One Thing to Do if You’re Scared That You’ll Regret Changing Life Paths

Create your own “signs from the universe” in simple ways

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

In October 2021, I quit my job as a .NET developer to pursue my writing/freelancing full-time.

Things were chaotic. My family opposed the decision (out of concern for my future career prospects), and my friends were taken aback.

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Sure, we all get frustrated and keep saying we want to quit, but we don’t actually do it, right? People didn’t believe me every time I said it, but when I quit for real, things changed.

All the doubt — from others and myself

My senior manager asked me on a call —

‘What if you regret this decision? Worse, what if your family regrets this?’

I got chills, but I somehow spoke without missing a beat that I would not regret this.

Inside my head though, I was losing it. I freaked out after the call, wondering if I was making the right call. I freaked out when my family debated this issue with me.

And while I defended this huge decision in front of everyone else, I myself felt the same doubts they all had.

Of course, I was raised with the same mindset of stability and money over passion, but I deviated at a very early age, and I’ve never resorted to doing the “normal”.

The only thing that reassures me about my path in seconds

There’s one thing that calms the storm in literal seconds.

And that’s going back to my older self and everything I felt.

I read my journal entries

Whenever I feel some sense of regret, I read my journal entry about exactly why I needed to make such a decision. And these pages and pages of intense, detailed writings take me back to that time.

I instantly remember all the things I felt and how badly I needed a change.

Here’s a story about these entries and what I wrote in them —

Every Time I Regret Quitting My Job to Be a Writer, I Look at This

I watch videos I made a year ago

Towards the end of May, I felt particularly low and frustrated with a project I was working on. I compared myself to my friends and wondered if everyone else was better off than me since they chose more traditional stable paths.

I randomly opened my Google Photos app and came across a memory from exactly one year ago. It was a video of me venting and talking about everything I hated regarding my job and how I needed to switch, regardless of what the future held.

It was basically a message to my future self to watch whenever I felt down.

I forgot I even made this and I might not have seen it if I hadn’t been wallowing in my misery and opening apps randomly.

I still don’t know my path exactly — but that needs to be okay

When I quit, I thought that writing would be my thing for sure.

Not just because I was good at it, but because it had become a case of sunk cost fallacy — I invested so much time and energy in this new path that I couldn't change it again.

But months later, I fell in love with video creation. And recently, I’ve been strongly drawn to food storytelling and social media management.

I felt so much internal resistance just thinking about the fact that I might switch my path again.

But then, when am I going to explore, if not now?

I know what will happen if I force myself to settle down now. I’ll try my best to fit into a conventional box and I’ll keep at it to pay the bills and I’ll just be trapped as my responsibilities keep piling on. One day, if I get to 50, I’ll wistfully want to do everything I want now, and by then, I would have lost a lot of time and energy.

It’s never too late to get started, but why start then when I could start now?

Take a screenshot of your life — it really helps

Here’s what I like to do.

When I’m feeling intense emotions and forming opinions about my life, I take a “screenshot”. I capture everything I’m feeling with words.

• You can write down your thoughts in a journal. Be specific and mention every single detail that future you might forget.
• Take pictures and videos to document moments of your life. It helps even more if you mention the context of your situation and what you’re dealing with.

These “life screenshots” will always help you later. Whether that’s to reassure yourself about major decisions or just to take a walk down memory lane, they’re great.

And if you’ve recently switched paths and need reassurance, but don’t have any such screenshots, here’s what you can do.

Go back to your old tasks and do them again.

For example, I hated coding and sitting through training sessions that meant absolutely nothing to me. And nowadays when I feel seeds of panic setting in about my current pursuits, I go back to coding, and within a minute or two, I’m reminded of everything I disliked.

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I’m reminded of how desperately I craved an escape and why I started on this pursuit anyway. And that really helps ground me and bring me back to my new reality.

Quitting and pursuing something else can be the scariest thing you do. It’ll take a lot of unlearning, growth, and persistence. It’s amazing how much these little things help you grow. Things as simple as a screenshot.