Let yourself be a work in progress
10/16/2025
You don’t have to be exactly where you want to be yet.
If you’re a twenty-something, or a thirty-something, or even a sixty-something, there are undoubtedly heavy expectations on how your life should look, both from peers, family, friends, and yourself. These expectations stem from society-held beliefs of a certain “timeline” everyone is on. Let me give an example:
Your 20s: Graduate from university, travel, have fun (because there is no other time in your life that you can & have the freedom to), start your career, be successful at said career, and find your life partner.
Your 30s: Settle down, get married, buy a house, have children (because you can’t be too old).
Your 40s: Career is peaking, family is settled, take a family vacation once a year because that’s all the time you have allotted.
You see my point.
Society pushes these expectations for a one-size-fits-all type of life, and most of us end up feeling terrible about ourselves because we aren’t keeping up. We look to social media to see all of our peers getting promotions or engaged and immediately feel we are doing something wrong, or worse, that we are failing. I call bullshit.
As someone who pushes content out on social media, that unfortunately means I spend a great deal of time online. And I’m not the kind of person to call social media the devil, but it does have a sneaky way of making us feel like our life is not heading in the “right” direction.
We were never meant to see so many people of the world, to look at ourselves so often, and compare every aspect of each individual life from a highlight reel (not reality).
All of this to say, I have come to reiterate a commonly said, yet not commonly understood fact: We are ALL on different timelines. There is not one that is correct. And you do not have to be exactly where you want to be in order to feel like you are doing something right. Little changes add up to an end result one day at a time.
Maybe you have this one dream you know you want to achieve, but your current routine doesn’t reflect that just yet. Feeling like you are failing in your everyday life because you’re not exactly where you want to be yet is entirely relatable. It can feel like you are working in the wrong direction when a different dream direction keeps calling to you.
My answer to this: Give yourself some time. All dreams take time and I wholeheartedly believe that what is meant for you will not pass you by. This can be applied to relationships, careers, and your wildest dreams. If you really want something but don’t have it yet — it is likely that you aren’t ready for it.
You won’t receive anything that you are not ready for, perhaps because you still have things to learn and experience before you take on that dream. You may be wondering, who decides the right time? Why can’t I decide to have it now because I want it now? For these questions, I cannot answer, as everyone believes in something different — God, universe, etc. All I really know, is that life plays out exactly how it should.
Although the feelings of not being exactly where you want to be feel uncomfortable, I encourage you to sit and make peace with them. Ultimately, you will have these feelings all of your life because humans are constantly moving the goal post for their dreams and what will make them happiest.
But if you have one dream that is gnawing at you, use these feelings of uncertainty to add fuel to the fire. Your dreams will come true as long as you actively seek them, and are willing to put in the work to achieve them.
Keep dreaming big, because there is no timeline for success, and you will get everything you want — but not a moment sooner than when you are ready for it.
You are not behind. You’re just becoming.