When you don’t know what to do with your life

Every time I get a question in my DM’s, I write it down in my notes. This comes in very handy, because as I’m sitting here on my plane from Copenhagen to Los Angeles with FOUR SEATS (!!) to myself, I decided to tackle an overall theme of the questions I’ve gotten recently;

“I don’t know what I want to do with my life”

This is especially for teenagers and young-adults, but are the rest of us not allowed to go through existential crisis’ and spiral about our purpose on Earth?

Yes, we are. So, this is for all of us. Myself included.

First: Not knowing what you want is more normal than knowing exactly what you want

When I was 5, I loved playing with dolls. Now I’m 28 and I don’t love playing with dolls. This is my shortest way of saying; your hobbies and interests changes as you grow up and they will (hopefully) continue to change and evolve for the rest of your life.

How could you dream of being a stage designer at the age of 7 and hardcore pursue that when you didn’t even know that job existed until recently? How could you decide to move to Australia at a young age, when you didn’t even know there was a world outside of your kindergarden?

Honestly, I would be a little bit more concerned if you never feel your interests and preferences change. Because the more you explore, move around, meet new people and try new things, the more you’ll open up your eyes and mind to interests, skills and talents you didn’t even knew existed within you.

“I thought I was gonna do X but now I don’t feel great about it“

If you thought you were gonna be an athlete, but you’re dreading practice and actually just don’t like it that much anymore – that’s totally fine and normal.

Maybe you’re from a family of doctors or you’re expected to take over a family business and now you don’t want to anymore, but also you don’t know what else to do, so maybe you should just stick to what’s expected?

Deep inhale. Deep exhale. Knowing what you don’t want is also valuable and step one to creating a new and more FUN adventure.

It’s not that serious

I think you should start with honoring what you think is fun. And if that is “laying on the couch and eating chips”, let’s try to go a little wider and say: honor what you’re naturally attracted to, what makes time go by super-fast when you’re studying it or doing it or maybe even take a look at your role models.  

Instead of asking ourselves: “What should I do with the rest of my life” we should ask ourselves: “Is there anything I enjoy doing that I would be curious to dive deeper into for a while?”.

Any time I’ve asked myself option one it has activated the “Fear”-character from the movie “Inside Out” in my brain. Option number two is a little less stressful and has a softer approach.

Keep in mind – your life absolutely doesn’t have to revolve around work. Maybe it’s your hobbies after work that you need to switch up a little.

Actions will lead you to your thing faster than any amount of thinking ever will

At the end of the day, the only way I could find out if the LA-dancer-lifestyle was for me was to actually make the move to LA and see it for myself.

Yes, you can prepare yourself before you make a decision and research is great (like, thank you for reading this blog!), but ultimately, you cannot predict what’s gonna happen every step of the way. People who went into the hand sanitizer business couldn’t have known that COVID-19 happened and turned their companies into billion dollar businesses. You cannot control who you meet along the way, predict which opportunities that will be presented to you or how “it” is gonna go for you.

And if your brain hurts from overthinking the question: “Can I handle it?”, the answer is yes. You can handle whatever you commit to, my love.  

So while reading the books, listening to the podcasts and studying people is phenomenal – you’ll not become confident about your own abilities until you step into this next chapter and explore it in real-time. You can learn about tennis by watching games and reading Serena William’s book, but at some point, you gotta pick up the racket and go be humbled on the court by actually putting in the hard work.

But what if I fail?

That’s just ego. Excuse me, while I get a little tough on you here. Why do you think that you should be the only person in the world that should be protected from failing? And why do you think there’s even a chance you won’t make any mistakes? Of course you’ll make mistakes and fail to some degree, but if you expect it, prepare for it and push yourself through it when you do fail instead of being so terrified of looking silly that you don’t even try, I think you’re on to something great.

If you look at making mistakes and “failing” as a necessity and inevitable you won’t panic when it happens. It’s not dangerous. Instead of quitting crocheting, look that first ugly bag straight in the eyes and say: “Yep, let me see if this next one can be a little bit better” instead of throwing a tantrum on the floor.

If you’re not okay with making mistakes and failing (which is essentially learning) by doing something you love, then okay. Go live a life you’re not happy with then. But I think you’ll regret it and I don’t want that for anyone.

Who cares what Susan from High School thinks

You know what I think about so often, when I encounter people on jobs who carry themselves like they are more valuable and important than other people? I think: “wow, it’s so funny how this person matters so much to me and my career now but I won’t even think about them for a second in 2 years”.

That’s how I feel about people I went to school with too. Who cares what they think. Literally, they all live very different lives than me, they’re done studying, they’re married, they have kids, a house, many didn’t leave their home towns – and it’s all good! I hope that they look at my life and don’t wish they have what I have, because that would be sad. I hope they enjoy the flowers in their own garden.

But in the exact same way, at this moment in my life, I would genuinely wake up feeling violated and trapped every day, if I had to live their lives. I’m so happy for them, but what they’re doing is not for me right now. And great news! They don’t need my approval and I don’t need theirs. And you don’t need anyone’s approval either to do what feels right to you.

It’s simple as that.

The truth is: People don’t think about you anyway

I would honestly be so honored if anyone besides my immediate family gives a flying f*ck about what I do. Honored. It’s so humbling and liberating to adapt the mindset that no one really thinks about you. Everyone is so worried about their own lives that they don’t have a second to think about you.

Sorry, no, some people do. But that’s when we use the Mel Robbins “Let them”-theory. They want to talk about you? Let them. They want to sit and be angry that you pursue what you love? Let them.

I wrote a blog post: “When family friends don’t support you” that might be helpful too.

Danielle and I also made an entire podcast about moving to LA where we talk about this too. Listen here.

It takes bravery to step away from capitalism

This is for people who says: “I make more money by doing this job I hate than on the job I would love to do”. Hear me out before you roll your eyes! I love Los Angeles, but if there’s one thing that can make me absolutely vomit it’s how everyone needs to be a billionaire and have the newest Ferrari and the highest paying job at the coolest company that gives you the most social status.

I think it prevents a lot of people from pursuing something that would make them happier humans. Is the money worth it if it’s sucking the living life out of you day by day? No, it’s not.

In today’s day and age it takes bravery to walk away from a career, a school or even friends that makes you look good on the outside but feel empty on the inside.

Let’s step away from the things that hurt us.

It takes a year of deep focus to get started, but often it takes people 20 years to get to that year.

One thing that’s really cool about the world we live in today is that we’re all way more connected. If we don’t go into the negatives (I don’t have the energy for that today) the internet really gave us access to FREE education and FREE information.

You can learn ANYTHING on YouTube – playing the guitar, learning about BitCoin, how to make websites, cook, work out, climb mount Everest, there is a really cool blog about living in a LA as a dancer here (just kidding, it’s this blog)…

Whatever it is you enjoy learning about or want to learn about – I would be surprised if you can’t go on Google or YouTube after reading this and start diving into it.

If you’re in a place of confusion about what the next step is, spending 5-10 minutes a day on researching and learning something new could be helpful.

Doing what you desire is an act of self-love

If there’s one thing this world needs it’s happy, caring and loving people. And a segway to being that is probably to create a life that makes you happy. Duh.

The best way to make yourself happy is to love and respect yourself enough to pursue and do the things that’s on your heart. Whatever that is. It can be as small as taking the time to go on a walk today, or as big as quitting the high-paying job you absolutely hate to pursue a lower-paying career that makes you excited to get out of bed.

Whatever it is – I truly believe that it wouldn’t have been planted in your heart if you couldn’t handle it.

Who says we should only have one career

Times change, society changed. My grandparents were farmers their entire lives. My other grandparents were teachers their entire lives. My dad was: an athlete, lawyer, teacher, entrepreneur, business owner, coach, politician and painter. He decided that he wanted to become a painter at the age of 60, and he’s literally selling his paintings in a gallery in Copenhagen.

Unrelated but go check out his work here

Who says you can’t live in Paris for 10 years and then go live in the countryside in Denmark afterwards? Who says you have to pick one thing? If you just graduated, please don’t be so paralyzed by pressure and expectation that you forget you’re supposed to HAVE. FUN. You can change your mind and reinvent yourself 500 times in your life, if you want to.

Go explore, go have fun, you don’t have to have it all figured out – ever. You need to gather more information about yourself and the world and do what feels good and right to you.

XX

Ig @mathilde.veje
TikTok @matilda.veje
E-mail vejemathilde@gmail.com