404. I want to do everything, so I do nothing

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Psychology of Your 20s
Episode 404: "I Want to Do Everything, So I Do Nothing"
Host: Jemma Sbeg
Date: April 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Jemma Sbeg explores a common challenge among people in their 20s: the overwhelming desire to pursue numerous dreams and ambitions, which often leads to decision paralysis, inaction, and lingering dissatisfaction. Jemma unpacks the psychological roots of this "paralysis by ambition," discusses core fears that underpin it, and offers a practical roadmap for breaking the cycle and making meaningful, focused progress. Her tone is supportive, candid, and gently motivational throughout.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Core Dilemma: Paralysis by Ambition

• Many young adults feel weighed down by an excess of choices and ambition, which paradoxically leads to stagnation.
• This isn't a lack of discipline or motivation—it's often about fear.
  • Quote (04:58):

    "It's not that you can't achieve what you want if you set your mind to it... I normally find that people who get stuck in this situation have an excess of ambition psychologically. It's about regret, right? And more than that, it is about fear." – Jemma Sbeg

2. Real-Life Examples & Personal Reflection

• Jemma shares her personal struggle: despite having run the podcast for years, she finds herself unable to act on new ideas or ambitions (PhD, business, writing another book, etc.).
  • Quote (07:42):

    "I feel like I have a new brilliant idea every week for how I want these last few years of my twenties to go… but I have done none of these things."

3. Breaking Down the Three Key Fears

a. Fear of Regret (12:34)

• Fear that one choice will foreclose better alternatives, leading to long-term unhappiness.
• Links to the concept of "paralysis analysis" and the Paradox of Choice (Barry Schwartz).
• More options can make decisions harder and amplify the sense of risk in making the “wrong” decision.
  • Quote (14:30):

    "When we have too many choices, it actually doesn't equal freedom. It equals overwhelm."

b. Fear of Failure (16:14)

• Fear of acting and falling short, thus damaging self-worth.
• Jemma stresses the importance of cultivating self-trust and recognizing that failure is often a temporary—and necessary—state.
• Cites research on "over-strivers" versus "self-protective" fear of failure.
  • Quote (17:49):

    "You can try again and again and again. In fact, most people do and will. You're going to be totally fine. In fact, a little bit of failure, I think especially in your 20s, is like healthy for you. It's part of a healthy emotional diet."

c. Fear of Judgment (18:40)

• Worry about how others will perceive career pivots, changes in direction, or “failures.”
• Reframes public confusion or criticism as a sign that you're living boldly.
  • Quote (19:46):

    "Have the courage to confuse people with how many interests you have. If they're thinking about you that much, you win. You are the one with the mental real estate in their mind."

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4. Jemma’s Practical Guide to Taking Action

(Resumes at 23:56)

• Accept Your Limits, Extend Your Timeline
  • Acknowledge it's impossible to do it all right now. Spread ambitions over 'seasons' (2-5 years each).
  • Divide your twenties (or any decade) into meaningful, thematic segments, each with a major and a minor focus.
    • Quote (24:34):

      "Stop trying to cram 60 to 70 years of goals and life into the next few months or the next few years. Stop compressing your timeline."

    • Treat your life like a multi-season TV show: each “season” has a different focus and cast.
• Choose One Dream at a Time (“Date One Dream at a Time”)
  • Pour effort into a single major focus per “season” until you’ve seen it through or decide to move on.
  • No guilt for pivoting or stacking experiences over time.
• Use the “Regret Thermometer” & Clarify Values
  • Ask: “Which ambition would I regret NOT doing the most if life ended soon?”
  • Get clear on core values—do the thing aligned with your true desires, not others’ expectations.
  • Trim your ambitions list mercilessly to what really matters now.
• Set Decision Deadlines & Take Micro Risks
  • Commit to a deadline for picking a path, and start with low-stakes trial periods if that helps reduce overwhelm.
  • Quote (29:38):

    "Set decision timelines for yourself. Tell yourself and commit to starting when you say you will. Make a choice by a certain date. And then if you really want to go small, like just do some micro risks, commit for like two months."

• Remember: Choices Aren’t Permanent
  • Life isn’t a one-way train—you can change directions, borrow from other dreams, or start fresh.
  • Quote (30:43):

    "Making a choice in life isn't like strapping yourself to a train aboard unmovable tracks. It's like hiking through a forest where you can push through the dense bush to change tracks when you realize you're lost. You can be flexible."

• If You’re Worried, You’re Already Ahead
  • The anxiety over choices is proof of self-awareness and accountability—apathy is the real danger.
  • Quote (31:52):

    "The people who are anxious about making the right decision are never the ones I worry about... I worry about the ones who are apathetic. I worry about the ones who don't worry, because that shows a lack of buy-in."

  • "The biggest mistake you can make will never be making a mistake. It will be not having the guts to fix the mistake or not caring enough to fix a mistake." (32:21)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Our expectations for ourselves, our dreams, I guess, are so heavy that they often keep us pinned to one place, safe but not very happy." (04:19)
• "No, you cannot do it all. You just can't. That's one of the limits that we face as humans with finite time. But you can do a lot more than you think if you are able to surpass your decision paralysis." (23:56)
• "You are not tied to any particular life path just because it's the first train you got on. You can get off." (30:54)
• "Audacity takes you a long way. What am I going to be audacious about?" (33:17)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:01 — Episode proper begins; Jemma introduces the core topic: paralysis by overwhelming ambition.
• 07:42 — Jemma’s personal story with indecision in her late 20s.
• 12:34 — The three core fears: regret, failure, and judgment.
• 14:30 — Paradox of Choice explained (Barry Schwartz jam study).
• 16:14 — Fear of failure, “over-strivers” vs. “self-protective.”
• 18:40 — Fear of being judged and reframing it.
• 23:56 — Jemma’s step-by-step guide to overcoming “do nothing” paralysis.
• 29:38 — Setting timelines and micro-risks.
• 30:43 — Choices are not permanent; you can pivot at any time.
• 31:52 — Anxiety over choices is a sign of caring and engagement.
• 33:17 — Final advice and encouragement to be audacious.

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Tone & Style

Jemma’s style is empathetic, conversational, and infused with self-deprecating humor. She pairs psychological research with relatable examples and encouraging, actionable advice. The tone is gently motivational—a supportive older sister vibe, never preachy or clinical.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Feeling stuck is normal—often a sign of too many ambitions, not too few.
• The three major fears: regret, failure, judgment are universal and can be managed.
• Life is long—span your ambitions across “seasons” instead of trying to do everything now.
• Prioritize what you would regret missing the most and act on it, even in tiny ways.
• Choices can be revised—nothing (especially in your 20s) is truly permanent.
• The fact that you care is your best psychological asset. Apathy is the real risk.
• “Audacity team”: Those who try, pivot, and live boldly are the ones having the most fun.

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For those paralyzed by possibilities, Jemma’s advice is clear: pick one dream, give it a season, don’t fear judgment, and trust that you can always course-correct. If you care enough to worry, you have what it takes to get unstuck.

Transcript

[Garnier National Park Foundation Announcer]

Happy Earth Month. Garnier is proudly partnering with the National park foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Garnier's support of the National Park Foundation Service Corps program is enabling young adults and veterans to help care for and enhance the national parks that we all love. Want to lend a hand? Explore Garnier's partnership with the National park foundation and learn how you can help support our national parks and@garnier USA.com NPF

[Riley Wilson]

this is Riley Wilson and Keon Miller from OK Storytime.

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[Michael Easter]

2% that's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter and On my podcast 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's 2% on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gemma Spake]

Hello everybody, I'm Gemma Spake and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psych foreign. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the Psychology of our twenties, and back for a very important episode at that I Want to do everything, so I do Nothing. This is our topic for today. I have so many dreams for myself and my life, but I don't chase any of them. I hear this all the time from people in their 20s. In fact, I think it is the biggest worry I hear from people during this decade, and it's also a major root of so much dissatisfaction, not just now, but in the future. Obviously, it doesn't always sound like that, right? It doesn't always sound like somebody being like, I want to do everything, but I do nothing. It sounds like I don't know which of these jobs to choose, so I'm just going to stay where I am. It sounds like I don't know whether to stay or leave my relationship, so I guess I'll just stay. I don't know whether to honor my passions or my need for stability, so I'll do neither. I don't know whether to travel or whether to save, so I won't do either as well. All of it is the same. It all comes back to this core dilemma. Our expectations for ourselves, our dreams, I guess, are so heavy that they often keep us pinned to one place, safe but not very happy. This conundrum is so interesting to me because it's not that you can't achieve what you want if you set your mind to it. It's not that there is a lack of things that intrigue you or a lack of opportunities or ambition. In fact, I normally find that people who get stuck in this situation have an excess of ambition psychologically. It's about regret, right? And More than that, it is about fear. It is very easy from the outside to look at someone who is stagnant at this point in their life and to assume that they are just lazy. They lack discipline, they lack motivation, they lack structure. I would say 80% of the time for people in this situation, that's not their problem. A lack of discipline is not the problem. It is this fear that's holding them back from just choosing somewhere to direct their discipline. So today we're going to talk about what's really going on and also my guide to taking all those options, taking all those dreams and committing, choosing, chasing what you really want, even if you are entirely unsure how it's going to turn out. So, without further ado, let's get into the episode. Let's return to this main dilemma. Wanting to do it all, not knowing which path is worth trying first. So doing nothing. This has been something that personally I've been dealing with a lot recently. Let's get Ken for a second. I'll be totally honest. I've been doing this podcast for five years now, literally for my entire 20s, minus, like one or two years. I honestly want to do beyond this before I turn 30, and I just can't seem to take a step towards anything. I feel like I have a new brilliant idea every week for how I want these last few years of my twenties to go. You know, I really want to go back and get my PhD like I always wanted to. That was my path before this podcast happened. You know, I really want to launch a business. I want to write another book. I think about a business idea, like, every day. Part of me also just wants to do nothing. But I have done none of these things. I think maybe because I'm leaving this invisible space for the most perfect, fully formed idea to, like, come along and like, to have the space to complete it. I want to have this, like, full body confirmation reaction that I had when I started the podcast. That's like the only time I've ever felt that. And because I feel like I felt that once, and because I took this one big risk, I'm like, oh, maybe I don't need to take risks anymore. Maybe I just need to coast. Maybe it really just comes down to this sense of, like, I've just. I don't know, I feel like life has gone so well. I've got all this privilege. Taking the wrong step would be a disservice to everything that's gone well in my life. And I'm so young that, like, to set off in the wrong direction feels like it would have such major consequences for me. So let's interrogate why that is. Because you guys know I have a deep hunger for self awareness. I'm not somebody who can leave my problems alone. This is what I've concluded from the research. This is why I feel like I'm staying still, as I'm sure many of you are as well. I know I mentioned fear. What I've realized is that it really comes down to three distinct fears. The fear of regret, the fear of failure, and the fear of being judged. The fear of being seen. Those kind of feel like similar fears. They are really, really different. Let's start with the biggest primary fear for so many of us. The fear of regret. The fear that we will choose one of these paths one day. We will choose that one, that path branching out in front of us. And we will find ourselves 5, 10, 15 years down the line in a place we don't want to be. And unable to change it. We will find ourselves deeply resenting the version of us right now who didn't know any better and chose the wrong path. The interesting thing about fearing regret or fearing the wrong outcome is that you're really just worried about a lack of control, right? It's actually quite a human fear. And you're really just worried about putting things in motion that will be unchangeable. And what it really comes down to is this deep knowledge that we as humans have less control than we think. But also our time here is finite, right? We can't do it all. So how do we know with certainty what choice is going to maximize our pleasure and our happiness whilst minimizing our pain? Which one of these is going to be the perfect combination of max pleasure, minimal pain? The thing is, we don't. We only know in hindsight. Sometimes we don't even know in hindsight because there's no way of knowing if another path would have turned out any better, really. At this point, you just have to bet on the one you think is best. What's ironic as well, and I think is a core part of this, is that the more choices we have, the more impactful and the more severe our paralysis analysis normally is. Which is funny, right? I think there's this logic that more choice and more ambition, more dreams, means it will be easier to choose because the right one is going to stand out. Unfortunately, like that is not the case. There is a term for this. You've probably heard it. You've probably even heard it on this podcast. It is called the Paradox of choice. The paradox of choice was it kind of first appeared. Actually, it didn't kind of. It first appeared as the title of a book by this American psychologist. His name is Barry Schwartz. And in this book, Barry talks about a very, very famous study, probably one of the most famous psychology studies of all time. It was conducted in the year 2000. What it involved was a researcher, a researcher setting up a jam stand at a local supermarket. On day one, she has 24 jams. On day two, she only has six jams. The researcher was like, based on what I think I know about human psychology, when I have 24 jams, more people are going to buy a jam because their preferences are going to be reflected and represented by my options. The truth that really shocked researchers was when there were 24 jams, only 3% of people were able to make a decision and purchase something. When there was six jams, 30% of people who came to the stand bought a jam. Why? Because when we have too many choices, it actually doesn't equal freedom. It equals overwhelm. The pro con list that our mind is mentally working through is too large. It's too large to compare 50 options against each other versus two. And the risk of disappointment also increases with each new potential jam, because each new potential jam offers, you know, a whole new flavor that we could really, really love. We're not really talking about jam, right? We're not talking about jam. We're talking about our lives, and we're talking about the potential decisions or ideal selves or futures that we want to inhabit. It is paralyzing. And it also makes us feel silly to be complaining about having so many options, so many goals, that we can't choose one. But it stumps your brain. It creates the I do nothing part of this equation, mainly because of cognitive overload and because of the possibility of making the wrong choice is so large and profound that it drives our behavior kind of counterintuitively, to make no choice. So that's the fear of regret. Second is the fear of failure. This is different from our fear of regret because our fear of regret is about a fear of inaction. So, like leaving a stone unturned, leaving an opportunity not taken, our fear of failure is about the fear of action and the fear of making a tangible mistake rather than a mistake derived from not doing anything at all. It is the fear of committing and then being disappointed or being, you know, not being able to meet the expectations for this dream or this life that we want to create. You know what? That's a Possibility, It's a real possibility. You might not have what it takes. And it really stings to think about it because it gets all tied up in our self worth, our self esteem, our ego. Like those little pesky things that we have to deal with. Nobody wants to feel like they weren't good enough or big enough for their dreams or that they got so, so close and missed it because of something that they did. That is a big reality to consider. And you know what? Sometimes people do decide, I don't think I could survive that. So I don't want to take that risk. The fear of failure is too loud. But I truly believe that like a lot of this really comes down to a lack of self acceptance and more specifically a lack of sel trust. Like this belief that like bad things could happen and you won't be able to survive them. If things do not go perfectly well, you will not live, you will not be able to endure it. Failure will become you. Failure will be a permanent state of mind that you will remain in. The thing is, it's not and it won't be. You can try again and again and again and again. In fact, most people do and will. You're going to be totally fine. In fact, a little bit of failure, I think especially in your 20s, is like healthy for you. It's part of a healthy emotional diet because it proves you are trying and you're putting yourself in the path of luck and opportunity. And it didn't hit you this time, but it could hit you next time. I also think that's why again, inoculating yourself against failure as early as you can in life in your 20s, like basically allowing little failures to come in, proves how capable you are of surviving what might be a bigger failure. And if you want a big life like that may one day present itself, the possibility of big failures is going to be there. But it's no big deal. You've inoculated yourself, you got the failure vaccine. It is nothing that you can't handle. There is this incredible piece of psychology research from 2003 titled Fear of Failure Friend or foe, which basically talks about how our fear of failure is not a singular thing. Your fear of failure can either lead you to work harder, this is what they call an over striver response to failure, or it can lead you to develop defensive behaviors. This is called a self protective fear of failure. So over striver or self protective. The thing is you want to be an over striver. If you cannot stop fearing failure, at least fear failure in a striving manner. Use it as a motivator, not as something that's going to handicap you from the start. Use it as something to look at and be like, I don't want that. And the biggest failure is not choosing. I'm going to work really hard. Our final fear that we need to touch on today is the fear of not just failing, the fear of being seen to fail, or the fear of judgment from others. Also part of this is with all these choices, sometimes the fear of confusing people with your direction, sometimes like something not going right, choosing something else and thinking that people are going to judge you for that. When I talk to people who have this similar, I want to do everything, so I do nothing fear. This actually comes up so often. It's this idea that we have promised people. We are this one type of person committed to doing this one type of thing. And so choosing something different or veering off course, maybe that makes us a liar. Maybe people would think weirdly strangely about us. Maybe they would think that, like, we're not disciplined or like we're entitled or like we just can't choose a lane. That potential for social judgment keeps us small in anticipation. To this, I say literally, who cares? Be multi hyphenate. Have the courage to just say, that didn't work out. What's next? Have the courage to confuse people with how many interests you have. If they're thinking about you that much, you win. You are the one with the mental real estate in their mind. You're the one with the goals big enough that they are on their radar. That's crazy. That person's thinking about your goals probably more than you're thinking about them. You're the one with the audacity to try rather than just to judge others for trying. That makes you a winner. Even if you publicly fail at something or whatever it is you're trying, you still win. Sometimes even having that rather slightly existential mindset of nobody's going to remember this anyway is really powerful. It's a very stoic mindset to have because you put distance between yourself, the potential outcome, and this person's potential opinion and you see it really clearly in the grand scheme of things. Their opinion will not matter on your deathbed. What will matter is realizing you didn't do the things your heart really called you to do because of their opinion. That will matter. You know what will also matter? Getting to tell yourself the story that you did it anyway. Having a life of alignment, freedom, purpose that that person could never dream about because you just said, I do not care. Thank you for your opinion. Have a nice day. Sometimes, and this is another mental exercise I do, it's really helpful to see life as divided into teams. The people who had the audacity to try and the people who didn't. Which team do you think is having more fun? Which team do you think is happier? Which team do you think is having a better time on this earth? The Audacity team. Duh. Be part of that team. Okay, we're going to take a short break here, but when we return, I want to give you a guide to picking. Let's. Let's pick together. What are you going to do first? What's the interest that you're going to commit to today? Stay with us. We're going to reveal all after this short break.

[Garnier National Park Foundation Announcer]

Happy Earth Month. Garnier is proudly partnering with the National park foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Garnier's support of the National Park Foundation Service Corps program is enabling young adults and veterans to help care for and enhance the national parks that we all love. The National park foundation and Garnier are proud to support these individuals as they explore future careers, gain practical field skills, develop confidence as leaders, and help address priority projects across our national parks. Together, Garnier and the National park foundation are committed to a shared vision of preserving and protecting our most treasured places for future generations. Want to lend a hand? Explore Garnier's partnership with the National park foundation and learn how you can help support our national [e-mail] NPF this is

[Riley Wilson]

Riley Wilson and Keon Miller from OK, Storytime.

[Keon Miller]

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Since the day we met.

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[Gemma Spake]

Here is the truth that you've got to get really comfortable with. No, you cannot do it all. You just can't. That's one of the limits that we face as humans with finite time. But you can do a lot more than you think if you are able to surpass your decision paralysis. And here is exactly how I would go about it, how I'm going to try to go about it, and how I have in the past. I will say, number one, stop trying to cram 60 to 70 years of goals and life into the next few months or the next few years. Stop compressing your timeline. And remember, like, goals take time. Experiences come later on in life and in stranger ways than you would ever expect. And if you try to do everything at once, that is a very quick way to becoming disillusioned with your dreams, burnt out by your dreams, putting a lot of pressure on yourself, and also never getting anything done. Like, doing it all right now would be a disaster. This is what you have to do instead. I want you to treat your 20s and with that in mind, like any decade of your life, really. Like, it is made up of five seasons, like a TV show. I spoke about this in my book, Person in Progress, by the way, if you want to buy it. But whether you divide your life or your decades up into seasons of two years, seasons of three years, maybe even five, you have to find a way to mentally represent your life so that it's not just like one clump of years extending out in front of you one year after the next. Instead, there are segments. Each new season is going to have different characters, different character arcs, different plot twists, different destinations, different supporting characters. Like, there's going to be so much that's going to be different. Like different seasons in a TV show, different sets, different everything. And in each season, you have to choose your major focus and your minor focus. And until you realize you are bored of that focus or you finish that focus or you're not, you know, you realize it's not for you. You stick with it. You give it everything. You don't get sidetracked. A major focus for the next three to five years could be finish my degree, launch my business, launch my podcast, write my book, travel, pursue acting, save for a property, and then your minor focus, which can change. Like, every year is something like, get more hobbies, make a new friend, figure out my personal style, run a half marathon, something that's kind of more personal, definitely something that's not as, like, career or finance focused. 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, whatever segment works for you. During that time, you have to focus on your major goal. That is your only objective. Because it's not going to be forever. It's just going to be for this period. And after, let's say three years, you have all the permission in the world to try something new or to pivot or to like, quietly know, like, hey, I've accomplished that one. That's part of the. I want to do everything. I did that one thing and that can remain stable whilst I go and do my other things. Like, I can say I did it, I can say I tried it. Now it's time to go do something else. You know, when I quit my job to do my podcast full time, I did say I'm going to give myself two years to. To just give it everything. And now it's like been three years later. It's been three years and now I'm pivoting into doing other things. Like, there are other things I want to do. I've given the podcast outside of my job such a big chunk of my time. Now I'm doing video podcasts. Now I'm writing, like, writing another book. Like, now I'm doing these other things. Like, that gets my time now. And I don't feel guilty for not having given this previous thing my all. When you segment, when you say this is my time for this and later this will be my time for that, you give your individual dreams the space to breathe rather than like treating them like freaking cage chickens and cramming them all in with all the others. I feel like just to simplify this easily and just to make it like a quick mantra date one dream at a time. A question that will probably come from this is like, what dream do I prioritise first? I think this is actually rather. I don't know if this is privileged to say. I think it's a rather easy question to answer. You just have to use your regret thermometer here. Your regret thermometer is basically like asking yourself, what's the one I'm going to regret the most? What one hits the highest regret level in my mind? Like, what's the one that if I am on my deathbed and if I die in like three months, I'm going to be like, why did I not do that specifically? That was a huge goal of mine. Why did I not do that? I also think a good exercise to do is just to sit down and really identify. Like, if I'm going to choose the first Thing I pursue. What are my values? What do I actually care about? What is the life you really want? Not the life you think you want, not the life others want for you. What is the life you want? Can you identify it? Is it wealth? Is it creativity? Is it connection? Is it comfort, excitement, adventure? If it's adventure, don't choose the strict corporate job first. Like, that cannot be the first pathway. If your priority, your main value is adventure, that can come later. If a part of you really just knows, I just want to live a creative, artistic, free life. Don't choose the dream, the first dream to be one that restricts you straight out the gate. Make that plan B. Take all the things that, like, you really want to do. Write, like, a massive list. Actually, like, you can do this right now. Write a massive list. Anything that you're, like, not 100%, like, I would want to give my life to this. Cross it off for now, something you can do later. Like, I think half the reason why we can't choose what we want to do is because half of the things on our list are things that we don't actually care about. I think that, like, we sit down with all these thoughts, like, but I want to be a doctor and I want to be. I want to travel all the time and I want to run my rescue center and I want to be an artist or I want to be a mom or I want to be a dad. And we're like, but wait, half those things are not things we actually want to do. Half those things are things that we think other people want from us. Like, half those things are things that we think expect ourselves to want. So genuinely go through that list. Cross out as many as possible until you get to the one that really stands out. That is where your regret thermometer is going to send you. Especially again, like, if you are in your 20s, you have so much time. Those things, those plan Bs, like, they can come later. You have heaps of time to settle. You have heaps of time for that. Just don't do it now. Like, it's always going to be that you can settle. That's why it's called settling. You can do whatever you want. You can't always do what you want to do right now, whenever you want. Like, you may not have money or connections or stability, but you have gusto. You have enthusiasm. You have less obligation. Probably that is an asset. Like, that is the asset of your time. Please, please use it for something good and something fun, or use it for literally anything it doesn't matter what, as long as you care about it. The third thing I really want you to do is set decision timelines for yourself. Tell yourself and commit to starting when you say you will make a choice by a certain date. And then if you really want to go small, like just do some micro risks, commit for like two months. Just like go as small as possible. Just be like, I'm going to make a decision by here, by this time. This is the decision now for the next two months, two weeks, two years. Like I'm just going to test it out, right? Baby steps. Those baby steps are so crucial because they, they reduce the mental threat of an all in like full stakes, no take backs, life change. And that's really important because probably something you're dealing with is just a lot of overwhelm and stress. So this just lets you concentrate on what's right in front of you, not the big outcome like 2, 3, 15 years down the line that is like its own scary monster level of fearful and terrifying. Pick something you can do in the next two months for one of your dreams and action it. Finally, I want you to remember two final things. Firstly, you can jump across timelines. Making a choice in life isn't like strapping yourself to a train aboard unmovable tracks like that you can never get off. It's like hiking through a forest where you can like push through the dense bush to change tracks. When you realize that you're lost, you can be flexible. If you don't like the life that you end up creating, you are not stuck there. You can borrow parts of other dreams that you have. You can go back to school, you can start over. You can practice as a novice, you can cut your own path through the forest. It's not this. You are not tied to any particular life path just because it's the first train you got on. You can get off. There's heaps of stops for you to get off. Like these are not locking contracts. You have agency. There are not clauses that are unchangeable. You can change at any time if you, if you want to. If you have like the spirit and if you have the resources that I'm sure you do, if you're considering all these choices. And secondly, the final reminder, the one I wish I knew sooner. The very fact that you care now about making the right choice shows that you will always care. The very fact that you are worrying about not being able to do it all, worrying about your future self, worrying about regrets shows that you have accountability over your life. And if you someday do encounter a life that you didn't sign up for, that emotional reaction, that same motivation is still there and it's going to propel you to change. I had this professor say to me once, the people who are anxious about making the right decision are never the ones I worry about. I worry about the ones who are apathetic. I worry about the ones who don't worry because that shows a lack of buy in. That, like, changed my life when he said that, like, the biggest mistake you can make will never be making a mistake. It will be not having the guts to fix the mistake or not caring enough to fix a mistake. You obviously care. That's why you're so worried right now. You obviously will always continue to have this force and this motivation in you that will want you to change your life. So choose whatever you choose and you will be fine. Like, you will be okay because you are not apathetic. That's what all this worry proves. So that is all I have time for today. That is the end of my big rant about wanting to do it all and not doing any of it. I hope that this has helped you make a choice. I hope that it's at least helped you to be like, baby step, like, audacity takes you a long way. What am I going to be audacious about? What am I going to just concentrate on now? Just for the next little while, not forever. I hope that breaking it down has made that, like, the process behind why this is hard and how to overcome it a lot easier. If you have made it this far and you were listening on Spotify, leave a comment down below. What is the dream? What is the ultimate dream that you have for your life? Why not put it out to the universe? What is, like, the thing that you really want to have happen for you? Put it in the comment section. Let's make like. Let's just put that. Put it that one inch closer to reality. Let yourself verbalize it maybe for the first time. Make sure that you are also following us on Instagram at thatpsychology podcast. You can, of course, share your dreams with me over there as well. I'm always receptive to hearing them, especially if, like, one of your dreams is starting a podcast. I'm always down to give some advice. Send this episode to somebody who you think it will resonate with. Follow us. You can also read the transcript of this episode on Substack. There are so many things that you could do with this episode. You could. You could watch it on Netflix if you wanted. I don't know if you know that. If you are new to this podcast, we are also on Netflix all over the world. So if you want to watch future episodes, past episodes, you're more of a visual learner. That is a great place for you to go and check us out. I think that's enough plugs for me. I think I've done enough. I think I've done enough self promotion for this episode. So, yeah, do with that what you will. And as always, at the end of every episode, you guys know I say this. Be safe, be kind, be very gentle to yourself, especially if you're, like, debating the future. It's a tough one to think about, but I am 100 sure you're going to be okay. We will talk very, very soon.

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[Michael Easter]

2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and On my podcast 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's tw o percent on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gemma Spake]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.