25 and don't know what career I want (2024)

Is it normal to not know what career you want at 25?

The short answer is yes. It's common for people to not know what career they want at 25. You don't have to have everything figured out in your 20s.

There is this myth of young kids knowing exactly what they want and growing up to be hyper-successful. This trajectory is perhaps true for a small minority of people. They know exactly what they want to be when they are older. They pursue this goal with a singular focus and eventually succeed.

But I think that few kids know what they want to spend their lives doing. Of the ones who do, most are wrong. They don't know enough about the world, the job market, or what it means to be a 'doctor' to make any well-informed, meaningful decision.

This debate always reminds me of a story Paul Graham tells:

A friend of mine who is a quite successful doctor complains constantly about her job. When people applying to medical school ask her for advice, she wants to shake them and yell "Don't do it!" (But she never does.) How did she get into this fix? In high school she already wanted to be a doctor. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way—including, unfortunately, not liking it. Now she has a life chosen for her by a high-school kid.¹

Is 25 too old to start a career?

No, 25 is usually not too old to start a new career. Many successful people only found their stride later in life. In business and the startup world, there is the myth of the 19-year-old college dropout who starts a billion-dollar company.

That was true for some, but it's actually the exception, not the rule. A study found that the average age of the most successful startup founders was 45. The myth of the college dropout changing the world has been taken to the extreme in Elisabeth Holmes and Theranos. Now she's facing years in prison.

No, you're not too old to start a career at age 25, with some notable exceptions. For some highly talent-driven professions, 25 might indeed be already too old. Professional sports, classical music, and mathematics. Most people who succeed in these professions started doing them when they were very young.

It is perfectly fine not to have a perfect career trajectory in place at age 25. Does that mean you should squander your 20s? Absolutely not. Your 20s are for exploration, learning, and making friends.

How to pick a career at 25?

There are many ways to pick a career at 25. I want to talk about one specific strategy here: Explore, and exploit. The idea behind this strategy is simple. When you are younger explore as much as you can. Expose yourself to many different ideas, cultures, friends, books, and jobs.

Get into it for a while and start to understand the basics of this job. But the moment you know it's not for you, quit and move on. Keep exploring and don't get stuck at the first or second best option. You want to really explore the landscape of potential careers before committing².

After you have actually found something that clicks, that resonates with you deeply, commit to it. At that point, you should become highly focused and not get distracted anymore. It takes many years to become good at something. Now is the time to double down and master your craft.

This strategy is especially useful in your 20s. Time is on your side and you want to spend it learning as much as you can. And not just about the world and different careers. Every year you want to understand yourself better too.

Get to know the mind you happen to inhabit. What is it like inside your head? What thoughts are you constantly obsessed over? How do you emotionally react to conflict? What gets you more excited than anything else?

3 things to look for

When starting to evaluate different career options try to optimize for three things.

Start by looking at the things you are good at. You want to spend your time doing things that come naturally to you. It's often easier to swim with the current of your strengths than against it. If you don't know what you are good at, then go explore and figure it out.

What do you care about? Why not spend your life doing something you actually care about? The word passion is thrown around a lot in the career advice community but I find it to be a high bar for many. Forget about passion³. Follow your more humble interests and curiosities.

What provides value to others? This point is too often overlooked. It is not enough to be good at something and care about it. The realities of modern society also demand that it provides at least some iota of value to others. Why? Because at some point you will need to pay your bills with your career.