, easier than most of us think. In many cases it is because we’ve been living someone else's dreams or because we want to please someone else so badly that we forgot to put our own needs and wishes first. Getting crystal clear on what it is that WE want to accomplish and achieve and why, is the foundation to a happy and successful life, it will guide us and lead us back to where we belong. On OUR path!
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