It Took Me 20 Years to Realise I Don't Need to Have It All Figured Out

For most of my life, I was convinced that by 30, okay fine, definitely by 35 I'd have my life together. You know what I mean? A proper career that didn't make me want to hide under my desk, enough money to never worry about when payday is, that sense of actually living the life I was meant to live (not just stumbling through it), and maybe some passion project that would make me spring out of bed like those annoyingly positive people on Instagram.

Well, plot twist: I'm in my late 30s now and I'm still googling "how to find your passion" at 2am on a Sunday night.

The same questions that kept me up as a teenager? Yeah, they're still here. What am I supposed to be doing with my life? How does literally everyone else seem to have figured it out? And seriously, when exactly am I going to feel like I know what I'm doing?

Here's the thing nobody really talks about, we've got this weird obsession with having a bulletproof plan. Like if we just map out every step, create the perfect five-year strategy, or follow some expert's foolproof system, we'll be protected from uncertainty forever.

But what I've learned: that rigid planning? It's actually preventing us from seeing the good stuff that's right in front of us.

What is actually starting to shift things for me isn't getting better at planning. It is getting comfortable with not knowing what's next and realising that's when the magic can happen.

Ditching the Life Script (Because It's Rubbish Anyway)

We get handed this blueprint pretty early on. School, university, job, partner, career ladder, house with a mortgage that'll haunt you for 30 years, maybe kids if that's your thing. Rinse and repeat.

But here's what they don't mention in the fine print: what happens when that script feels like wearing someone else's clothes? When you tick all the boxes and still feel like you're playing dress-up in your own life?

For ages, I thought I was broken. Too scattered, too indecisive, too... much. Maybe if I just tried harder, pushed through, I'd crack the code. Then one day, probably while I was having my third existential crisis of the month something clicked.

Life isn't a puzzle to solve. It's just... life. Messy, unpredictable, sometimes brilliant, sometimes awful life.

The Weird Magic of Staying Open (Because That's When Life Gets Interesting)

Once I stopped gripping so tightly to my master plan, something incredible happened. I started noticing things I'd been walking past for years. Conversations that sparked ideas. Random articles that connected dots I didn't even know existed. People mentioning opportunities that would have been completely invisible to me when I was tunnel-visioned on my "path."

It's like when you're thinking about buying a particular car and suddenly you see that model everywhere except this is with possibilities for your life.

The opportunities were always there. I just couldn't see them when I was so focused on forcing a specific outcome. I had my head down and was just focused on my narrow path, which was all that I could see in my head.

When you're open to change, when you're not locked into one rigid vision of how things "should" go, you become available for all the plot twists life wants to throw your way. The good ones, I mean. Trust grows when you actually move, not when you sit around crafting the perfect strategy that'll probably be obsolete in six months anyway.

If You Feel Like Everyone Else Got the Manual and You Didn't

Look, if you're reading this while feeling completely lost, like you're the only one who doesn't have their life sorted, welcome to the club! It's bigger than you think.

That friend who seems to have it all together? They're questioning how everyone else appears to have it all together, apart from them. Remember, social media is a highlight reel, not a documentary.

The opportunities you're looking for might be hiding in the conversations you're not having, the paths you've dismissed as "not part of the plan," or the changes you've been resisting because they don't fit your current story.

You don't need a master plan. You don't need to know what you'll be doing in five years. You don't even need to know what you're doing next month!

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” - Lao Tzu

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Some questions I ask myself when I'm spiralling (feel free to steal these):

• What stories am I telling myself about where I should be right now and who decided that was the rule anyway?
• What part of me is desperate for control, and what would happen if I loosened my grip just a little?
• What's one tiny thing I can do today without needing to know how the whole story ends?