Pursuing a path with well defined career tracks (even if there is a low ceiling) is attractive because the path is well traveled, and contains milestones and resources readily available (HR, promotion programs/pipelines, etc.) along the way.
Entrepreneurship is a path less traveled. Building something from the ground up requires courage, resilience, determination, funding, and patience. You often wonder if you are on the right path, and if you are making progress. The journey is lonely, you do not know who to ask to get help.
Throughout this journey, I've found setting small goals significantly helps with reducing that anxiety feeling of uncertainty. My business partner, Mr. Jamin Butler once said that "if you do not set a goal, you are out here underachieving." The quote was not in reference to entrepreneurship, but it applies 100%. At the end of each day, you want to feel like you have accomplished something so that you feel/know that you are making progress. You cannot know/feel that you are making progress unless you set these <daily> goals.
The journey is long, lonely, and ever-going. There is no finish line. There is no official timekeeper. There is no scoreboard. There are only a few cheerleaders. When you stop <making progress>, wherever you are at in this journey, is where you are at. Only you can assess your progress. Only you can make the decision to quit, take a rest, or keep going. You control that decision and how you feel.
During this journey, I have found it very mentally draining. Especially because I am traveling on both paths. Up until this point of my life, my path was straight and narrow with well defined milestones along the way to assess my progress. This is why it is so hard to abandon the well traveled path. The internal struggle is real. Constantly seeking signs of when to choose between the paths. I recently came across a Jay-Z quote from an interview that "things in life do not happen to you, things happen for you." I'm thankful for all of the things that have happened for me! Whether or not these things that happen for me are due to my own actions or forces of the universe, they are my blessings and for "my greatest good!"
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost