The What's Next Anxiety

So what's next is a question that I find I am consistently asking myself and if I think about it, it's a question that I'm kind of always asking myself. So what's next is a question I think people are always asking themselves and I don't know if that is a question that you ever stop asking yourself. So what's next for you?

What's next when this thing happens? When that thing does eventually happen, what will that mean for you? What is next for you? You just had a really awesome weekend with friends where you had this plan for a really long time and it just happened and it was awesome? That's great. What are you doing next weekend? What's your next plan? You just went on a really great date? That's awesome. What's next? What's your next date gonna be?

You just did something really awesome at work. Cool, proud of you, that's awesome. What's next? How are you gonna replicate that again and get the same results or even better results again? What's next? You just watched a TV show and you really liked it. Awesome, what's next? What's your next show you're gonna watch? You just did something that you're really proud of yourself for. Cool, what's next? It's a question that I think we are always asking ourselves.

Especially right now in this really big transition time in our 20s where there's a lot of different things a lot of moving parts happening all at once every single year You just fell in love with an apartment and you finally got your feet under you and you figured out what's working Great. Now you have to move because your lease is up. What's next? We're gonna live next are you live with yourself with your roommates with somebody else with your girlfriend? What's next?

What is next for your relationship? Maybe it's now been two to three years in your relationship. Is it time to take things a step further? Is it time to move in? What's next for you guys? And especially with all of this comparison thing going on, what's next for you is a question that we are always asking ourselves.

Josh Felgoise (02:33.15)

Where do you want to be in five years is a question that we are asked in a lot of job interviews. What's next for you? Where do you see yourselves in 10 years is an age old question that a lot of people ask you, especially when you're young in your career. And how the fuck are you supposed to know how to answer that question with where you're at right now when you barely know how to cook dinner for yourself and make time to go to the gym and call your mom and

go on a date and do your laundry and try and sleep and do everything you want to do. But what's next for you? What do you want to do in five years? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What is next? What's next for your relationship? What's next for your friendships is a really big one. What's going to happen when people start to move and some of your friends start to move out with their girlfriends or into different cities?

or start to move based on their jobs and you begin to see your friends less? Sure, you have really great friends right now, but what about what's next for when your friends start to move and you see them less or they start to move with their girlfriends or they start to get engaged or move across the country? Will I stay as close to them when all of those things happen? What's next for me when all of that starts to happen?

especially when all of that starts to happen around me and it feels like it's out of my control, will I ever be as close to them as I once was? What's next for me when all of that happens? What's next for your job, for your living situation? What's next for your relationships? What's next for your friendships? What's next for everything? Everything in your life you can apply that

question too of what's next. And at some point every month or so every other week or so that question pops into my head all the time and I'm sure it pops into your head. What's next for me? What am I going to do? Especially if you are a little lost in your job right now because that's one of the biggest things that we're all trying to figure out is our career. I would say a couple big things we're all trying to figure out right now are

Josh Felgoise (04:56.14)

our relationships and our careers. I think we could boil it down to those two things. And those are the questions that people always ask when they see you. What are you doing? Meaning like, what is your job? What are you actually doing like with your life? And then like, how's your girlfriend or how's your dating life? Like those are the two avenues of questions, the two roads that diverge that people ask about whenever they see you. Those are the pretty obvious questions to catch up with somebody and

get a feel for how their life is going. And what's next for either of those things is a really hard question to answer, especially if you don't know. So, and back to what was saying about the job, like if you don't know what's going on in your job and like we have to continue to prove ourselves and improve our worth and keep showing that we are desirable and that we are worthy of the job and the salary that we're making and that we're better than the next guy.

and worth that promotion and worth that raise and worth that bonus. So the what's next question applies to that job as well also to what's next for your career. How do you make that next career step and like figure out what job is next if you're still climbing, if you're still growing, if you still feel like you're growing. That question is so persistent and I have felt it

a lot recently, what's next for me? Because I feel like there's a lot of transition, a lot of changes right now in my life. I'm moving out of my apartment in a couple months, in less than two months. So I don't know where I'm living next. I don't know what's next for my living situation. My job, I feel like depends on the way the company goes for what's next for me, for what's next for my raise or my promotion or my salary or whatever.

So that, I feel like, is kind of always up in the air. The question persists within relationships, within friendships, with people, with friends moving. The what's next is kind of this like looming cloud. And I'm sure a lot of people listening are feeling that way too. And I don't think it's our fault. I think it's a societal pressure that we all feel that is kind of like

Josh Felgoise (07:20.27)

placed upon us and I'm wondering if it ever stops or if you just get used to it more with time and with age and you just get more practice with it. You start to understand how to live in that what's next. You start to understand how to navigate that what's next a little bit better and you start to see the patterns that develop in the next and how you feel during that period.

when you know that it's time for a change or when you know there's a change looming or coming up or coming soon for you. And I think I'm starting to recognize those patterns a little bit more and starting to get a little bit more comfortable in the uncomfortable and in that change because I've seen a lot of it already in my first few years out of college. I'm now 25 years old. Happy birthday to me.

I just turned 25 like two weeks ago and I it's now Three ish years out of college, maybe more three or three. Yeah, three three and you can never get that number, right? It's now been three years out of college and I've seen a lot of those change periods those transition periods and I've moved so much less than a lot of my friends have I've stayed in this apartment for three years, which is kind of unheard of in New York in a big city

Staying in a place that you really like because our rent hasn't really increased by that much. We've we've been really lucky about that I've had some friends that have moved three times already and are about to do their fourth move the I have one friend He is about to live in his fourth place in New York and I'll get to live in my second So this period of change is really new for me. This what's next moment is new for me So I don't really know how to navigate this one and I think it'd be good for me to reach out to him and talk

and I have been talking about this and asking for his advice a little bit more. And I'm gonna go live on my own. And that is a new, really new what's next for me. Because I don't know how I'm gonna navigate relationships and time on my own and my career and all of that in one is a lot to think about. But I'm starting to get more comfortable with it because I'm recognizing how I work in these moments and how

Josh Felgoise (09:42.486)

like my anxiety works or not anxiety, how I, how I feel in these moments and I can recognize the times I'm getting more anxious and figure out how to bring myself back down to like a good place of equilibrium or a good, like normal resting heart rate place or moments where I'm a little lost. And I think you can spend a lot of time

worried about that what's next and I do I spend a lot of my time worried about that what's next or thinking about that that's what's next and it's going to come really soon whether that's in a day in a week in a month in a few months the thing that you're thinking about that what's next for you is going to come so much sooner than you think and getting more okay with the evolve

and starting to understand how you feel in those what's next periods I think is a good thing and it's not something that I really want to spend so much time anxious and worried about because you can easily spend all of your time for me these next two months consumed in that what's next and then it's gonna happen and these two months are going to pass me by and then you're on to the what's next of what's next you know what I mean like

these two months where I'm still living with my roommates in this apartment that I love so much, in this area that I love so much, I don't want to let these two months pass me by because I'm spending my time thinking about, thinking over, worried about, anxious about my what's next of moving. And I think that can be applied to every single what's next. And I guess I'm starting to get more comfortable with the fact that there is

always going to be a what's next for everybody and I want to be able to spend these next two months really present in what I have right now because I know I'm never going to have it like this again and these next two months I really really want to stay in the moment and remember the moment because it's never going to be like this again

Josh Felgoise (12:04.546)

I just said that twice and I thought I was rephrasing it but I said it twice, I'm sorry. But it's true, like, that's how much I want to stay in this because I have spent the last two to three weeks a little bit in my head about my what's next of moving. I guess I should have just started by saying that and that's been, I should have just called this like moving, I don't know, I don't know. I guess I've spent a lot of time in my head worried about thinking about.

trying to understand, trying to get how I'm feeling about all this and wrap my head around it. And I don't want to keep doing that. And maybe these transitional periods that our twenties are defined by are just setting us up for the rest of our lives because these what's next moments don't stop after our early or late twenties or into our thirties. These what's next moments persist throughout the rest of our lives.

And maybe they get a little bit less frequent with time, but life will be filled with these what's next moments with these transition periods. When you're looking for a new place, when you're looking for your next relationship, when you're anxious about the thing that you have in a month, when you're worried about that presentation you have in a week, worried about the stability of your job.

Deciding whether you should stay or should you should go to quit that job to find a new job to start interviewing these moments are going to be consistent throughout our lives and I think our early 20s are so packed with them and so filled with them that it can start to feel incredibly overwhelming and start to put you underwater because You're dealing with them. So often like I just told you about that friend who's moved for his fourth time

That's for what's next big moments in your early twenties in three or four years of life. That's a lot. And especially if you pair that with a lot of changing relationships or with a changing career or with new jobs or interviews or looking. It's a lot going on packed in such a short amount of time. And I think over time in our lives, those periods start to spread out and where we're at right now, they're so packed together and so constant, so consistent that

Josh Felgoise (14:25.952)

It can feel so, like, overwhelming. But I think the gift of our 20s is that we learn how to live in those moments. And we learn how to deal with those situations. And we learn more about ourselves because of those times. So take a moment and look around at what you've got. Because it won't always be that way.

and it most likely will never be that way again. So what do you have right now today? For me today, I woke up and put on this blue shirt, one of my favorite colors, one of my favorite t-shirts that I own, and then I wrote to myself for 30 minutes. It's a practice that I have been trying to do consistently. I missed a couple days this past weekend because I was with some friends. I missed some the weekend before, and that's okay. I'm not super hard on myself, but I'm really trying.

throughout the week, Monday through Friday, to write consistently 20 to 30 minutes in the morning about what I'm feeling, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, all the things in my head, and get them out on paper into the world, out of my head and onto the page. Before I turn on my phone and get inundated with texts and with emails and with asks from people for my time,

and with demands from work and with things I have to do and with worries and anxieties and all of those what's next and what's next and what's next for me for that day. I spend this 20 to 30 minutes writing out all of my thoughts, how I'm thinking, how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking. And I wrote about all of these things I'm doing today and these what's next moments. And that's why I thought this was a really great episode to share with you today, because this has been on my mind a lot consistently. And

I wrote about it and I'm going to share some of it with you now, but I wrote that... Well, I've already been sharing with you for a little while, but I wrote that I put on this shirt that I love. I am about to go to the gym in 20 minutes when I finish writing this and do this workout plan that I created with one of the trainers at the gym I go to. I've talked a lot about weightlifting and the ego around it on here a couple episodes ago too.

Josh Felgoise (16:50.55)

and I'm incredibly grateful that I can move my whole body because that's not something that everybody can do. And I think we take that for granted so often. And I'm seriously grateful for that every single day. I was gonna go walk there because that's how I get to the gym and I love walking there. I was gonna put in some music, listen to a podcast, and then I was gonna go to work and go to a job that I feel really lucky to have and I also feel like

they should feel lucky to have me there because I try and I consistently try. And then I wrote that after work, I was gonna get to record this, which I'm doing right now, and work on something that I'm incredibly passionate about. And then I was gonna have sushi for dinner, which I haven't had yet, and then hang out with my roommates. And then I'm gonna go walk around a city that I'm incredibly grateful to live in, that I always wanted to live in, and I'm so happy that I'm here.

and maybe call someone or two people during that time, listen to another podcast, listen to some music, and then I'm gonna try and go to bed early and sleep enough because I'm still tired from the weekend even though I feel like I slept a lot last night. And although my day is a series of what's next, as is any schedule or routine or every single day, I'm going to try my very best to stay present

in the moments and remember the moment and not just let them pass me by for more what's next because it is so incredibly easy to get caught up in the what's next and I have found myself doing it so often so when you catch yourself doing it again I truly recommend doing what I did this morning and writing out

some things you're grateful for and the list of things you're doing today. Your what's next for that day. The things you can control. Because that thing you're thinking about that's in a week or in two months or in six months is going to come. And the next thing you know, it is going to be here and a lot faster than you want it to. So instead of thinking about the what's next or jumping into that moment, start small.

Josh Felgoise (19:12.462)

Start with today. Starting small with, you just finished a show. Instead of going, oh what's next, got another show, I need to watch something else right now, I need to watch something tonight. Maybe reflect on the show you watched. Talk with somebody about it, write about it, text somebody about it. Try not to move on so quickly from it. You just had really fun weekend plans. Instead of saying, what's my next plan, what am doing next weekend? I need another plan, who should I text? Why did nobody text me for a plan?

Maybe take a second and think about how those plans made you feel. How the people you spent that time with made you feel. Did those people that you just spent the time with make you feel better about yourself? Did they increase your energy? Did they make you feel really good? Did they make you feel re-energized when you left that plan? Or did it feel like they took that energy away from you? Did they leave you feeling like you needed to recharge?

Think about what you did. Do you want to do it again? More often? Less often? Did you try something new that maybe you weren't that good at? Did you have a different expectation for how it would turn out? Or were your expectations exceeded? We don't take enough time to reflect on our experiences or even a few moments to reflect on our experiences. It doesn't have to be this like big reflection thing.

We just kind of let these moments go and then immediately start looking for what's next. We never take a second and just debrief with ourselves about how it went, how it made you feel, if you want to keep doing that, if you want to stop doing that. Just try to reflect on that and remember that moment. Take some time to reflect on that thing or that time you had before you move into the what's next.

What are the things you've learned from that experience? What did you learn about yourself from that experience? What do you want to keep doing? What do you want to stop doing? What can you take from this experience and apply it to the next experience, to the what's next? And I feel like we move from these moments where we're super worried about what's gonna happen next to the moment and it just passes us by and then we move from that, that moment to the next worry, to the next moment, to the next worry, to the next moment.

Josh Felgoise (21:36.086)

And it can feel draining, can feel exhausting, it can feel like you're super underwater. And I've had a lot of those moments recently where I'm just thinking about what's next and I'm not thinking about today. And I'm not thinking about tomorrow. I'm thinking about this weekend or the next month or in my case, I talked about the move in a month and a half. And I'm spending so much time there that I'm not spending any time here.

I'm not spending any time today. So by writing out the things that I'm grateful for, that I'm looking forward to, imminently, not tomorrow, not the next day, not next week, not next month, imminently, the things I'm doing today that I'm excited about, that I'm looking forward to, that I'm just doing, they don't even have to be things I'm excited about or looking forward to, just the things I'm doing, whether they're the mundane tasks that you do every day, like going to the gym.

You can find something in that to be excited about or to be grateful for, whether it's going to work. You can find the things at work that you've learned, that you've taken away from that job or that experience, that you've learned about yourself, whether you're going to go make dinner tonight. You can find something in that. Maybe it's a new recipe. Maybe it's the same thing you have every time, but you are thinking about a little bit differently because

You're in this kitchen that you won't be in in two months and you're with two roommates who you won't be with in two months as well. And I know I'm talking about my experience specifically, but I feel like everybody has some sort of experience like that at every time in their twenties where we're just thinking about what's next and not about today.

And I think this is an important topic to talk about because like I said earlier when I started talking about my worry or anxiety or all the things I'm thinking about with my move coming up, like I don't think we as guys ever really talk about this. I don't talk about it a lot with my friends. Like we talk about the fact that we are moving, but we don't really say like how we're feeling about the move. So I think.

Josh Felgoise (23:46.758)

I wanted to come on here and share all of my feelings about it, even though they were kind of like convoluted and a little bit messy. Like that is how I'm feeling about all of this. And I don't think guys share this type of thing very often. And I'd like to talk to my friends more about how they're feeling around their move. And I've started to ask them how they're feeling about some of them moving in with girlfriends. And I've started to ask them how they're feeling about that. And I started.

Talking to some friends, I have one friend moving to a new city. We've talked a lot about how he's feeling around it and how I'm feeling about living on my own for the first time. So these conversations are starting for me and it's really the first time that I've felt it personally. So I think it's hitting me very differently or in a different way than before. Well, I know it is. And I'm starting to understand how I move through that a little bit better within these past two weeks.

So if you're in the place that I'm in right now or in a new change or in a new kind of period of your life, I highly recommend talking to friends about it. It has made this experience a lot better for me when I finally started talking about how I'm feeling about my move or sharing that I'm actually feeling anxious about it or sharing that I'm a little nervous about living on my own for the first time. When I genuinely shared that with a couple people,

a kind of breath of relief came over me where I was just like, huh, like, okay, now I have been honest with myself and with you and we can talk normally because I'm not like hiding how I'm actually feeling about this thing. So I think especially for guys, we feel like we have to hide our emotion or our feeling around stuff like this. And we're supposed to just like kind of be tough about it or just know how to navigate this on our own. And we just do it without talking about it or without.

Sharing about it. So, I hope this can do for you what I did for me and and you just Start sharing a little bit more how you're feeling about what's going on and how you're feeling about all of your what's next because there are so many and That what's next moment is going to come? sooner than you'd like it to or sooner than you expect because time moves so quickly and

Josh Felgoise (26:09.612)

these what's next moments pile up so frequently and it may be a few days away or it may be a week away or a month away or two months from now but it is going to come sooner than you expect it will and what can you do now to live in today to start making today day one and not constantly and consistently thinking about the one day? Yeah, that was really good. Okay.

That is the episode. Thank you so much. Listen to guys set a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh. I'm 25 years old and I'm here every single week every single Tuesday to talk about what should be talked about for guys in their twenties. If you like this episode, I really hope you did. Please like some guy with this podcast. Five stars in the review. That's one, two, three, four, five stars, not four, three, two, one, two, stars. Thank you so much for that. I really, really appreciate that.

If you have any questions about that, should we talk to our guys? They're 20 cents on my email. It's josh at guyset.com. You can also send in my DMs at the guyset on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and all social media platforms. Or you can go to my website guyset.com. And leave a question right there. There's a little box you can submit it. goes right to my email or to my DMs. It all goes to the same place. Thank you so much for listening to Guyset, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. And I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.