MAYBE WE'RE ALL STILL FIGURING IT OUT
. . . and maybe that's the point.
A short paragraph from Rachel Lynn Solomon’s newest book, What Happens in Amsterdam, is the perfect synopsis for today’s article:
I read this book back when it released in May and I immediately dog-eared the page containing this paragraph (I can never find my post-it flags when I need them!). In the moment, I knew it was something I’d want to write about.
Because it triggered something I think about. A lot.
For someone who doesn’t work in academia, I spend an oddly large amount of time around college-aged students—often on study abroad programs—and I’m always struck by how much pressure they’re under to figure it all out. If not by 18, then definitely by graduation—at the ripe old age of 22. There’s this sense that their future must be fully mapped out ASAP, or they’re failing at life.
Rarely are they asked: “What do you actually like? What lights you up?” It’s always about their major or their eventual job title or the amount of money they can make doing a certain job, not the lifestyle that feels right to them.
And let’s be honest—it’s not just college students. Grown adults (hi, me) do the same thing. We hit milestone birthdays and spiral into “I thought I’d be further along by now” or “Why can’t I just get my act together?” thoughts.
Just this morning, a friend shared some advice she’d recently received: you don’t need to figure everything out about your current and future business today—just come back to your current priorities, make a plan, and trust that you have what it takes to make those things happen. Which, frankly, sounds a lot healthier than my go-to spiral of “restructure my entire life before breakfast.” 🤣
The truth is, trying to “figure it all out” can be a sneaky form of procrastination. It keeps us stuck in lack mentality—telling ourselves we’re behind, we’re not doing enough, and everyone else is somehow nailing life while we’re fumbling for the manual.
Many times, this pressure is tied to career stuff, but it shows up everywhere—health, relationships, family, even how clean your house is (just me?).
But what if—hear me out—we dropped the culturally approved metrics altogether and instead asked, as Solomon’s character does: Am I growing and learning and changing?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have goals or dreams—of course we should. But maybe we loosen our grip on this idea that there are perfect, finite finish lines—and that we’re somehow failing if we haven’t crossed them by a certain age.
I’m in my 50s, and I still don’t have it all figured out. Honestly, I’ve finally realized I probably never will. And that realization? It’s strangely not depressing. It’s actually kind of exhilarating. Because if life was fully figured out wouldn’t that be a little boring?
There’s an old coaching adage that says, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” It’s true for plants—and I think it’s true for people, too.
So maybe our job isn’t to chase certainty. Maybe it’s just to stay open. To stay curious. To find joy and contentment while growing—rather than waiting until everything’s “figured out.”
If you’re a lifetime achiever like me, I think loosening our grip on “getting things figured out” is a daily practice. It’s easier on some days, harder on others. But . . .
What would change for you if you stopped trying to figure it all out—and just let yourself live inside the questions for a while?
What did I learn today?
How did I grow today?
What changes did I make today that felt awesome?
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