Have you ever made a big decision and instantly questioned everything?

I’m not talking about impulsive decisions made from anxiety, comparison, or a false sense of urgency (which, if we admit to ourselves, we know deep down never felt right in the first place).

I’m talking about those decisions that felt so aligned, so thought out, so settled and expansive in your chest. Those that were initially even hard to make, but you did it! You crossed the bridge and you felt good and proud about yourself for a second, until the anxiety and doubt crept in. Until you found yourself in this strange, new, uncertain place, and suddenly there is this voice in your head criticizing your every move — not just that one decision — when only just moments ago you felt so sure this was right for you.

If this is you — or has been you at some point — don’t worry, you’re not alone. It’s something normal to experience in our 20s, a decade characterized with multiple life transitions and big decisions, and something I have been dealing with a lot lately. Let’s start by calling that nagging, negative voice in your head that makes you doubt your every move by its name: lack of self-trust.

I’m in my late twenties, and after almost a decade of moving countries, overcoming bad relationships and friendship breakups, solo traveling, and pivoting careers, I thought my self-trust was rock solid.

Especially after last year, when I decided to create Off-Script Club, a platform that helps quarter lifers get unstuck and create lives they actually love. I thought I had made the most difficult, life-altering decision already and what came after would be easier.

But what nobody tells you is that, while making that first decision is hard, the most difficult part is the follow-through, the maintenance, the moments when you’re thrust into the uncertainty that comes with new territory and oftentimes even a new identity.

Two things can happen in these moments: 1) your fear and need for safety drive you to throw the towel or 2) you build trust in yourself and take the next small step forward, trusting (for the lack of a better word) in your ability to recalibrate when things don’t go your way.

This is where the magic happens.

The science behind building self-trust

In those moments of in-between that lead you to question every decision you and your ancestors have ever made, why is grounding in self-trust so hard? The answer lies in your brain’s biology.

Your brain is made from millions of connections between neurons. Through these connections, neurons transmit electrical and chemical signals along your nervous system, which allows you to think, move, and feel.

They aren’t permanent though; a process called neuroplasticity allows the brain to reorganize its structure and function through learning and experience.

Neuroplasticity follows a simple rule: neurons that fire together wire together. Every time you repeat the same action, the same neurons fire together1. In other words, practice makes perfect AND new neural connections.

This is why driving the same route to work or brushing your teeth doesn’t take you on a downward spiral — they are actions you have repeated over and over, and have well-established neural connections in your brain. You identify with a person who does these things. Thus, these actions feel safe, trustworthy.

But when you’re faced with a new situation, the neural connections are not there yet or they might be in their early stages. Your new identity hasn’t yet formed, and the panic sets in.

But it doesn’t mean you’ve made the wrong decision, it just means you have to put in the reps so you can start feeling like the ground below you is solid.

Showing up = building self-trust

Here’s what nobody tells you about building self-trust (or any kind of trust, really):

It does not require you to make bold moves or grand gestures. Unfortunately, your life is not a romcom. Some grand gesture won’t build your self-trust back or fix anything. This is just a sure-fire way to burn out and throw the towel at the beginning of your self-trust journey.

All that it requires is that you show up, over and over, in the small ways. That you build evidence, step by step, that you are a person who can operate under this new arena you’re in.

Think about it this way: if your partner broke your trust and showed up with a fancy dinner and a big bouquet of roses — would you trust them again immediately? Probably not. It’s a nice gesture, but trust doesn’t come back in one big moment. It comes back when someone shows up, consistently, day after day. And building self-trust works the same way.

This is how new neural connections and new identities form. Every time you take the next small step and show up, neurons are firing and wiring together, and in doing so, you are becoming someone who can figure it out as they go, and be okay.

I know that this is simple to comprehend, yet hard to put in practice. I struggle with it all the time. So, here are some steps I started taking to put in the reps more easily, and maybe they will work for you too:

1. Get clear. What do you value? These values are the reason “why” you act a certain way. They are your north star. If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at this list of values by Brené Brown and pick 3-5. It is not all encompassing, but it is a good starting point.

2. Map the path. Now, using your values as your compass, ask yourself these 2 questions: what do I want? and what will I do to get there? I know these questions can be a lot. Just let yourself imagine for a moment and ignore all the reasons you tell yourself why something can’t happen for you. This doesn’t have to be a grand 5-year plan, it can be as simple as looking an hour, day, week, or month into the future, depending on your situation. If this is still too much, then ask yourself: what am I willing to explore without needing the answer first?

3. Gain confidence through evidence. Remind yourself that you’re not starting from zero. What are other difficult moments where you have acted with self-trust? How can you translate that trust into your current situation and what you want to do?

4. Brainstorm contingencies. Having a backup plan often helps our brain calm down. Write one or two ways you could pivot and adapt if things went sideways. Then calmly reason with yourself: if any of those pivots happened, would it be the end of the world? The answer is more than likely a no.

5. Get going + figure it out. Take the next small step. When things don’t go as planned (because they usually don’t), put your contingencies in motion or figure out a new way forward. No matter what, stick to your values.

“It is not the size of the action that builds your trust; its the gesture of honoring your values to any degree.” - Dr. Katherine Morgan Schafler

6. Practice metacognition. Think about how you think, which will help you understand how you learn best, choose better strategies, and strengthen those baby neural connections. I love the Plus Minus Next Method by Dr. Anne-Laure LeCunff for metacognition practice.

7. Repeat. Put in the reps, even if you fail — especially if you fail. Apply your lessons from your metacognition practice and do better (or different) next time.

I love this quote because it exposes the three most important things to understand about building self-trust:

1. It is a choice. If you don’t actively decide to build that self-trust, your autopilot will choose for you, and that choice will most likely be to take the path of least resistance and throw the towel.

2. You must support that choice with action. Choosing by itself is not enough, which is why you have to show up. Every rep builds more trust.

3. This happens over time. Building self-trust is not something you do once. It is a process that requires weeks, months, or even years depending on the person and the situation. Don’t let this deter you, though. Good things take time, and you will start reaping the benefits somewhere along the way, not just at the end (spoiler alert: there is no end).

Building self-trust doesn’t end, it upgrades

I thought I already trusted myself and I’m still questioning everything.

That’s the boat I found myself in when testing out my first Off-Script Club prototype with a pilot cohort.

I had worked myself to the bone building the “perfect” platform, then fell on my ass countless times as things went wrong, people didn’t do what I expected them to, and I doubted whether I was cut out for this. I re-worked the entire platform in one day mid-cohort, then decided to trust my original instincts and undid all that work.

This experience made me question whether I had any self-trust at all, where before it was something I was so sure of. When I hit my lowest point, I decided to give stream of consciousness journaling — a tool to braindump all the junk and ideas from your mind into paper in 15 minutes to stop overthinking — a try, and a surprising realization came out:

When you’re faced with new situations due to decisions you made acting with self-trust, then feel like that self-trust is gone, it is not that it suddenly left you or that you never had it in the first place; it means that you are in a new arena, which requires upgrading that trust.

Like a character in a videogame, you have unlocked a new level that is more difficult than the last, requiring more resources and complexity.

So when you start doubting yourself, I hope you catch yourself. I hope you can anchor in that self-trust that got you there to begin with, and not see it as a failure or as a sign you “chose wrong”. Instead, I hope you see it as a sign you’re becoming — one neural connection at a time.

With love,

Lucy
Your Quarter Life Pen Pal

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Dear Quarter Lifer,

Over a year ago I landed in my home country, Costa Rica, after visa issues dismantled the life I had worked so hard to build over seven years in NC, USA. I had no idea what to do next, so I decided to solo travel for a year to “find myself” (whatever that means). Even though I was fulfilling my life long dream to solo travel, I still wanted to become a puddle of goo and melt into the dirt. The uncertainty I was facing in my life weighed on me like a mountain I had no idea how to start climbing. I had never felt so lost.

Back in the USA I’d had everything I thought I should want: the college degree, the job that looked good on paper, a beautiful apartment in downtown, and financial stability. This is everything I had worked towards since graduating high school, but inside something felt off. Still, I didn’t leave willingly because this is what I was supposed to do, right?

Even though I wasn’t stoked about the life I’d left behind, grief cracked me open. I grieved the life I’d had, but also the person I thought I’d be. It forced me to admit that the life I’d so carefully crafted didn’t fit—and to stop pretending that it did. My whole life I’d been a planner. I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted to do, and how to go about it. But for the first time the path before me not only became murky—it disappeared altogether.

Although feeling lost feels like the loneliest experience ever, many of us experience this feeling in our quarter life era. We often feel lost because of grief or a perceived sense of loss. This is the chapter of life where transitions come in waves—we grieve the jobs, people, places, and possibilities we leave behind. Breakups. Deaths. Futures that suddenly close off. Identities that dissolve. Grief is everywhere, and most of us were never taught how to carry it.

I didn’t “find myself” while solo traveling (surprise!), but it did change me. It helped me understand something I had been too blind with panic and grief to comprehend: that uncertainty is not a crisis—it’s an opportunity. It made me feel lost, yes, but it also forced me to let go of everything that wasn’t for me, so that I could figure out what was.

What if getting lost is the point? I thought.

What if instead of looking at the murky ground before me, I could lift my gaze and wonder at the view?

The neuroscience behind feeling lost

At the time, I thought I was broken. Turns out, my brain was just doing its job.

Hating uncertainty doesn’t mean you’re failing at life—it means your brain is doing exactly what it was built to do. When we face uncertainty, our brain lights up certain regions in its salience network: the insula, amygdala, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These regions detect what’s important and flag potential risks, increasing the likelihood that our brain treats uncertainty as potentially threatening. In short, our brain is trying to protect us1.

Our brain runs on predictions and mental models—internal representations of our external reality made up of our beliefs, experiences and knowledge that helps us navigate our world. It constantly compares what it expects about the future with what actually happens—like a GPS recalculating after every wrong turn. When life throws you off script, prediction errors pile up, and panic kicks in.2 3

That’s predictive coding: higher brain areas make predictions; lower ones report back how wrong those predictions were (aka prediction errors). The ACC monitors these “errors,” helping us update strategies and learn from what’s new.4 5

When life feels predictable, the brain’s prediction errors are small—you feel safe and in control. But when life gets uncertain, the errors spike, our mental models become insufficient, and the brain interprets that gap as danger. The good news: we can work with this system. If we learn how to recalibrate it, uncertainty can become the very place where growth happens.

And dopamine helps us do just that. Dopamine—the chemical messenger behind motivation, learning, and reward—helps the brain assign value, predict rewards, energize effort towards them, and decrease prediction errors 6. But not all dopamine is created equal.

• Cheap dopamine engagement with exploitation decision-making fuels habits and comfort. It’s the scroll, the binge, the routine—familiar, easy, and safe.

• Goal-directed dopamine engagement with exploration decision-making fuels curiosity and exploration. It’s the spark that makes us test, learn, and expand our mental models when life feels uncertain. 7 8

Our default is to stay in exploitation mode—doing what feels familiar and safe, even if it keeps us stuck. But to grow through uncertainty, we have to switch on exploration mode. That’s where curiosity comes in.

Curiosity doesn’t just make life more interesting—it literally rewires our brain. It reduces prediction errors, improves learning, and quiets the brain’s panic regions (insula and amygdala) while increasing engagement in the prefrontal cortex. In other words, curiosity helps you shift from crisis to opportunity.9 10

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From Theory to Action

Before we can get curious, we have to calm the chaos inside.

Try this to regulate your nervous system: diaphragmatic breathing technique recommended by Dr. Daniel Amen. Place a hand on your belly. Inhale for four seconds, hold for two, exhale for eight, hold for two. Let your belly rise and fall. Do this for a minute or two, until your body softens and your mind feels less frantic, and try doing this every day a few times a day. You’re literally quieting your amygdala and turning your prefrontal cortex back online.

Now that the alarm bells are lower, we’re ready to activate curiosity.

Enter: side quests.

If life is a story, we’re the main character—so we gotta stop acting like a background prop. Here’s how to start:

1. Lean into your curiosity

• Identify one to three things that spark your curiosity.

• If nothing comes to mind, spend a week as a scientist of your own life. Observe what catches your attention. Write it down.

• Focus on curiosity, not passion. Curiosity is lighter—it doesn’t come with the pressure of “this must be my thing.”

2. Go on the side quest

• Choose one curiosity and turn it into a side quest. Determine the what, how, and when. Optional: recruit someone to accompany you on your side quest.

I will [action] [frequency] for [duration].

For example if creative writing peaks your curiosity, your side quest might look like this:

“I will write one short story and show it to a friend every week for one month.”

For more details, follow Dr. Anne Laure LeCunff’s PACT system.

• Don’t overthink it. The main quest—whatever’s making you feel lost—can wait. Just take the next small step.

3. Reflect as you go

• After each side quest session, check in: What went well? What didn’t? What did I learn about myself? I love the Plus Minus Next Method by Dr. Anne-Laure LeCunff for quick reflections.

• As you explore you will naturally shift from exploration to exploitation mode, which will help us form habits and persist through the changes. That’s how curiosity becomes clarity. Without this balance, we might get stuck in restless exploration without reaping any of the benefits.

• Once you’ve reached your duration goal, reflect: do you wanna keep going on this side quest and further incorporate it into your life in a way that feels more meaningful? Or is this just not for you and you’d rather explore other side quests?

The point of these side quests isn’t just to make uncertainty bearable—it’s to make it transformative. Every small action increases dopamine, deepens learning, and helps you imagine success more easily. It becomes a feedback loop that builds momentum. Before you know it, you’re spiraling upward—the kind of spiraling we want to be doing.

And if you need convincing, remember this:

At worst, you find a new hobby and learn more about yourself. Maybe you meet new friends and become a part of a community you love.

At best, you find something that lights your ass on fire—and the side quest becomes the main quest.

To keep yourself accountable:

• Involve friends or family.

• Leave your side quest in the comments and update us on your progress.

• Or email me at luciana@off-script.club. I promise to write back—I love pen pals.

Maybe sometimes we have to get lost. It is a wake up call.

It is the moment we stop pretending something’s working when it’s not.

It is an invitation to let go of what doesn’t serve us and explore what does—so that we can become a truer version of ourselves.

Next time you feel lost remember this:

You’re not lost. You’re becoming.

With love,

Your Quarter Life Pen Pal