What to Do if You Feel Lost When You Just Started a New Chapter in Your Life

Short answer: Rule of 100, Long answer:….

“You’re not lost, you’re just early in the process”

— Gary Vaynerchuck

For so long, I’ve felt like I had no purpose, no direction, and no destination.

In all honesty, my life revolved around working at a crappy movie theater living off minimum wage, and creepy managers smiling at a woman’s every move — plus barely passing a chemistry class that killed my G.P.A.

Same old same old.

That’s life in general for most of us. So you probably have this question in the back of your mind.

“How am I supposed to live in a world that’s driven by success when I have no way of knowing where to start?”

Here’s where you are right now in life.

You’re at the beginning of a long trail that has no intent of shortening itself for you. Now you’re left looking back and forth like a child in despair as you wonder where to go when there are so many people ahead of you.

This is how I felt when I started my writing journey.

“How the hell am I going to be the best writer with so many talented writers around?!”

Well, I can sit and wait for Wonder Woman to come and crush them with the lasso of truth so they tell me their secrets. Or I can put in the work, take my time, and acknowledge that it’s a long process.

The latter sounds better, doesn’t it?

I remember when I wrote my first blog post. In all honesty, I didn’t think it sucked, but as soon as I looked at blog posts from other writers, I choked. Not literally, but my blog post did.

You feel this way too. Whether you just started a new job, or you’re taking that first leap into college, or you’re starting a new chapter in your life — you feel overwhelmed. You feel like you’re a small tadpole in a big ocean with whales. Is it fair?

Hell yeah.

You want to get better at your craft right? I want to be one of the best writers on the planet. To do that I have to be better than every single writer in front of me. So I worked — and I’m still working.

So far, I’ve published over a hundred articles. It’s not much at all compared to the behemoths I’m up against, but at least now, I have a small clue of what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing more than someone who has twenty articles published.

You have to take that first step and enter the Lion’s den. Most people don’t even start because of “saturation”. Whatever the hell that means.

It’s possible to enter a “saturated” field and still be on top. More competition just makes you stronger in the end.

If you enter want to go full force into something and kill it, there’s only one thing I have to say to you.

“Rule of 100”

This is a benchmark a lot of notable content creators use. To truly make progress at something, you have to do it at least 100 times to get the hang of it.

Do 100 push-ups if you want to be a trainer, sing 100 songs If you want to be a singer, go to 100 auditions if you want to be an actor.

Once you approach 100, you’ll start to find yourself.

You’ll find your style, your rhythm, your sound, your cadence once you get through that hurdle. But don’t stop at 100. Keep going and get to 200 and so forth to nail that passion into your brain.

Final Thoughts

It’s okay to feel lost when you start a new chapter.

I get it. You’re overwhelmed and you don’t know where to start. Seeing the massive competition doesn’t help either. What can you do?

Honestly, it all comes down to being your own authentic self and practicing 100+ times. It’ll be a long hard process, but it’ll get better with ease if you go out of your way to take that first step.

Don’t run away because of what everyone else is doing, only focus on yourself and keep it moving.

Do you want to be the best [blank] there is? I know I do.

Well then, I guess it’s time for us to put our heads down and crank out 100 more. See you at the finish line.