We spend so much time talking about what pursuing our goals can give us. The degree, the career, the opportunities, the confidence, and eventually, the life we once imagined for ourselves. What we talk about much less is what becoming that person can ask us to leave behind.
One of the hardest parts of pursuing something is realizing that life does not stop while you are working toward it. You still experience heartbreak, disappointment, exhaustion, and loss. There will be nights when you cry in your room over a breakup and have to pull yourself together the next morning because the assignment is still due, the shift still starts, and the future you have been working for still requires something from you.
That does not mean that you should pretend that everything is okay. Sometimes discipline means finding enough strength to keep going during a moment when you feel particularly weak. It means doing what you can when your mind is somewhere else. It is reminding yourself that one difficult season does not have to determine everything that comes after it.
I think there is something particularly complicated about being a young woman with big ambitions. We are constantly encouraged to become the best versions of ourselves, to pursue our education, build careers, become financially independent, and never settle for less than what we deserve. I agree with all of that. But somewhere between trying to become successful and figuring out who we are, there is also the very real experience of being young.
You still want to fall in love. You want to spend time with your friends, make memories, travel, and experience the things that make your twenties exciting. You want to enjoy your life without constantly calculating how much time you have left before your next responsibility. Trying to balance those desires with everything you hope to accomplish can leave you feeling as though you are falling short in one area or another.
I have learned that ambition can feel lonely for that reason. Not necessarily because you are physically alone, but because so much of what you are working toward requires a level of personal commitment that other people may not fully understand. There are plans you decline, opportunities you save money for, and responsibilities you prioritize even when you would rather be doing something else. Eventually, people may see the graduation pictures, the acceptance letter, the LinkedIn post, or the career you worked so hard to build. What they do not always see is everything that happened in between.
And perhaps the most difficult part is that none of those sacrifices come with a guarantee. There is something incredibly vulnerable about investing so much of yourself into a future you cannot see yet. When you want something badly enough to build your life around it, an application is no longer just an application, and a rejection can feel like a judgment on months or even years of effort. You can do everything you believe you are supposed to do and still question whether you are on the right path.
What makes this particularly complicated is that you can genuinely love what you are pursuing and still feel overwhelmed by what it demands of you. You can be proud of your determination while wishing you did not have to think about your future quite so much.
For me, faith has helped me navigate some of that uncertainty. I believe that God has a plan for my life, even when I cannot fully understand how everything is supposed to unfold. But trusting that plan does not mean I never question my circumstances or struggle with the possibility that things may turn out differently from what I hoped. Sometimes believing that there is a greater purpose requires accepting that I do not have control over every outcome, no matter how hard I work.
We often romanticize the sacrifices that come with ambition. We celebrate the young woman who somehow manages to balance school, work, and everything happening in her personal life, yet still finds a way to turn every setback into motivation. But, we rarely talk about what it feels like when she is exhausted, when she doubts herself, or when she simply does not have the energy to be inspiring. Not every disappointment will make us stronger, and not every painful experience needs to become another accomplishment. Sometimes, making it through a difficult week is enough.
Still, I believe there is value in the qualities we develop while navigating these experiences. The patience you learn when progress is slower than you expected may become something you rely on throughout your career. The discipline you develop while balancing school, work, and personal responsibilities may prepare you for opportunities you have not yet encountered. Even the experience of having to reconsider a future you once felt certain about can teach you that changing direction does not necessarily mean you have failed.
Receiving the life you want is one thing. Being prepared to steward it is another.
I also want to challenge the idea that becoming successful requires us to sacrifice every part of our present lives. There is a difference between being disciplined and constantly denying yourself the opportunity to enjoy what is happening around you. You do not need to turn every free evening into another study session or convince yourself that spending time with friends is something you can only afford once you have reached your next goal.
There will always be another milestone. Another application, another exam, another opportunity, another version of yourself you hope to become. If you constantly put your life on hold until you have accomplished everything on your list, at what point do you actually allow yourself to enjoy the life you are working so hard to build?
Take care of the person who is actually doing all of this work. Maintain your friendships. Go out for dinner. Celebrate the small accomplishments that nobody else knows about. Permit yourself to experience love, disappointment, excitement, and uncertainty without feeling as though every emotion is an inconvenience to your productivity.
You are allowed to have a life outside of the future you are preparing for.
Not every accomplishment comes with a certificate, a title, or something you can put on your résumé. Sometimes growth looks like realizing that you do not need to prove yourself by doing everything at once. Sometimes it means learning to ask for help, advocating for yourself, or recognizing that your worth is not determined by the outcome of one application or exam. These may not be the kinds of accomplishments people celebrate publicly, but they can require just as much courage as the achievements that do.
There may come a day when you look around at the life you have worked so hard to build and realize that it looks nothing like the one you originally imagined. Perhaps certain people are no longer part of it. Perhaps the career you pursued took you somewhere unexpected, or the opportunities you once desperately wanted no longer appeal to the woman you have become.
And perhaps you will be happy anyway.
Not because every sacrifice was easy, every rejection was necessary, or every difficult experience eventually made sense. But because somewhere along the way, you learned that the life you wanted was allowed to change, and so were you.
Maybe that is the cost of becoming.
Learning that we cannot carry every version of our lives into the next. Learning to trust God even when we cannot fully understand what He is doing. Learning that we can grieve what we are leaving behind while still believing that what we are losing now is not greater than what we are becoming.