When I was a teenager, I was terrified of making bad decisions. I was worried that trying new things would waste my time and push me away from the life I ultimately wanted.
But here’s where I went wrong: I was so terrified of making mistakes that I avoided new opportunities and experiences like the plague. Instead of stepping bravely forward and finding my way through trial and error, I held back. I doubted. I let fear run my life.
And that was the biggest mistake I made.
If you don’t know where you want to end up, don’t stay where you are
As I’ve found out the hard way, you won’t magically wake up one day and know what you want your entire life to look like.
No one is going to come along and give you all the missing puzzle pieces — you have to go find them for yourself.
So how do you do that?
You do that by running as far away from your comfort zone as possible.
If you’re anything like I used to be just a few years ago, that means leaving your family and what you know and forcing yourself to become the best version of yourself away from what’s familiar to you.
I say “forcing” because I can guarantee that a part of you won’t want to become the best you can be.
That’s because where you are now is comfortable. It’s familiar. It feels safe.
But you know what? It’s not safe. Not at all. Because when you stay too comfortable, you stop growing.
And when you stop growing, you let go of your dreams for the future. You let go of the person you could be in favor of the comfortable version of yourself you are now.
The fact is, you’ll attain what you want only when you grow into a wiser person than you were yesterday. How do you become wiser? By falling on your face and picking yourself up and learning from your mistakes.
This process isn’t easy. At all. But because it isn’t easy, it’ll make you stronger and capable of tackling whatever problems you face later on in life.
Do what terrifies you and you’ll find your path
Back when I was a lost, drifting teenager, I didn’t know what I wanted.
That was my problem.
I knew I wanted more than to work a meaningless job, and I knew I wanted to travel. But besides that, the future was foggy at best.
Now, though, I have a much better idea of where I want to go and what I want to do. Most importantly, I’m working hard every day to get there.
So what changed?
Here’s what changed: I made a truckload of bad decisions.
I made one bad decision after another until I realized, “I’m not everything I could be, and I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
That realization didn’t happen all at once, though — it happened gradually.
I was in the middle of paying for a degree that didn’t interest me and working with people who talked mostly of what shows they were watching on Netflix and the last date they went on.
It was tiring.
I would come home in the afternoon, completely drained and sleep-deprived, and wonder what I was doing with my life.
And every day I spent working toward that degree and working an unpleasant job, my resolution to be brave and do meaningful work grew stronger and stronger.
It was thanks to those unpleasant experiences that I couldn’t ignore the path I wanted to travel anymore.
Every day, my ideal future materialized more and more. Pretty soon, my future was no longer a foggy idea — it was real. I was writing about it and talking about it and building it.
For the first time in too long, I was excited about what lay ahead.
All those hours I spent driving to an internship that drained me gave me plenty of time to think of a question I had not yet asked myself honestly:
“If I wasn’t spending so much time and money on what doesn’t matter to me, what would I be focusing on?”
Once I answered that question, I opened up a whole new world of opportunities for myself. You can do the same thing.
Final thoughts
If you’re lost in life, like I was, it might be because you’re not trying new things enough and making decisions. It might be because you’re scared of ending up in the wrong place.
If so, remember this — it’s okay to be afraid. Really. I’m still afraid of many things. Just don’t let that fear hold you back from the life you want.
Every time I’ve dared to do things that were uncomfortable and difficult, I’ve come out stronger from the experience.
The reality is, you won’t always know what to do with your life. You won’t always know who to date, where to live, what business to start, etc.
Life is full of forks in the road. Sometimes, you’ll make mistakes, as I did.
But here’s the good news: If you’re brave enough to take a tiny step forward and make a decision instead of standing still, even if it terrifies you, you’ll end up closer to your ideal life.
I’ve made a ton of bad decisions in the past, ranging from begging someone to stay with me to changing colleges four times. Now, though, I wouldn’t change a thing. I look back and see that, all along, I was growing into the person I am today. And for that, I’m grateful.
It’s because of my experiences that I can now make wiser choices and help others along the way.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that you should make bad decisions for the sake of making bad decisions — not at all.
But if you’re at a crossroads in your life and you don’t know what to do, don’t stay where you are. Be audacious and take one tiny step forward.
That step, no matter how small, will help you get to where you’ve always wanted to be.
This article first appeared on Medium. Check out more helpful content right here.
