I remember seeing a story on The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) about how he had $6 to his name at one point after college. He wanted to make it to the NFL and wasn't quite good enough at the sport.
If you dig into any rich or famous person’s past, you'll see a lot of stories like this. Stories where the person used to be absolutely broke. Down on their luck.
I think this is true for a lot of regular people too. I remember overdrafting my bank account several times while working and attending college.
One time I sold some video games so that I could afford gas money to drive to my parents house an hour away for a visit. I truly lived paycheck to paycheck for a few years. I didn't have a savings account.
I say this because I never felt like I was hopeless or in a bottomless pit of some sort. I always had a direction. And fortunately I had the help of my parents, who weren't going to let me fall into homelessness.
The founder of Black Rifle Coffee, Evan Hafer, said there was a time when he was trying to build his business that he was only getting about 4 hours of sleep every night. His doctor actually told him if he continued on, he would have some pretty big health risks.
During that time, getting the business off the ground was adding all sorts of stress to his family life. At one point he said he came home and had to convince his wife that it was going to work—that he would soon start making money. He knew that he was close.
He had a direction.
As long as you have a direction in life, it doesn't always matter where you currently are. Where are you going?
I knew as long as I kept progressing toward my degree, I would eventually become gainfully employed and that I'd be okay financially. I kept moving in a consistent direction.
You don't always need to have it all together. In fact, most of the time you won't. But you have to keep moving. Even a glass of water becomes stagnant if it sits long enough.
Keep going. You might be surprised at what you can figure out in just 5 years.