How to be a Lifelong Undecided Major — and be OK with it
Most schools don’t let you graduate with your major declared as “undecided”. But for many people out there, particularly millennials, the only major we’ll ever be is “undecided”. For people like us, whether or not we list one, or two, or three majors on our diploma, we’ll go through life never quite deciding what we want to be when we grow up.
The professional world actually makes it quite easy to be a Lifelong Undecided Major. Plenty of jobs exist for candidates who are “general athletes”, people who are well-rounded and have interdisciplinary skills. The problem is that for most Lifelong Undecided Majors, having these jobs leave us feeling deeply unsatisfied.
For me, whenever I really started to focus on a particular career path, I would feel like other parts of me were dying. When I was a baker, I felt like my programming skills were languishing. When I was a quantitative analyst, I felt like my creative mind was forgotten.
If you’ve found that job that covers every single one of your interests, congratulations. But if you’re like me, you’re still looking for that unicorn job, and starting to realize that it might truly be a unicorn — nonexistent.
Let’s face it. Life’s too grand to stick to only one thing. But society tells us we should stick to one thing, choose a “career”, if you will, and steadily become Legit in said career.
This is not the only way to live. Just because you can’t decide what you want to do doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It took me a long time to realize this. I’ve spent countless hours and sleepless nights agonizing over whether I’m doing the right thing with my life, whether I’m on the right path.
The thought of switching paths always made me feel like a quitter, that I was lost, that I’d be going backwards in life when everyone would be going forwards. But over the course of the last 10 years and countless job switches, I’ve realized: Sure, my path might be going in a circle, it might be winding up and down, it might be going backwards, it might be going nowhere at all. But that’s not the point. The point is that each foot in front of the other is a new step I’ll take. The point is to walk.
Here are three things I’ve learned on how to navigate a “career” when you’re a Lifelong Undecided Major.
1. Start with your values.
It sounds straightforward enough. At every company, startup, restaurant, or school I’ve ever started at, they always begin with their values. But rarely do I talk to someone about their career who has a strong idea of what their core values are.
Your values will be your north star on this path that has no straightforward direction. One of the biggest issues I’ve run into on my non-traditional, non-linear path is that there are no easy barometers for how well I’m doing. The usual benchmarks of status are gone.
Ever notice that when you first meet someone, one of their first questions is “What do you do?”. People don’t know what to make of you when you’re switching around so much or following a non-traditional path. And if you aren’t super clear on your own values, you’ll find yourself wondering what to make of yourself too.
Stop defining yourself by asking “what do I do?” and start defining yourself by asking “who am I?”
2. Follow your energy.
Whenever I try to get advice on what I should do with My Life, people inevitably tell me “Follow your passion!”. The problem with that advice for undecided majors is that we can’t choose a passion to follow. It’s not that we don’t have passion, in fact it’s quite the opposite problem — too much passion for too many things.
Over the past decade I’ve found a suitable translation — rather than following my “passion”, I follow my energy. Energy is constantly changing, while to me, passion always implied a dedicated, life-long pursuit that scared me. Energy more closely matches what Lifelong Undecided Majors feel. The ebb and flow of our varied interests is why it makes it so difficult to commit to a career path.
I’ve found that rather than fight this constant changing, I can use it. When changing paths, people often look back at what they’ve accomplished on their current path and think “I’ve gone too far! All of this will have been for nothing!” Each switch is perceived as a cost. However, I’ve found the opposite to be true. I’ve wasted a lot of time standing completely paralyzed on a path I didn’t want to be on anymore. Not switching inevitably incurs a higher cost. Following your energy will lead to a more efficient use of your time.
Trust your energy and go where it leads you. You’ll find that you can accomplish way more than you expect, because, most importantly, you’ll feel like yourself.
3. Commit, don’t hedge.
This one is counterintuitive, and a trap that I find myself falling into again and again. Lifelong Undecided Majors are inherently risk averse. We don’t want to pick one thing because we’re scared that it will shut the door on other things we love. So what do we do? We hedge. We choose interdisciplinary majors in college. We end up in jobs that require “well-rounded” candidates so that we can do a little bit of everything. We have intense hobbies outside of these jobs.
The problem with hedging is that we’re inevitably left feeling unfulfilled, always wondering “what if…?”. A lack of focus can make us feel lost or unsuccessful.
I’ve found that instead of hedging and trying to pursue all my interests at one time, it’s more effective to commit to single interests sequentially. Let your energy (2. Follow your energy) dictate which interests to pursue when. The best thing about this approach is that it allows you to fully explore an interest until it no longer interests you. You don’t have to wonder “what if?” any longer. Either you’ll have decided that it’s not suitable because you don’t feel energized by it anymore (2. Follow your energy) or because it turns out it didn’t align with your values (1. Start with your values). You can cross it off the list and move on to the next place your energy leads.
This approach leads to a rapid pace of self-discovery compared to hedging, which you could do forever without learning anything new about yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll even end up declaring a major along the way.
If I had to guess, though, I would guess that many of you won’t end up ever declaring a major, and neither will I. And that makes me proud. It’s not the easy path, but for many of us it’s the only path. Life’s too grand to stick to only one thing.
