How to Defy Expectations and Take Control of Your Life (At Any Age)

Fear is meant to be conquered.

No matter how confident you are or how badly you want to chase your dreams, taking the first step is always the hardest.

It’s like stepping onto a rickety bridge and hoping a board doesn’t fall off. You don’t know if you’ll get to the other side, how long it’ll take you, or whether or not you’ll fall into the abyss.

But I did it at eighteen. I was just out of high school, and I refused to attend college. I only knew that I wanted to make a full-time living online, but I wasn’t sure what that looked like exactly.

I’m twenty-two now, and I have no success to show for my work. I don’t have a steady income. I’m barely growing on this platform and trying to make a name for myself.

Considering that lots of people my age are graduating from college, I might seem like a huge failure. Except, I don’t feel like one.

If I were to compare my life to a twenty-two-year-old who’s making thousands a month, traveling, and living in some beautiful apartment, I would feel nothing. No jealousy. No envy. No anger.

I don’t have anything to show for my work, but the work itself makes me feel successful. That’s the beauty of following your dreams.

It’s not about the end result but the journey. That’s what you want, right? You don’t say: I want to have done what I love. You say: I want to do what I love. Doing is all about the process.

That difference is everything.

I was scared. Even though college was different, everyone around me was jumping from one school system to another. I plunged straight into real life.

The doubts I had are universal. They’re probably what stop you from pursuing what you want:

• Who am I do this?
• This is too hard to figure out.
• I’m not good enough.
• I don’t know what I’m doing.

Doubt, fear, and insecurity are a powerful group. They’re the Destiny’s Child of your mind. They will sing and sing until you give in to their persuasive voices. But there’s more than one way to quiet your fears.

The easy way is to give in. That’s why everyone chooses to do this. The hard way is to act despite the discouragement your own mind gives you.

If your head is telling you that you can’t do something, that’s a sign that you have to do just that. It’ll take a while but once you start doing, learning, applying, and practicing, you will be better.

No, you’re probably not good enough and have no skills, but that doesn’t mean you’re not capable of learning. I know that what you’re doing is difficult, but you’ll figure it out. If I could, you can.

What can overpower your insecurities? Confidence. How do you get it? You just… do. Just like driving. The first couple of times you feel incompetent and uncomfortable, but after a while, it becomes subconscious. You can daydream and still make it home in one piece.

You don’t start off with confidence. It comes with practice.

You don’t want to start working toward your goals because everything and everyone is telling you not to. Don’t you know those are the reasons to start?

Fear is a calling. Fear is meant to be conquered.

That’s the first step to chasing that dream you’re thinking about right now — conquering your fears. Your fear of being judged, of being laughed at, at embarrassing yourself, of failure

L.et’s talk a little more about failure. When I started writing on Medium at twenty-one, I had my doubts. (Those pesky assholes are everywhere.) When I learned I had to put in years of work, I was tempted to back out. What if I dedicated five years of my life to Medium, and came out with nothing to show for it? I’d still be a failure.

But why do we fear failure?

You’ve failed before. A lot. Hard. Tell me, was it really that scary? I’ve been rejected, I’ve lost writing contests, stories I worked on for hours have flopped, the blog I started failed after three years.

None of those failures were the end of the world.

We think failure is worse than actually it is. But you won’t end up half-dead on the floor. Failure is only a broken arm or leg — you can recover from it. Humans are strong like that. Nothing but death can truly stop us.

Another reason you fear failure is because you’re afraid people will find out that you’re a flawed human — one stupid enough to chase their dreams. They might not laugh in your face, but they’ll know, and that scares you. Your ego will take a huge hit.

So what?

Are you here to live your life for yourself or for others? If you were certain that no one was going to judge you for chasing a dream for five years only to fail in the end, you would dive in headfirst into the abyss.

If you want to live a life you can be proud of, you can’t care what people think about you. Don’t know how to do that? Pretend. Teenagers do it quite well, so tap into your teenage self. Pretend you don’t give a fuck, and do what you want.

Be careful, not careless. Just care less.

Chasing your dream isn’t going to be easy. It takes hard work, persistence, patience, dedication. You might say, “You were eighteen. You had time. You were just starting your life.”

At the end of the day, that’s just another excuse. I could’ve easily gotten frightened and gone to college to pursue a degree I didn’t care about. I’m still young. I could quit writing — a terribly unpredictable career — and get a “real” job.

But I won’t. Because this is the life I want to live so I’m going to live it.

It doesn’t matter that you’re over forty, that you’re married, that you have kids. If you want it as bad as you say you do, you will find a way. Others before you have done it — why can’t you?

You defied the impossible by being alive. Keep defying as you live.