The 20's Survival Guide

How to Survive the ‘What Are You Doing With Your Life?’ Question

• Emily Astley • Season 2 • Episode 67

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What's the deal with everyone asking what you're doing with your life when you have no clue yourself? 

Emily welcomes back her best friend Ellie to discuss the reality behind the social media-fueled side hustle culture that makes us feel inadequate if we're not maximising every aspect of our lives. 

Ellie hilariously recounts almost convincing herself to invest in parking lots after watching a TikTok video, despite not having any capital or experience!

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by family members comparing you to successful peers, frustrated by well-meaning but unhelpful questions about your future, or simply trying to trust your gut when everyone has an opinion, this episode offers reassurance that you're not alone. 


Enjoy!

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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the 20 survival guide. This is your host, emily. In today's episode, we are bringing back one of my favorite guests and that is Ellie, my best friend. She's been on the podcast once already and we're bringing her back because, firstly, we're bringing guests back, but also we have some very, very important things to discuss and we thought we might as well just do it in front of you guys. So, without further ado, please give a welcome without further ado. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Ellie, thank you so much. So good to be back.

Speaker 1:

I feel so at home with a microphone in my hand on this podcast honestly, she's one of the few guests who I think have sat down and when I was playing around with the recording she was like I absolutely love hearing the sound of my own voice and most people are like this is torture. I hate listening to myself. I want to get through this as fast as possible, but you love it, so maybe you've got something brewing in that area. Maybe you could take over. Maybe Question mark Sick day. Call me up sick day. Ellie will be your host guys, but for now I can't wait exactly.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully you don't get ill, but if you do, I love that you're caring I love that for me, um, but why are you back?

Speaker 1:

well, you're back. Firstly, we need to give everyone a bit of context if you haven't listened to the previous episode with ellie. She went to university in washington dc and she finally graduated. Finally, this, finally, we did it. We did it. So now she's back in the uk permanently and I'm so glad to have her back because, well, because I'm just glad to have you back. To be honest, like I don't actually have many reasons. Life's just not the same. No, no, it's like my right hand and I missed it.

Speaker 1:

Since Ellie's been back, we both are in a very similar stage of our lives. Right now, I'm currently in between jobs. Ellie's currently job searching, living her best life, and I think one of the many questions I'm still getting asked by everyone is what are you doing with your life? What are you doing with your life? What are you doing with your career? Like, what job are you going into? Just all these kind of questions, and they're so loaded and it's really hard not to be like. I really want to punch you in the face right now, but I don't know you well enough to do that.

Speaker 1:

Yesterday I watched the US Open and Alcaraz won and my mom is like, you know, we just couldn't help but think that he is 22, he's exactly your age. And then she just paused in suspense and was like, and then there's you. And then I'm, I'm like, well, how, thanks mom. Like how am I supposed to not feel like I should be doing more with my life when this man's out here winning grand slams, 22, like I couldn't even get on the court and be in front of that many people right now, let alone play the tennis, like I couldn't do that. We hope that you guys feel the same as us. Maybe not everyone's advice is the right advice, because that definitely didn't help me when I heard that and when people keep asking me what I'm doing with my life it only makes it worse and makes me feel like there's more stress.

Speaker 2:

What do you think? I think, who was it that? Queen Mel Robbins?

Speaker 2:

Everybody thinks that the 20s, this this decade of your life, is supposed to be just wild, fun, crazy. You have no responsibilities but you're making money and just traveling the world and living your best life. But she says that actually the 20s is the worst decade of your life because you have no money, you don't really know what you're supposed to be doing, or what you should be doing or what you want to be doing, and there's a lot of pressure from the people around you constantly being like what are you doing? What's next? Where are you moving? You know, wanting to know every last detail when you don't even know the answers yourself. And I don't know if I would agree that it's the worst decade of your life. I feel like there's so many things to look forward to and I've already had so much fun, but I appreciated what she said because I feel like, especially with social media, there is so much pressure all the time to be doing the most in absolutely every part of your life, and I don't necessarily think that's what makes you feel fulfilled.

Speaker 1:

I think that there's so much pressure to be doing everything to the max, having seven billion side hustles your relationship life, your, your personal life. I feel like I'll have these ideas in the spur of the moment and they'll be like oh my gosh, I could start this. Or I want to create this account, or like sell basically my whole wardrobe on vintage just to get some extra cash. And then I'm like okay, well, if I do all of these things, my to-do list is unbearable and I can't just do everything all at once. Sometimes you have to say no to things.

Speaker 2:

You and.

Speaker 2:

I can't just do everything all at once. Sometimes you have to say no to things. You know what? Before we get into the more serious aspects of this topic, I have a appropriate anecdote that just came to mind. So, on the notion of side hustles, right, I feel like this is a thing that has been created by TikTok of making us think that there are these incredibly young people entrepreneurs, whoever they may be that have become incredibly successful at a young age and now they're millionaires and thriving. Good for them. Amazing, however, this idea of the side hustle you know, drop shipping and such has become so normalized so the drop shipping yes what's that a big thing?

Speaker 2:

well, I feel like maybe it's not as big anymore, but people are doing this thing called drop shipping and they're trying to make a lot of money for it and from it, and a lot of people have been very successful in doing this. Anyways, there's this guy that I follow on tiktok. He's really funny and he goes around. He basically says do you have a dream? What's your dream? And he just stops people on the street and then they do.

Speaker 1:

You know this guy no, because I'm really not the best on tiktok.

Speaker 2:

He's really nice, but well, I don't know if he's very nice, but anyways have you met him?

Speaker 2:

so he goes around, he stops people on the street and he's like do you have a dream? What's your dream? And then these people like I want to own a bakery. Okay, like, right, you know they are ready and raring to go. But once they tell them what their dream is, he basically helps them achieve their dream. Oh, get me there. Yeah, the whole point is you're waiting around for this moment where you're like okay, I finally have enough money to open my own company. But in reality, there's never going to be a perfect moment. You just have to do things.

Speaker 2:

So he's essentially pushing people to do that and giving them the money, helping them out, giving them the experience to enable them to start their dreams. Anyways, this relates to the side hustle, because I feel like it's become so normalized that I was watching one of his videos and he was in new york and he was saying guys, if you want to make money, here's a great idea. It was this parking lot scheme that they have in new york where they stack the cars up really high, so you drive your car in and then they push it up, and then the next car comes, they push it up that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that it is cool, but so you know, in new york there's such limited space that they've got to pile them up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but in london we don't really have that. We have a terrible parking system. However, he was saying, he was like guys, this is all you gotta do. All you gotta do is go around, buy all the parking lots, or buy you know a few parking lots and then create this system. And I am literally living in a state of delusion. Well, I saved this video and I thought to myself yeah, really, yeah, I'm gonna add that to the list of things that I've got to do as my side hustle. Sorry, sorry, can we just get a rain check? I'm now in the parking lot industry.

Speaker 1:

Since when did you give that much of a shit about parking lots?

Speaker 2:

the hustle life has become so central in our culture that I am genuinely considering buying parking lots. Sorry, where am I getting the money? That's real, all the experience to buy parking lots and recreate the system. I mean I love the inspo and I love the confidence.

Speaker 1:

But also, can we just get real if you had always been interested, I would have changed, I would have said a completely different thing, um, which brings me on to my next point.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I've been pondering with this a lot recently. I'm so grateful that I have good people around me who have like opinions on what's going on in my life, and like so many people with wisdom who I can learn from. But sometimes it gets really overwhelming when you're trying to make decisions. I'm going to just take a little bit of everyone's advice and meld that together to make my decision, but then there's almost like too many cooks in the kitchen and I don't know how to trust my gut sometimes when I do that. So I think what we need to talk about now is who can you trust and who is actually going to try and bring me down? I think it's a constant debate in life, and especially in our 20s how do you know who is the right person?

Speaker 1:

I trust a lot of people in my life who I see all the time, but I think that, for example, at work now I've been working and I'm and I've had a lot of experience in an actual workplace I'm someone who is quite a trusting person, and I think that I showed that at work to the point where I realized that I had to check in with myself that not everyone has your back. You might have everyone else's back, so you'd naturally think, oh they'll. They'll feel the same, like they're being nice to me, they're willing to help me, but people don't always have the intention to look out for you, and it's the hard truth that sometimes we need to learn. Even though being vulnerable is a great thing, it's who to be vulnerable with, and that's so important if you want to make sure that you're going to be successful eventually in life. What about friendships? Have you ever experienced any time where you feel like you've trusted the wrong person?

Speaker 2:

I feel like with friendships it's different, there's different departments when you're thinking of trust in terms of this stage of your life, because obviously you have your career, you have your family, you have your friends, you have, you know, all these different aspects of your life and trust can come in many different forms and maybe there's people in my friendship life that I would be more willing to trust earlier on than people that I know and work. But I feel like in terms of friends, yeah, I'm sure there's people I've probably trusted over the years that maybe I've thought about been like don't know if I really want to trust you, but to be honest, I think as a person I'm not that trusting off the bat.

Speaker 2:

I'm normally the type of person where you kind of have to prove yourself to me first in order for me to trust you, rather than me giving you the benefit of the doubt. And you know, maybe a lot of people would say, oh, that's really pessimistic or that's a bit sad that you live like that. But I don't really think that stops me from getting close to people. It's never stopped me from having great friends. I think it's just that it's helped me to trust my intuition over the years and I don't think there's anything wrong in life with sometimes sitting back for just a second more and being like have I figured you out or have I not?

Speaker 1:

totally.

Speaker 1:

I feel like there are moments where I'm meeting new people or I'm, you know, talking to a new friend and I'm starting to talk about specific instances in my life and share some experiences, and then I kind of have like a split moment in my mind where I'm like, oh wait, like should I say that I don't really know how much I trust this person and maybe I'm gonna bite my tongue on that one and like quickly swerve away, and I think that is a way of being like okay, that's intuition.

Speaker 1:

I think that the way of not trusting people until they prove your trust all comes up to how you've been brought up and your life experiences, which all form why you trust someone more than other people, and that's fine. That's not something that should be like wronged or, you know, frowned upon or criticized. I think what's really important to realize is, if I'm going through a breakup right now and I want to text my ex, for example, should I go to the friend that's probably just going to tell me what I want to hear? Or should I go to the friend that's harsh and is probably going to make me feel a little bit shitty at the time, but it's probably going to tell me the right thing, even if it's not what I want to hear.

Speaker 2:

I liked what we discussed earlier, when you said to me that you want to take advice from people who you want to be like and avoid advice from people who live a life that you have no interest in living At least the way I think about it in my life, in the different departments if we're classifying like education, work, friends, fun, you know, let's just say there's three there's definitely people that come to mind at the top of my head in my life who I think of. I might not even ask them for advice, but I just think of those people when I'm deciding what to do. So, for example, if I'm studying for an exam and I'm really stressed and I think to myself, oh my god, I really want to give up. This is so boring, I just want to go downstairs and have a snack. Or go downstairs and have a cheeky snack, or have a cheeky snack. Yes, I'll think to myself there will be people that will just pop in my mind.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, oh, I just know what she would do that's such a good point because I feel like I have that. I'd be like oh, I know she wouldn't take a snack right now.

Speaker 2:

I know she'd probably like put her phone outside of her room yeah and make sure that she worked until she got the answer for this question right, yeah, and it's the same thing in terms of friends and relationships and work and all these things. There are people that you can identify in your mind, that you look up to in your life, people that you want to be like, or people who have qualities in their character that you really admire, and you can think of them and look to them when you come across problems. So it's not necessarily about asking advice and always seeking out the advice and calling up that person, being like what should I do? You can take a page out of other people's book just by thinking about them and putting yourself in their shoes.

Speaker 1:

I'll take advice from lots of different people, whether I think it sounds good or not, but they might be people who I don't necessarily want to be living like At the moment. If you are in your early 20s, or any point in your your 20s, you're getting people from different directions telling you what you're good at, but eventually you're going to have to choose something and you're going to have to come to the conclusion yourself.

Speaker 2:

This definitely goes into something. Another topic I guess that we want to talk about of how, for some reason, when you're at this stage, like your early 20s, people you don't even know are literally coming up to you and being like so what's your plan? So when are you moving? So what are you gonna? I know my favorite one is when people say so what are you gonna do with your degree? Is that it? I've not heard that. Oh, my gosh, I got that one all the time. Is that, what are you gonna do with your degree?

Speaker 2:

Or when people say, uh, another college student that's not gonna put their degree to use. I'm like, okay, listen, who the hell is saying sheila? Okay, first of all, who are you? Like my mom's cousin's second friend, actually, who are you? And second of all, why do you feel so comfortable asking someone you don't know this question, which is really personal, and I guess this is another thing that we talked about, of saying you know, when people ask you these questions, it does feel like a personal attack, it feels really uncomfortable most of the time they're probably saying that to be like oh, I have nothing else to say in the conversation right now.

Speaker 1:

But I think people don't realize that's such a loaded question right now. It's not really something that you want to answer when you have no idea, because you are going to end up bullshitting, because you don't want to feel like people are going to take pity on you or whatever the hell which, by the way, is totally fine if you don't know what you want to do with your life, because most people don't. But I've never heard someone ask me what are you going to do with your degree? I think it's because I did business. It was kind of useful sometimes and then the other time I was pretty much out clubbing.

Speaker 1:

But, one of the thoughts that comes into my mind is what age is it like socially acceptable to not know what you want to do?

Speaker 1:

That's a constant natter in the back of my mind and I'm not saying this to stress you guys out. I'm just saying this to be like I feel the same way because I can't be the only one. I think that's where it really comes into trusting your own gut and trusting that you are creating a life for yourself that you will be happy with once you put the work in. Like trusting that the decisions you're making now around your career, around the people who you hang out with they might not all be perfect, like you might make mistakes that's the whole point of this decade but the majority you want the hit rate to be like 80 or 90 percent. 80 percent right. You want to be making the right choices 80 percent of the time because that's realistic. You're not going to make the right choices 100 percent of the time and no one's asking that of you and it's really okay if you mess up, because you need that 20 to learn from most adults.

Speaker 2:

I know when you ask them about jobs they've had in their life and just places they've lived and things like that just experiences that they've had growing up it always seems like the best things that they've had. And the things that they do now, like the big jobs they have or whatever the most success they've had are things that they never thought they would achieve. So, for example, I don't think I know anyone who I talk to about being young and getting jobs and they say, oh yeah, so I got my dream job when I was 22 and then I stayed there for three years and then I moved to this place and I was there for two years because I loved it and then went up. And then I went up and I went like, no, I don't think there's anyone like that, but all the most successful people I know in terms of people that are much older than me, they're all like, oh god, I had this terrible job for a year left there, met someone at a coffee shop who I started to become friends with. Then they got me this job and I loved it. Then I went into a whole nother field.

Speaker 2:

It's like that's the fun of it, you know, and I feel like I hate the narrative personally of everything's so dull and this is such a scary, stressful time. It's like it's only scary and stressful if you make it that way, like this can also. Anything that's scary can also be really exciting, and I think this is a really exciting and special time where you can make mistakes. You can afford to make mistakes and you can afford to, and if it doesn't work out, that's okay. Then you know it doesn't work out because you tried it.

Speaker 1:

I totally agree. I think that half of my brain is like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen if uh, x doesn't work out or whatever? And then the other half is like, oh my gosh, I have so little strings tying me down. Right now, I have all this freedom to do whatever I want and change my mind, and that doesn't make me a quitter. And, wow, I want to look back and like remember that I enjoyed these moments as much as I could before anything else changes in my life.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's just getting better with experience around trusting your own gut and trusting that you are making the right decisions for yourself, which might not be the right decisions for someone else, or if it's not the right one, it's going to be a great lesson to get you closer to the right one.

Speaker 1:

This is why, like, we have this episode to remind you that you need to trust yourself and you need to be wary around who's got your best intentions. I'm here to tell you that. We're here to tell you that you're going to be fine. Yeah, we just have a crystal ball, like we do. We do not on our lives, but your lives anyway. I think we're going to round up the episode and it's been really nice to have you back From the standpoint of advice giving. I wanted to ask you what's your favourite piece of advice right now that you can share, which you feel like has impacted your 20s, or you wish you knew a bit earlier, or just in general, that's really speaking to you right now so I had a mini list that I was thinking of, of quotes or pieces of advice that I liked, and then I just thought to myself no, there's really only one that has stuck out to me recently.

Speaker 2:

Um, and I saw it on this little clip from a podcast, actually the people that are most successful. They are aiming to fail. Whoever fails the most, whoever gets rejected, the most you win. So imagine the things you would do if you were trying to get rejected, if you were trying to absolutely fail. You'd go to the biggest companies, the places you were absolutely not qualified for, and you just do these things because, like, what's fine?

Speaker 1:

if I fail like I got a point.

Speaker 2:

You know it's fine and obviously this sounds a bit ridiculous, but of course the moral of the story is you're going to realize that actually you're not going to fail as many times you think and it sometimes it is harder to fail than you realize and every time you feel it something it isn't really a failure because you're kind of checking something off a list, like, oh, I tried it and it didn't work out, but you're never gonna know what would you do if you wanted to get the rejections I think I would.

Speaker 1:

I would probably go to a huge podcast producer and say look, I want you to sign me there you go it's just those honest conversations that you gotta have with yourself seriously what would you do?

Speaker 2:

oh, I don't know. I think I currently need to make a like a you know, a goal board, an inspiration board for my year. I just had my birthday, so now I'm in a new thank you so much. Now I'm in 23rd year of life, so I've got to make a new list of things I want to do and I want to achieve.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I'm gonna have to get thinking I hope you guys have some useful tips that you can take away from this episode, or just have found something some nugget of nata that you found relatable. We wanted to keep it short and sweet, so I hope you guys have a great rest of your wednesday and enjoyed having ellie on, because I really enjoyed having you on and I think we could have, now that you're back, a lot more conversations like this. That's just things that you guys want to hear or things that are on our minds, which could help you as well.

Speaker 1:

Just sit down, get the mics out and start talking so we're gonna have to do this again, but for now I loved having you on and I hope you guys have a great rest of your week and I shall see you all next wednesday. Bye, thank you.

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Emily Astley

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