You might have outgrown your cubicle of 5 years. You might have just gotten out of college.
And you want more to life.
You want to do more with your life besides work to death for a living. You want to start your own company. Become a dancer, actor, a creator, not a consumer.
You want to finally start following your dreams.
And everyone around you is telling you to act on them—that tomorrow isn’t promised. That there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
But they leave out a few other things — like how long and how dark that tunnel will be.
Here’s what people don’t tell you about following your dreams.
You’re Going to Be Broke
If you have unconventional dreams that don’t necessarily involve going to school, most times you’re going to be broke pursuing them.
And it’s because in order to do the things you really want to do—like start an online business or work in the entertainment industry or essentially anything fun for a living—you’re going to need time to do so. You can’t have those well-paying, long-hour jobs anymore; they eat up too much time. But if you still insist on juggling your job, the work you do when you get back from your job, sleeping, and all the other necessities of life, your job might eventually pose as another obstacle.
In short, say bye to that guaranteed salary. You’re going to have to sacrifice comfy living.
You’re Going to Feel Alone
When you’re young, you’re invited to so many social events.
You’re going to need money to do all of that. And now that money is harder to come by, life’s not going to be as fun.
If you’re really tenacious about your goals, you might even feel the need to allocate all your money back into your business. Who needs a TV bill or any entertainment bill when you can invest that money into a life coach or singing lessons or another asset that’ll push you towards your goals?
Shoot, who needs Netflix and chill when you can network and hustle, right?
And it’s because of this mindset that you will at times, feel alone.
You’re Going to Feel Behind in Life
By feeling like you have to work nonstop to get closer to your dreams, once you take a quick break from it all and live in the moment (i.e go on social media to see what your friends are up to because your life isn’t interesting anymore), you’ll feel like you’re behind in life.
Your lawyer friend, Jameka, just paid off her car note in full.
Your best friend from high school, Quin, is finally getting married.
Allison’s having her second child.
Jake just came back from Panama for the fifth time.
And what are you doing? Working. Researching. Networking. Working. With no days off.
And if you come from an overprotective, boastful family like me, you will ALWAYS, ALWAYS ALWAYS be compared to someone else’s child.
“Look at Alisha; she just bought her third house! When are you going to get married? When are you going to buy us our Ferrari like Jackie did her parents?”
You Just Might Give Up
After days, weeks, maybe even months of not getting the responses you want, the light at the end of the tunnel gets dimmer and dimmer.
You think to yourself, why am I wasting my life away working and working when everyone else is enjoying their youth?
You’ll think to yourself, is any of this worth it? I might die any minute from now, and I’m spending life behind a computer every day.
You’ll journal a lot. Learning that writing helps you relieve pent up stress, you fill those college-ruled pages with black ink and a couple tear drops. Life will get depressing.
And then, you’ll get the email you’ve been waiting for.
With technology and education being so easily accessible nowadays, you don’t have to dream your perfect life. You can live it.
However, it’s important to be realistic. What are the sacrifices you will have to make to live the life you want? Will these sacrifices be tolerable?
Not going out every night, not buying things every day, and not being able to hang out with friends regularly are all sacrifices you have to consider before you take the jump to change your life around. And if you’ve already started on having a family, your list of sacrifices quadruples for every child you have.
In essence, it doesn’t matter what profession you want to be.
What matters is if you are willing to fall in love with the process of becoming it.
But as a friendly reminder, let me emphasize this: you don’t have to work yourself to the grave to get responses.
It’s okay to hustle and work hard to get the things you want. But tomorrow isn’t promised.
Some advocates will use that expression to persuade you to work hard and follow your dreams.
But in this instance, I’m using it to remind you to take breaks.
Go out every now and then.
Make memories.
And watch Netflix (using someone else’s account, of course).
You might have to change parts of the life you have now to get the life you want to live later…
But you don’t have to stop living.
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Love this! I got a “passion” degree (wildlife biology) that was supposed to at least get me a job in the field AND have the opportunity to help wildlife conservation efforts.
Long story short, it worked out about as well as a fart in church. I’m now working as a freelance writer to pay the bills while I wait for a job to open up. They tell you all of these things mentioned in your article when you sign up for such a degree, but of course that means nothing to a doe-eyed 19-year-old.
I wouldn’t for a second have chosen something different. But, if I could go back, I’d tell myself to plan ahead for a Plan B sooner so that I didn’t have to suffer as much while waiting for Plan A to work out.
Totally get it. In life, plans definitely change and as a 19-year-old, you probably wouldn’t have seen it coming. But I’m glad you have found something else to fall back on while you wait. Who knows, maybe you’ll turn freelancing into a full-time career. Good luck in your endeavors, Lindsay!
Fart in a church room made me giggle and I apologize.
I can definitely relate to a number of your thoughts here. We experienced them in starting our business, in addition to some other situations/emotions. I think it can be easy to fall into them when you start comparing where you’re at vs. where others are at. Comparison can be good, at times, but we each have our own path to walk so it’s important to keep that in mind.
Like whay John also mentioned in the comments, comparison is good to measure competition amd to male sure you are maybe exhibiting some of the traits of other successful entrepreneurs.
Ar the same time, it can fet really frustrating because we think we need to be an overnight success when we compare. And then you just want to give up.
Thays what my wife and I have experienced with self employment at times.
Yup, comparison isn’t always that bad, but too much of everything is always a problem. Thanks for reading, Josh, and keep hustling!
This post is spot on. I’ve experienced a few of these before. You just have to keep on going and make things happen.