This HIGB story comes from Laura Anne Moore who has a brilliant story about the pressures of feeling like you have to have it together and confusion around her career. Laura has some fantastic advice and I hope you all enjoy reading it
Hey, my name is a Laura and I am 26-year-old single gal, living her best life in London. I am a personal finance blogger and money & mindset coach and my aim is to help women feel empowered by their finances.
I used to want to be an actress, ever since the age of about 10/11 (before that I wanted to be a Marine Biologist… my room was full of weird dolphin ornaments). When I left school I knew I did not want to go to University and decided instead to get a Full-Time job so I could afford to put myself through Drama School. By age 22 (after 3 years of being in my first job) I had saved £15,000 and was ready to start my Acting course. But right at the last minute, my best friend’s asked me to go travelling with them and I had the finances right there to say “yup okay let’s do it”. I realised how much freedom having money can give you and so when I came home from 7 months the other side of the world, I set up a blog and an Instagram helping others with their personal finance. It is still early days but for the first time I feel like I am working on something I am really passionate about.
The Challenges I Faced
I think personally, the hardest challenge I have faced to date, which has been an ongoing struggle, is the confusion around my career. I decided at the age of 21 whilst I was travelling that perhaps the acting life was not for me but that left me in a pit of despair in what I will do with my life. I had spent YEARS (and I mean years) confused and stressed about what I ‘should be’ doing next, where I should work, what I should experience, what I want to do, the list goes on. It is a classic scenario of feeling like you are meant to have all your shit together but not having a clue and the feelings of failure. Especially when you feel like everyone else around you has it sorted. You see friends in careers they love or working towards their dream jobs and you are sat there like ‘cool, I will just be clueless forever then shall I’. I felt like I had a million interests… yoga, cooking, travelling, videography, outdoor activities, wellness, food. The list goes on. We are all multifaceted humans and I was so scared to commit to one thing and I also did not even know how I could turn any of them into a job. I was so scared of being stuck in a 9-5 that I was not passionate about (especially when you look at all the digital nomads on Insta working in Bali) . It was all very over-whelming and this internal battle went on for years. I imagine it is a battle that a lot of people feel when they leave school or university and just have no direction at all and combined with all the adulting, it can be stressful.
I found that during my hardest times when I really struggled with where I was in life, stuck in the comparison trap and confused by where I was in life, the biggest help was reading and writing. I read countless ‘self-help’ type books like The Power Of Now by Eckharte Tolle and There Is A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem by Wayne Dwyer and they really helped ground me back into the now. I also journal every single day and have done for the past 5-6 years, and it is SO incredible what you can learn about yourself and work through. Putting pen to paper and just writing – whatever you fancy writing that day – is such a powerful tool.
My Advice
The advice I would give to people who feel the same as me is this; YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT. It sounds so cliché and I am sorry if you thought I would give you a solution, but that is not how life works. How on earth are you meant to know 100% what you want to do for the rest of your life, it is impossible. Some people are lucky, and they do have a really clear idea but that does not make them any further ahead than you. There is no race and no finish line. Some people have one career their wholes lives, some have 10 careers, some don’t discover what they love til they’re 50 and some discover it at 15. But none of these people are superior or living a better life. Just a different life. The best thing you can do, is try your best to experience a bunch of different stuff and take risks. Want to set up a blog? Go for it. Want to learn a new skill? Check out all the free options online and crack on. Want to travel? Save up and just go.
Sometimes the best way to discover what you DO want to do is by figuring out what you DON’T want to do. If you spend too much time stressing, you don’t give yourself the chance to relax and enjoy life. And most of the time, when we are relaxed and having a good time, we are more creative and open to new opportunities that lead to making connections or inviting new exciting things in our lives. Sometimes you read stories of really successful business owners or really happy people and they always say “I never thought I would be doing XYZ but I started out doing X, then I ended up doing Y and tat lead me onto Z and here I am”… That is life. If you are too busy focusing on the future and what you’re next big career move is, then you kind of miss out on what is happening in the present moment.
You can find Laura’s blog on her website here and follow her on Instagram @laura_anne_moore.
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