Why It's Totally OK To Not Have A Game Plan In Your 20s & Just Wing It
One of the worst questions you are faced with in your 20s is: What is your 10-year plan? It's like people expect you to hand over a detailed map of your destiny when you reach a new decade in your life, and want you to be able to elaborate your coordinates to them. Having a game plan for your life is great (yay, you!) but not having a game plan in your 20s is OK because everyone's path and outlook is different.
It sort of started in high school — the idea that you already needed to be pinpointing your next steps the second you received that diploma. In college, it doesn't get any better. Everyone is seemingly in a race for that dream job, but no one is really moving or going on just yet. All of these outside factors can be confusing and misleading. You don't need to have your entire elite game plan jotted down in your journal and reference it every single day.
Things are constantly changing, including you — so how can you dedicate your life to an unforeseeable future? You will continuously hear otherwise, but you've gotta stay true to yourself and your life's journey. If you don't have a game plan in your 20s, you aren't falling behind or being negligent to your adulthood. It's all good, fam — and you'd be wise to consider the bigger picture behind not having a game plan.
01You Are JUST Getting Started
Yeah, you're legally an adult when you turn 18, but the real adulting starts in your 20s. This game called life is just being introduced to you, and if you aren't referencing a step-by-step plan for yourself, it's totally fine. You need to feel things out first, anyway.
02Life Doesn't Always Go According To Plan
You can plan all you want to, but there are so many things beyond your control that are bound to happen. By not having a solid game plan, you leave more room for error and can learn from any mistakes. You are still holding yourself to a standard, but aren't measuring it by milestones that could or could not happen. It's not always up to you.
03Your 20s Is The Time To Experiment With Different Paths
It almost seems a little like a disservice to yourself to commit to a game plan when you're at the pristine time to experiment. You might want to dabble in a few different career paths, or travel the world. Life is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash.
04You Have Plans, But They're Not Necessarily Career-Focused
So, you don't have a game plan, per say, but you could be working on some specific interpersonal goals for yourself. Maybe you want to become more confident, self-aware, or positive. These are part of your own innovative game plan to allow you to be the person you want to be.
05You're Still Finding Yourself
Oh, the tormenting yet rewarding AF journey to finding yourself. Your 20s is going to teach you so much about yourself, you may hardly recognize the person in pictures from five years ago. There is no plan to discovering yourself. It happens with the circumstances, experiences, and situations you face and react to in life. Those are sporadic, not linear.
06If You Made A Plan, It Wouldn't Reflect What You Really Want To Do
Many times, people don't make a game plan because it would be embedded with all of the things you don't want to do, but rather, what you think you have to do. This goes back to the idea that you need to go according to plan in three categories: profession, marriage, and kids. If you wrote a game plan, it might be so infused with those false expectations to attain those three things, it wouldn't be true to yourself at all.
07There's Nothing Wrong With Taking It Day By Day
Where is it written that you can't take life day by day? I mean, we all go according to the calendar, but there's no law stating that you need to have your five-year plan memorized in order to live your life happily. Living in the little, spontaneous moments that make up the greater scale of life can be really fulfilling.
08You Save Yourself From Stressing And Overanalyzing
Plans can cause a ton of stress, because you will try to force yourself to stick to them — no matter how unhappy they may make you feel. When you don't have a solid game plan in your 20s, you are dodging a big, stress-inducing headache. You might have plans, but they aren't wreaking havoc on your daily mood or strictly depicting your true path. You're flexible.
Living outside of the binding commitment of a solid game plan can really shape who you become in your 20s. Let your plan be to focus more on living in the moment, rather than abiding by the guidelines.
