You may feel like you’re on the right path – kinda, but what if you’re not? This is such an unstable age where unanswered questions become your way of life. And it’s bloody exhausting to say the least.

Your 20s – people say  – is an age to be selfish, to explore and to make mistakes. It’s certainly the time when you’ve the most energy to do all of these things, but what if you find yourself having doubts, not knowing and feeling lost? These are the parts of the 20s that aren’t talked about, when really, these should be the larger areas of discussion.

Your 20s are first and foremost one of the most uncertain decades of your life.

When everyone seems to have their shit together, it makes it so much harder to believe that you’re on the right path and things are going to work out. Yeah, you’ve got a degree, some work experience here or there, but there’s just something fundamentally missing. Money is a constant restraining issue, you don’t know where to start and everything is overwhelming. It’s easy to become consumed by this common anxiety, and that, don’t we all know, is just a recipe for despair.

What you need to do

Acknowledge your worries

Getting swamped by a whirlwind of stress will just make you sink further into it. Take your time to figure out what is worrying you. This could be anything from questioning your LinkedIn profile (it’s just so bare!), to really, honestly just not knowing where you want to go with your life. List down everything bothering you about your future, and this will make it easier to identify how to rectify them.

Identify short-term, realistic goals

Looking at the bigger picture is never economical when it comes to problem solving. Instead, write down micro-goals that you want to accomplish, and once these are out of the way – giving yourself plenty of time – you may feel better-equipped to tackle the bigger issues that have been nagging your mind.

Do your research 

Finding a career path isn’t black-and-white, unless you want to be King or something. Without going off on a complete tangent (see before), narrow your research down with regards to the particular skills you have and how you could potentially apply them in a job. You can complete compatibility tests online which may fill in that huge gap. Who knows? You may even discover your passion through sifting through various forms of social media, or be inspired, at least.

Ask yourself 

Do I want to live abroad? Am I happier at home? Do I need to be alone? Am I searching for something more challenging? All of the above are vital in narrowing down where you want to be later in life. Don’t let fear hold you back, either, because that’s a crucial ingredient which undisputedly leads to the greater things in life. If it scares you, do it.

Change something in your day-to-day life

If you want your life to change, you can’t expect that everything in your life will stay the same. By changing something in your daily life, be it starting a new fitness class, learning meditation or even just taking more time to read, this could help kick-start your motivation to change even more things in your life. As they say, nothing wonderful happens in the comfort zone, so delving into the unfamiliar will make you more flexible to change, which is what you need if you’re just. Not. Satisfied.

Trust your gut

It’s frustrating AF being stuck in limbo, simply not knowing. But in this in-between stage, there has to be a fundamental level of belief – or you’ll just give up entirely. Trust that this is a shit time, that this isn’t because of you, but that it is just purgatory – career style. If you know you are trying to make something happen – when absolutely nothing is happening at all – trust that your dedication will eventually take you to where you’re supposed to be.

Well, this post ended up somewhat on a spiritual note, but it’s important to have faith in the abstract now and again when there’s nothing materialising in the concrete world.

Sometimes, if you are feeling lost, it’s simply life’s calling that there is something more for you in the world that you are simply yet to discover – you just have to keep going.