It’s the most simple but cruel question: What is the career you want to dedicate your life to?

As a recent college grad, my obsession over this question has given me a ton of misery and dread. It makes me uncomfortable because it assumes that if I don’t know the right answer, I’ll fall behind and won’t be able to catch up.

It’s a type of pressure that leads to decision-making paralysis. The more I couldn’t decide on my career path and the more time passed, the more I felt an insane feeling of pressure build up. It felt like an endless cycle of misery, especially so when I sat around and saw peers add years of job experience to their resumes.

But I recently saw a TED Talk that changed my mindset and stopped the carousel of torture.

In a TED Talk by lifestyle blogger Tim Urban about procrastination, he showed a slide of what a 90-year old’s life would look like if each week in their life was a box. When I saw the photo, I had a shocking realization: There aren’t a whole lot of boxes in life– and even fewer that are left.

I apologize if that image just filled you with existential dread. That’s not what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to do is make the point that your career should start now. We don’t have any more time to ponder when our careers are going to start – start them now. And here’s how to do it:  

1. YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE: YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO

In Meg Jay’s The Defining Decade, she recounts a conversation with a 25-year-old male named Ian. In the book, he explains his terrifying existential worry about not knowing what to do with his life. He describes feeling like he is in the middle of the ocean, not being able to see land, and not knowing which direction to go. He’s so overwhelmed by the experience that he feels like he physically can’t swim in any general direction. All he can do is tread water in the same place to survive.

The first time I read this story I knew I identified more with Ian’s struggle than with any other career challenge examples I’d heard. Throughout my life, being overwhelmed by my career options was my modus operandi. Growing up, my parents were always supportive, often telling me I could be anything I wanted to be. The choices are limitless!” my mother once told me. And they are. But it’s for that reason it’s even harder to make a decision!

But Meg Jay wrote something in her book that unlocked a part of my brain that finally solved my indecision and explained the related anxiety connected to it. She says that by the time people are in their 20s