I'm a bit older than you are, and for me - most of my 20s were wasted. I wasn't an active participant in planning my own life. Things just happened, and I went with the flow, mostly trying to avoid anything that looked too hard or too uncomfortable. I bucked that trend in my late 20s/early 30s, and now as I enter my 40s... it's pretty clear to me that everything I've ever done that was truly worth doing was difficult. It took time, effort, and hard work. At the same time, my 20s were full of anxiety and depression and dread. My 30s were full of hard work, a lot of learning (and thus feeling dumb a lot), and a lot of ownership of where I wanted my life to go. They were infinitely better than my 20s. And now that I've mostly settled into what I wanted to be doing, how I wanted to be doing it, and all that... life's only looking better in my 40s.

The hard work will be worth it. You can do it. I believe in you.