1. What are your natural talents (list 3+)?

Your life purpose is something that comes natural to you — it’s easy. You don’t have to make yourself love it, you just simply do. Picasso was a natural artist, Beyonce is a natural performer, Steve Jobs was a natural innovator, and Janis Joplin was a natural musician. Your career path and life purpose should be something that you naturally enjoy doing every single day. It should be something that will not only provide a service to the world, but will also bring meaning to the people who come across your work.

2. Which of those talents can you see yourself doing full-time?

Let’s face it: living in America isn’t cheap. Living anywhere for that matter isn’t cheap. You’ve gotta work, and work, and work until you can stabilize your life in a way that makes you feel abundant. What do you want to work for? More money, your family, a house, car, or for your future? Figure out why you want to work and which one of your talents can provide for you during the duration of your working life. Although your life path can and will likely change, starting somewhere that makes you feel amazing often leads to even more amazing ventures.

3. List how you want to feel in life (for instance: happy, peaceful, excited, energized).

Now: which one of the talents you listed makes you feel this way? Do you just want to be happy? Are you striving to be this super-awesome businesswoman/man who feels productive? Or do you just want to live the hippy lifestyle and be “of the world” — not making a living through society? Whichever route, each of these feelings are accessible through any life path, you just have to choose one. Even living the hippie, non-conformist lifestyle can coincide with entrepreneurship. You can sell crystals, jewelry, or host goddess workshops. My point is: however you want to feel in life — and whatever you want to accomplish — can be done through any venture. Which of your talents can take you where you want to go?

4. Which one of those talents not only brings meaning to your life, but has the ability to bring meaning to the world in some way?

It’s not just about the final destination of working to save money for retirement. In fact, none of that really matters anymore. In this day and age working is about finding purpose in providing for humanity. Restructuring society. Creating a meaningful existence. When choosing your life purpose, you should feel so comfortable in your shoes that you just want to scream at the top your lungs with joy. You should feel like you’ve left your mark in this world in a positive way.

5. Now that you’ve narrowed it down. How can you bring your dream into reality?

Do you want to work for someone else doing what you love or would you prefer to be an entrepreneur? Both routes are beneficial. Working for someone else allows freedom from all of the legal mumbo jumbo of starting a business, but doesn’t allow much input into the creative process unless you have a high ranking. Whereas owning your own business gives you the total say of your final product, but you’ll have your plate full with promoting, marketing, and setting up shop. Either way, bringing your dream into reality is the final goal. Whichever method you choose to lead the way is ultimately up to you.

Making a career change is hard in any field, but lawyers in particular have a tough time pursuing a new line of work. And rightfully so – after many grueling years of law school and countless hours spent preparing to take the bar exam, it can be hard to walk away from a title that you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

There is a status and prestige associated with the practice of law, because the background and education of lawyers gives them a very unique and valuable skill set. But lawyers themselves tend to undervalue their skills outside the context of law.

Often, lawyers are beautiful writers and thorough researchers; eloquent, confident and articulate speakers, problem solvers, analysts and counselors. All of these skills can be translated into other careers.

If you’re a lawyer considering a different career path, here are three steps you can take to get started.

1. Identify which lawyering skills you enjoy and excel at.

It’s important to note that the skills you enjoy and the skills you are good at might not be the same. As a lawyer, it’s likely that you already make use of the abilities you excel at — but they might not be the tasks that you actually enjoy doing.

If you’re going to make a career change, you’ll want to be clear about what kind of work you really like to do, so take the time to really think about what you enjoy doing. One of the easiest ways to identify this is to think about what you’re working on during the times that your day seems to fly by. Keep in mind what other abilities are involved during these times as well. For example, you may love client counseling because you enjoy helping clients make a decision about how to proceed with a case, and explaining what potential outcomes you see panning out. Counseling is the most obvious skill here, but some of the other qualities that are coming out of this process are wisdom and knowledge, as well as speaking, teaching, advising and analysis. All of these skills have the potential to be translated into other careers.

2. Research other career paths that would encompass these skills.

Luckily, most lawyers and law students are very good researchers, which can be put to use while looking for career paths that align with the skills in which they excel and enjoy. A good place to start would be to have conversations with people who work in the fields you are considering. Ask about the work they do, and what their day-to-day looks like. There are also many online tools for doing more targeted research, such as LinkedIn. While you’re researching, pay attention to how people in the roles you’re exploring describe their jobs. Is there an overlap with the skills that you already have? With the ones that you like doing? If there’s someone in your network that can make an introduction, take it a step further and reach out to these people. Ask for an informational interview, or if they’re in your area, offer to buy them a cup of coffee in exchange for information about their line of work. Be sure to ask what skills and experiences are needed in order to be successful in their field.

3. Brand yourself through your skills, not your roles.

Here’s an opportunity to be a creative, persuasive problem solver. Position yourself as someone who can fit into a role based on the skills that you’ve already gained – even though your role was different. There is so much value in having a legal education and experience; it’s just a matter of leveraging it properly.

Life’s too short to continue to work at a job that is no longer fulfilling you. There’s no need to feel bad about walking away from a career in law to pursue a different path. In fact, so many of the skills you’ve honed during your time working in law can be easily leveraged into a new role for a different industry.

Get over the fact that sometimes you suck. That’s how life works. You’re a person and you’re not perfect and you’re a work in progress. So, sometimes you will suck.

Be okay with the fact that you suck at stuff, because it means you’re trying. It means you’re not allowing yourself to settle for mediocrity and instead you’re forcing yourself to do stuff that is outside of your expertise or your comfort zone. Sucking at stuff means you’re doing stuff that scares you.

Don’t stop. Never stop. Don’t overthink. Just keep going. Keep going when you’re tired and insecure and most of all, keep going when you’re afraid. If you let yourself stop, all you’re going to do is question yourself, or make a list of all the reasons why you’re inadequate or why you can’t do this. You’ll stop being surrounded by the people who are running with you and instead will be standing next to the ones who want you to give up on your dreams because they gave up on theirs. You will feel the pressure to belittle yourself, to over-criticize yourself, just to make the people around you feel more comfortable with the decisions (or lack of decisions) that they’ve made.

Be tough on yourself when you’ve made a mistake. Figure out what you did wrong, why you didn’t listen to your gut, what you could have done differently. Acknowledge it and promise yourself that you’ll do better next time. Then be kind to yourself by getting over it, by letting it go – because you’re not making yourself or anyone else feel better by wallowing around and obsessing over your error.

Strong and successful people make a lot of mistakes. But then they learn from the mistake and forgive themselves and then they move on – better and stronger and with a thicker skin and an even more intense desire to do better next time.

Be okay with the fact that you’re afraid to fail and then try anyway. Being afraid to fail just means you’re human and you want to do well for yourself, and that’s a good thing. Fear in and of itself is not wrong, or something to be ashamed about. It is normal and sometimes even helpful and it is what makes you a person. Fear is only a problem if you let it stop you from doing something, just because you’d rather sit safely on the sidelines not failing but also not knowing what could have happened, instead of jumping into the race and seeing if, hey, maybe you do have a talent for that thing you care about so much.

So go do stuff – go try and go jump and go be afraid. Be okay with being bad at stuff and be okay with sucking at stuff. Learn to find comfort in it, even if you hate it, because it means you’re doing so much more and growing so much more than the version of yourself that is sitting safely to the side – the one who is never failing but also never moving from that one spot. That’s not you. You’re meant to be afraid.

It’s been eighteen (18) months since I lost my career and a way to earn a living. Yes it was of my own doing, a breach of the public trust which at the time was not in my radar as leading to where I am now.

Divorce and a business that brought little more than grinding away on a daily basis to barely squeak by in meeting financial obligations quickly led to depression. The cycle started so to speak so that the work barely got done, the stress of the financial obligations mounted and the clients suffered. The ease to “fix” the financial obligations was a split second decision but added to some past poor decision making in attempting to stay above water has caused my current situation to only be harder.

In very few professions does the loss of one’s license have such a ripple effect in trying to find new employment. As a newbie I often would see others who have lost their license and continue in essentially the same position even after their professional status was terminated.

I could not go down a similar path, my practice was my own, I did not have partners who could continue running the business and employ me as nothing more than an employee with a great bonus incentive. Instead at 60 years old and after practicing for over 20 plus years, I was faced with trying to find any kind of employment in which my experience would transfer or not transfer at all – after all the obligations of my own life & the life I brought into this world continues.

We all read and hear feel good stories daily on social media and on television in which a person who needs help and a second chance in life serendipitously meets that golden savior that provides a second chance in life. While we all should applaud all of these people it just does not work like that in day to day life. It is quite simple as I look at it but coming to terms with the inability to find even the most basic and menial employment only adds to my current state of being.

It’s far easier to sleep the days away then face the prospect of being told, and in most cases silently, “you are over qualified” or “we cannot invest training you so you can leave when a better offer comes along”.

It all happens very impersonally since so much of hiring is done at least initially online. Upon hitting the submit button which uploads a resume which reflects a post graduate degree for a position which pays slightly more than minimum wage, the writing is pretty much on the wall. It’s not the screeners fault, they have their own marching orders and often get paid based on placing someone.

It all becomes the perfect storm to not being able to get a second chance. If I was 20 years younger and in a different position in my life I would have a better chance in gaining employment than I do right now.

My family has supported me at every turn, friends are a different story and suddenly you come to grips with how many really were and the ones that stay around seem to slowly move farther and farther away. Neither family or friends can completely understand how employment can be so unattainable. Jobs that I am clearly qualified for pass by without even a courtesy reply. And then comes the questions – if someone that has a criminal history and has served their time can find a minimum wage job, it should be no problem for you to do so too. This all presupposes all of the above and the person coming out of incarceration may be looked at better than someone who is held to a very high standard which for whatever reason they have broken.

As the days, weeks and months go by I wonder just how many others are in similar situations. It would be easy to give up and disappear, run away from it all but that would penalize those that still need me. Those who face the same issues need to know that just because they screwed up and caused everything they are facing, we are good people, caring husbands & wives, giving children and wonderful fathers & mothers. Being motivated with such huge pressures is not easy, it’s a one day at a time routine – fully knowing that having some good news may suddenly turn into despair.

From it all I only can say one thing for certain – you may not get a second chance, unless you make the chance for yourself.

Since the tender age of four years old, I’ve always had a clear vision of what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I always, without a shred of doubt, wanted to be an actress.

Many of my earliest memories involve performing staggering renditions of “Twinkle, Twinkle” and Natalie Cole songs to strangers at various restaurants. My first role on stage was as a Villager in Treasure Island at around age 8. I had the first line in our angry villager song (“Bring a dish of boiled fish and bring it right away!”) and in each of our performances over that weekend I was ecstatic to shout it out to my obviously adoring fans.

Performing on stage gave me, the little girl who had always felt like too much, a place to feel just right. I wasn’t too loud on stage, I was projecting and my vocal power was impressive. I wasn’t exaggerating when I was acting, I was being animated and making bold choices. I was never too much in the theatre, I was right at home.

Acting, being an actress, was one of the first things I ever felt really, really good at.

So naturally, I feel in love with it. It was all I really wanted to do. While other kids were memorizing pop songs and obsessing over Hollister or American Eagle, I would learn every lyric to Stephen Schwartz musicals and peruse Discount Dance for new leg warmers or Capezio heels. I was school play after school play, was in so many shows at my local community theatre I probably should’ve paid them rent. I landed my first professional gig at 17 and was on the exact track to not only be voted Most Likely To Be Famous (which I was) but actually achieve it.

The dreams didn’t stop in college either, but grew and grew and grew. I doubled majored in theatre and music and over the course of 4 and a half years, racked up not one, not two, but over 20 different roles to my name. I had regional credits, community credits, the educational credits. Everything on the surface seemed to be lining up for me to go into that magical big ocean that is the acting world and take it by storm.

But that’s the thing about the surface. While it might be time-stepping and smiling with a full face of stage makeup on the outside, that doesn’t mean that it’s accurately portraying what’s bubbling on the inside.

The thing about theatre for me, and the dreams that trailed along with it, is that it without question made me happy. Musical theatre to this day punches me in my gut and electrifies me like nothing else in this world can.

But being happy and being fulfilled are not the same thing. Not at all.

So while I was happy because I was living my quote unquote “dream”, I admittedly wasn’t fulfilled. Everything about that life was my dream, absolutely.

Until it wasn’t.

Being a performer made me indisputably happy, yes. But there was always a part of me that failed to feel fully satisfied from just being an actress.

I’m a very analytical person. I love solving problems and organizing things and figuring out not only how things work, but how to make them better. While singing out Stephen Sondheim lyrics was thrilling, it wasn’t challenging in a way that made me feel whole. I may not have been able to pin point exactly what it was at the time, but I recognize now that I always felt like I wasn’t fulling stretching myself and pushing myself by solely pursuing acting.

It all came to a head when I moved to a big city after graduating in order to pursue the dream I not only had, but it seemed like everyone who knew me had for me. I was doing it. It being the living the romantic life of living in converted one bedroom apartment so I could have a roommate and taking hour bus rides to auditions and staring at backstage.com on my computer that didn’t work unless it was plugged in.

I remember vividly the day I knew I was over it. I had booked a callback for a show I was probably perfect for, the director was ecstatic about me, it was a paid gig. Everything on paper was amazing and I should have been wildly thrilled with the opportunity.

But I just wasn’t.

There’s an old, well-known saying in regards to creative careers that if you can do anything else, you should. That if you don’t love it with your whole heart, you shouldn’t keep doing it. That if you don’t fully want to commit to that life with your whole heart, you should stop.

So I stopped.

I boxed up the tap shoes and the character shoes, filed away my sheet music, recycled the headshots I no longer had use for, and to put it bluntly, quit. For the first time since I was a kid I didn’t have an answer to the question, “What do you want to do?”

The thing about dreams and aspirations that can be difficult to understand is that when they start to control your life, they’re not actually a good thing. When you become so focused on pursuing this one thing, this one dream, it can be way too easy to ignore everything else that’s around you. Your singular dream shouldn’t be hindering you from living a dynamic life.

For me, that’s what was happening. I was growing past theatre, but continuing to be in it because I felt like I was “supposed to.” I would think about the expensive headshots and the college classes and all of the time I spent and how proud my parents were of me and I felt like I had to this not because I wanted to, but because I was expected to. I was sticking it out not because there was nothing else in the world I wanted to do, but because I felt like all eyes were on me and wanted me to make it. And in doing so, I was completely ignoring that there were other things I could do with my life and be not only happy, but fulfilled.

But at 25, after quitting the career of my dreams and instead watching the first essay I’d submitted to a website go viral, I had a realization.

Your dreams are allowed to change. Your aspirations are allowed to evolve. And you are allowed to grow with them.

There’s absolutely no way of knowing what would have happened if I would have stayed in the theatre world. And I’d be lying if seeing shows on Broadway doesn’t make me feel a twinge of nostalgia and a little sadness that my days are no longer filled with harmonizing and monologuing.

But if I would have stayed in that world, I would never have found the world I’m in now. A weird world online where most of my co-workers are in different states but I not only feel fulfilled with what I do, I feel exceptionally good at it. I’ve found a path where I get to not only utilize my creative side every single day, but I’m also constantly flexing that analytical more technical side of myself that had been dormant for so many years. It’s because I gave up my dream that I was able to find another.

The thing I think we have to understand as we navigate the bizarre aspect of life that is growing up is that following your dreams isn’t necessarily going to be a linear process. It’s filled with twists and turn, and sometimes a complete derailment. But that’s not a failure on your part. It means you know yourself well enough to listen to what your gut is telling you and trusting yourself.

And that’s something worth dreaming about.

“All that changed is what I believed was possible.”

Five years ago I wrote that in a journal. I had realized the quality of my life was dependent not by what I believed I deserved, or was capable of, or determined I was “meant to do,” but what I believed was possible. That’s all: just what I thought maybe could happen. My willingness to see things change began to change them.

Writing online has exposed me to the fact that nothing elicits a more adverse response in people than suggesting that very idea: that one has the power to change their own life. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

If you listen closely, you will notice that people defend their pain more than they defend their dignity, happiness and potential combined.

People have more excuses for why their pain is permanent than why it isn’t… which is why it remains.

When someone abuses you, anger is not only the natural response, it is the healthy response. There are systemic and cultural issues that breed injustice and “choosing to be happy” won’t fix them. When you are in pain, you are responding to something that’s hurting you, and ignoring it won’t make it go away. To not grieve a loss would be to never have loved in the first place.

But the illusion is that if we choose forgiveness, we invalidate anger. If we choose hope, we ignore suffering. If we let go, we stop caring. If our pain is movable, it isn’t legitimate. If we believe we can change our lives, we are taking the blame for fucking them up in the first place.

And that’s why we defend the things we claim not to want.

Choosing forgiveness does not excuse other people’s actions, it is just knowing that what happened was unfair and yet we don’t have to be imprisoned by it forever. Letting go of those we love means continuing to honor them with our actions instead of our grief. Knowing that we are responsible for our own state of mind does not mean the world won’t aggravate or hurt or disappoint us, it is just acknowledging that it is under no obligation not to. Believing we can choose happiness doesn’t mean we are always happy, it just means we don’t wait to be handed the circumstances we want. Believing we can change those circumstances begins to change them – it reminds us that what happens to us is not always our fault, it is always our problem.

Choosing the higher road doesn’t mean we float off and disengage with the very real problems of the world, it means we are no longer paralyzed. It doesn’t mean our pain isn’t real, it just means it’s not forever. 

This isn’t new. This isn’t novel. It’s just not the path of least resistance. It requires courage and resilience and self-awareness and the development of true mental strength. It requires us to surrender.

And yet, at the same time, it is the simplest choice because it is the only choice. The only variable is the amount of time you take to arrive and allow yourself some quiet hope. I can think of nothing more humbling than the belief that the future can be better, and we have the power to make it so – not in ignorance of suffering, but in spite of it. 

You are allowed to chase after your craziest dreams — and you should chase after those dreams — because you are going to regret letting them slide by. You are going to regret taking the path of least resistance. You are going to regret choosing a comfortable life over a fulfilling life.

You are going to regret working a 9 to 5 job that makes you miserable when you could be doing what you love for a living.

You are allowed to decide that a life sitting behind a desk is not for you. You are allowed to say no to working the job that makes the most sense, the job that requires the least amount of work, the job that is technically your safest route.

You are allowed to decide you do not want to follow the career path your parents have been pushing you to take since you were a child. You are allowed to decide that you aren’t actually going to use the degree you spent years earning.

You are allowed to change your mind about what you want from life after you graduate, after you are already a grown adult. You are allowed to believe that it is never too late. You are allowed to do something for yourself for a change.

You are allowed to ignore all of the people who tell you that following your heart is a bad idea. You are allowed to ignore them when they say you are not good enough to succeed. You are allowed to ignore them when they tell you to give up.

You are allowed to take risks, even though you might end up running low on rent money each month. You are allowed to follow your craziest dreams, even though other people might judge you for it. You are allowed to follow your passion, even though you might go through hell before getting what you want.

You are allowed to do what you love, even if that means you are going to have to leave your big apartment and find a smaller one. Even if that means you are going to have to clip coupons for a while. Even if that means you are going to have to work longer hours and take shorter breaks.

You are allowed to live a life that makes you happy. You are allowed to love your career. You are allowed to become one of those rare people who say they would continue working their job, even if they didn’t get paid to do it, because it brings them happiness.

You shouldn’t wake up every morning and hit snooze. You shouldn’t count down the hours until your work day is over. You shouldn’t dread Mondays. You shouldn’t wish for vacation. You shouldn’t hate what you’re doing for a living. You shouldn’t spend forty hours a week miserable.

You are allowed to be brave and take a chance. You are allowed to have faith that you will one day succeed. You are allowed to do something wild. You are allowed to chase after your craziest dreams. 

I’ll start by saying that for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I’m not living the life you want me to be living right now. I’m sorry that I’m spending my prime years doing things you don’t want me to do.

Believe me, I can imagine how disappointed you must be. I know that if you could, you would give my life a one hundred eighty-degree turn, putting back on the path you had wanted me to go down since I was a kid. However, what you want of me really just isn’t me anymore.

It seems like only yesterday, I was a living embodiment of what you wanted me to be. Since my age could be counted on one hand, it was clear that you were steering down this certain path.

Don’t get me wrong, the road you wanted me to trot down is a noble one, and it’s one that serves the world like few professions do. I know that few families in this vast world would turn down the prospect of having a doctor or lawyer or engineer within their bloodline.

I know that, I really do, and I cherished all those times you would tell me how proud you were, or that I was best child any parent could ask for. If anything, that’s probably why I forced myself to meet your expectations for all those years.

The years do go by, though. I picked up a thing or two about the world I live in and its flaws. I met a few people who shed new perspectives on life. Furthermore, I tried a couple of new things that I had no idea about in my earlier years.

I guess one day it just dawned upon me that as hard as I tried, what you wanted for me just wasn’t my calling.

As much as you’ve immersed me in its culture throughout the years, my heart simply belonged elsewhere. I think it’s safe to say that this is what led me into going down my own path, leaving everything else behind in one fell swoop.

Well, here I am now, doing my thing. Slowly but surely enough, I’ve come to face the reality that doing what I love just isn’t what will make you proud of me. I’ve grown to accept that this isn’t the quintessential parent-offspring relationship where you’re behind my every move regardless of how stupid.

I can’t say I blame you. I know the crowd I hang out with now isn’t one you’re overly fond of. I also know that what I’m studying now isn’t what you had ever envisioned for me, and I can feel your disappointment every time I come home past midnight rather than hitting the books like I used to.

It’s been tough living with that, but I have. I know that I’m chasing my own passion now, and that’s enough. This is my life after all, and I’m old enough to decide on these things. Still, know that the current state of relationship saddens me.  

Despite all this, though, you’ve never stopped me. Even if I can sense that you’ve been downhearted at all my recent decisions, you’ve never acted as a barrier standing in the way of my twisted dreams.

You’ve given me the freedom to do my own thing, even if you’d rather I be anywhere but where I am now. I never show it, but I don’t think I could ever stress enough how much this means to me.

Your unspoken support is what helps keep me passionate and relentless in everything I do, and this is something your young, stubborn child will never take for granted.

If there’s one thing I want you to know, it’s that just because I’m not growing into the person you want me to be, that doesn’t mean I don’t still do everything to make you proud.

Everything I’m pouring my heart and soul into now is dedicated to you, even if it seems like the opposite. It could be years down the line, but I’m hopeful that one day you’ll smile and say you were glad I made all those decisions.

Until that day comes, I thank you for the freedom. I promise none of it will go to waste. 

Your personal legend is the reason why you were given a set of special skills, strengths, and even weaknesses. You are wired to do that special something that only you can offer into this world. I believe that a person’s purpose is predetermined, but you are usually given more than one skill so that you can still have the freedom to choose how you will do it. These extra skills and talents aren’t always helpful, though. They add some seemingly right answers to the multiple-choice question, “What is my life’s purpose?”

Here are some of the signs that you’re on the right track:

1. It’s one of the reasons why you wake up in the morning.

Lots of people are dedicated to their jobs, though only a handful actually enjoy doing them. Dedication to something because of the benefits, fame, compensation, and stability is a misnomer. It’ not dedication. It’s a gamble. You’re gambling away your soul, happiness, fulfillment, and sanity trying to run after these things that you can also achieve by doing you life’s purpose. You just have to be patient and know what it is.

If you’ll do something for stability, would it really hurt if you can do it for joy, too? Let’s work for something that’ll keep you a bit longer in the evenings trying to plan for your next move. Let’s work for something that we can happily wake up for in the mornings. Let’s find something that’ll make our hearts flutter and our eyes water just thinking about how it would feel to actually make it.

2. You rarely or never experience burnout.

Burnout happens when you’re giving way too much of yourself to something. Journey towards your personal legend is also a journey to discovering your authentic self and this is why it would rarely leave you feeling drained. If you’re fulfilling your life’s purpose, it shouldn’t feel like you’re giving yourself away. Instead, you’ll be filling yourself with hope and wonderment. It should feel like you’re finding pieces of yourself through every challenge you face and every person that you meet.

3. You’d do it for free.

I know that this isn’t practical, but let’s say that you don’t have to work for money anymore. Would you still do your job for free? This is difficult to think of, especially when you’re still starting. But that’s what day jobs are for.

It is, of course, important to take care of yourself and to keep yourself from being in a precarious situation. It’s better to be a bit frugal while you’re still figuring out your purpose for a few years than to dive headfirst to a secure job and realize after 10 or 20 years that you’re in the wrong track and therefore wants to start from scratch again.

4. You can visualize yourself doing it for the rest of your life.

Choosing a career is very much like choosing a life partner. Do you get filled with joy and hope just by visualizing your future? Do you see you wrinkled and kyphotic self still doing or succeeding in your job? If the answers to these questions is yes, then put a ring on it and do your best to keep the fire burning. If, however, you feel suffocated just by thinking about it, then it’s about time to take her to the ice cream store and have a clean break.

5. You’re okay with ‘the catch.’

Every job comes with a catch. Now, you might overlook this when you have just freshly graduated with a twinkle in your eye. You’ll never know it unless you get your feet wet or rather trapped in a neck-high flood of your workload. ‘The catch’ can be in the form of rants from patients, delayed salary, incessant whining from your boss, or years of not being published. Every job has it. It’s just inevitable, but if you’re okay with the catch that comes with your job, then you’re probably on the right track.

6. It makes perfect sense.

You probably already have had a couple of jobs that just felt…wrong. You know it’s quite childish, but sometimes, the office is too far, the shifts aren’t right, your coworkers are boring, the salary is okay, but society doesn’t really benefit from it. The list goes on, and you feel ashamed because everyone is telling you to just suck it up and do your job. You try to do that, but you know in your gut that something is just wrong. Sometimes, you got to trust your intuition. When you’re on the right track, everything just sort of falls into place. The Japanese call this Ikigai. It’s the sweet spot where your passions, talents, financial stability, and world needs meet.

7. Your challenges will feel like stepping stones, not hindrances.

“When you want something with all your heart, the universe conspires for you to achieve it.” – Paolo Coelho

This is true, but the universe will also not give your something that it hasn’t prepared you for. You’ll meet challenges along the way, but these things should help you to become closer to your dream job. In short, it gives you a lesson on how you can improve yourself. If it doesn’t, it’s not a challenge. It’s a blinker to keep you from going through the wrong track.

8. You hear it from other people.

Have you ever met someone who you haven’t seen in a while and when you say what your current job is, you’ll hear them say, “I knew even then that you’d become a lawyer. You’re brave and articulate,” or “You know you have the aura of a teacher even when we were in high school.”

These ‘guesses’ aren’t always accidental. Since you’ve always been wired to do something, other people pick it up, too. They’re not always right but consider what they say to you. Don’t just throw it out of the window. After all, their judgement isn’t clouded with the other choices since they probably don’t know about your other skills. They only notice what stands out.

I am no more special than any other young person trying to find their way. However dismal that sounds, there is a comfort in knowing this. It takes the pressure off. As young people we are in a perpetual state of trying to figure out what our life is supposed to be all about.

But, I can’t predict my future. I can only control how I react to it.

One of the hardest things a young person can do in today’s world of constant connection, is to disconnect. Get away from all of the distraction. Everything is pulling you in a million different directions. You somehow know what all of your friends are doing at any given moment. Then look up from your phone and realize that you forgot what you were doing. Gain some clarity by focussing on your own shit for once. Stop doing shit you don’t want to do.

You don’t need to make a five year plan. You just need to know what you want to do right now.

Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be. What do you value? Preface every decision with that in mind. Is what you are about to do going to help you become that person? Is it going to help you become the best version of yourself?

If you want to accomplish a goal, stop being so focussed on the goal itself. Become obsessed with the daily grind. Put in work. Persevere. Stop wishing and expect it to be hard.

Waste no more time trying to figure out what you’re passionate about. Instead, become the best. Do your best. You’re probably not living up to your potential. Doesn’t that piss you off? The only thing you’re up against in life is your potential. There is no finish line, because you can always do better.

There is no perfect career path for anyone. There are parts of life and work that just suck. Figure out the kind of suck that you are willing to put up with. Passion will come later — once you actually get good at something. But, no one can take away your ability to show up and work your ass off.

You already know what it is that you want to do. But you don’t do it. Why? Why are you doing that to yourself? Stop being so afraid. No one cares. Whatever you’re worried about today will soon be forgotten. So, take a fucking chance on yourself.

Your potential is your target. The rest is bullshit.

1. You are your own greatest project.

You’re not building a career, you’re not building a legacy, you’re building a life. All of those things are sequential to you becoming the person you want and are meant to be.

2. When you’re too certain of your path, it’s because you’re following somebody else’s.

If you’re not feeling scared or uncertain in life, it’s usually because you’re following someone else’s path. It may feel safer, but the only “safe” bet about it is that you will end up a dissatisfied copy of someone else’s authentic truth.

3. You should always make choices based on how your most ideal older self would feel about them.

This mindset offers a sort of wisdom and perspective that’s hard to find in the present. It helps you build for the future, not just for your relentless, fleeting desires.

4. Your future is dormant within you.

What you will be, you already are. “If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”

5. Your ultimate purpose is to realize every ounce of your latent potential.

You can’t do that if you’re so focused on mimicking the lives and choices of people who you think have what you want. The only way to build the life you really want is to make it as true of a reflection of who you really are.

6. Nothing will motivate you like imagining the life you could have.

If what you’re working toward doesn’t make you the person you want to be in 10 years, you aren’t working toward the right things.

7. Nobody can guide you like your older self can.

Once you can envision the person you want (and are meant) to be, you can cross-check all of your choices and decisions against their judgment. There’s no role model in the world who exists entirely within you, and can guide you entirely with your intuition.

8. If your older self isn’t your role model, you aren’t on the right path.

If what you’re doing now isn’t going to help you become who you want to be later, something has to change.

9. Your best, kindest, most enlightened, productive, loving older self is who you really are. 

Your mission is to remove everything that stands in the way of you simply being that person.

10. When you are your own hero, you are writing your own story.

You regain control of your life because when you idolize your future self, you become your own hero. You are no longer stymied by the fear that the world won’t hand you what you want – you live each day going out and building it for yourself.

When I started my college search, I knew I wanted to be a writer, to share my words with the world and pursue language and written expression through whatever means—freelance work, blogging, journalism, poetry, short story writing, novel writing, or teaching the English language. For me, the path was clear. I would go to school, get a degree in both an English and education related field, pursue writing on the side, and build myself as both a teacher and writer.

For my little sister, five years younger and tremendously fearless, her path was vastly different. She wanted to pursue criminology and was interested in the Air Force. At the time her search began, I knew nothing of the Air Force, what enlisting entailed, or how it could shape her future. I wasn’t sure how, or if she would even be able to pursue the Air Force while in college. I wasn’t sure if she would have to give up one passion for the other. I wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to afford a college education at a private university. And I wasn’t sure how, or if the Air Force could help her build a potential career.

But through witnessing her freshman year experience and from the experiences of other Airmen around the nation, I’ve learned that enlisting not only offers individuals a direct road into their career field, but kick starts their journey by helping them get a college degree. I now see how this path, though very different than my own, is an amazing opportunity.

Through the Air Force, you can develop the skills needed in whatever line of work you choose.

People join the Air Force from many different places and walks of life. Some are traditional students, enlisting right out of high school; others join much later to pay for school, to pursue a different line of work, or to open doors for other career paths, such as being a civil engineer, a scientist, a policeman/woman, a firefighter, or an FBI agent, for example.

Some people join to serve their country. Some join to find a road to college that might not have been an opportunity based on grades, test scores, or academic performance alone. Some join because of the many educational and health benefits. And some join to be a part of the military, to gain leadership skills, and to do really incredible things outside of the traditional 9-5 career path.

Through the Air Force, you can prepare for your future.

When I started looking at colleges, I had no idea that there were programs that allowed you to pursue both your career and education simultaneously—that’s one of the biggest, and best parts of the Air Force—you are not only learning about, and preparing yourself for a career, you are also working on a college degree, which only opens future doors for you.

There is no giving up of one for the other; in the Air Force you are able, and encouraged to do both.

Through the Air Force, you learn valuable things about yourself and what motivates you.

The Air Force provides skills to build yourself both personally and professionally. Not only are you put in pressure situations that test your strength and skill, but you discover what motivates you, encourages you, and how you can push yourself even further than you ever imagined.

Through the Air Force, you can create and cultivate life-long relationships.

The Air Force is not only about career and future readiness, it’s about learning how to work with other people, communicate, grow, and build yourself up, as well as your fellow servicemen/women.

In the program you will learn how to get along with others, support others, and work together, despite differences. You will get to know people of different ages, from many different cultures and backgrounds. And this knowledge will give you insight that allows you to flourish in your future career and personal life.

Through the Air Force, you can build your skills and strengths, readying you for a successful future.

So often it is seen that you have to choose one path—either you join the work force or you go to college. The Air Force doesn’t make you pick one or the other; instead, it offers the opportunity for both, either at the same time, or one before or after the other, allowing you to continuously grow and build yourself as an individual. This opportunity is invaluable. Not only will you be ready to serve in whatever capacity, but you will have a sense of yourself, your strengths, and your abilities.

This post was sponsored by the US Air Force

1. Do you still feel like you’re learning something new every day, or do you feel like your job has just plateaued into a predictable and rigid situation where you do the same exact thing every day?

2. If you are learning something new every day, does that make you happy or are you resistant to it?

3. When people ask you what you do, are you comfortable talking about it (even if work is particularly stressful at that moment) or do you dread answering the question?

4. If your families’ and friends’ opinions about your career were going to be ‘supportive’ and ‘proud’ no matter what you do, would you still stay in this same line of work or would you choose something else?

5. If you’re in a career path now that is way different than the one you always thought you’d end up in – does this piece of knowledge make you happy and grateful or does it make you depressed and disappointed?

6. When you feel anxiety about work, is it a situational anxiety about all the things you have to get done, or is it a more broad anxiety about your overall path that can’t be solved by simply working through a to-do list?

7. What are the three things you most look forward to at work?

8. Are these three things focused on the work itself and particular tasks that you enjoy doing, or are the three things you look forward to solely related to vacation, time off, clocking out each day, etc?

9. If you could be promised another job in an entirely different industry than where you are now, and it paid $5,000 more, would you walk away from your current job?

10. Do you ever have days where you are actually excited to wake up and go in to work, or are you always, always full of dread and misery 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year?

11. If you could give advice to your 5-years-younger self, what sort of advice would it be? Would it be more about preparation and helpful tips for handling the real world, or would it be very specific directions about how to do things completely differently?

12. Do the challenges you experience at work make you feel energized, invigorated, and proud of yourself (even when they’re difficult and overwhelming), or do these challenges only make you feel stressed out, panicked, and constantly on edge?

13. How much does your career affect your physical health? Do you sleep well or are you constantly up at night worrying about your job? Do you try to stay relatively active or do you avoid exercise because you’re simply too burnt out? Do you work hard to put relatively healthy food into your body or do you tend to turn to food as a distraction from your unhappiness and/or stress?

14. Are your recreational activities more focused on trying new things and enjoying yourself outside or work, or are they more about providing you with temporary and pain-numbing distractions until you have to go back into the office?

15. If you could go back to school tomorrow with no financial repercussions, would you choose the same/similar major or something that is entirely unrelated to your current field?

16. Do you try to do things well or do you just try to get them done and out of your way?

17. Does your work ever excite you (even if the work itself is objectively not that interesting) or has it permanently become dull, uninteresting, and colorless to you?

If most of your answers to these questions were the latter option, it might be time to have an honest talk with yourself about your career.

Aries

(March 21st to April 19th)

Doing the same thing every single day, having a bucket list with practically nothing crossed off, and feeling absolutely no passion about your career or where it’s going.

Taurus

(April 20th to May 21st)

Only seeing your closest friends and family on special holidays, disliking your home and feeling like it lacks warmth or personality, and never feeling steady or certain about your life path.

Gemini

(May 22nd to June 21st)

Not having an active social life, never venturing outside your routine to try new hobbies, and ‘never finding the time’ to pursue intellectual activities like reading a certain number of books each year or signing up for classes on subjects that interest you.

Cancer

(June 22nd to July 22nd)

Feeling like most of your conversations are superficial, only having one or two friends who you feel comfortable enough with to talk about deep things, and being in a relationship where your significant other doesn’t fully get you.

Leo

(July 23rd to August 22nd)

Finding yourself in a career where you barely ever (if at all) get to think creatively, being misunderstood or even disliked by your coworkers, and not making the time to volunteer or pursue philanthropic ventures even though it’s something you’ve always wanted to do.

Virgo

(August 23rd to September 22nd)

Having a lifestyle where you feel like you’re only ever ‘getting by’ and can never stay on top of things, feeling like your living space is never as neat or as organized as you’d like it to be, and having a career and a social life that exacerbates your anxiety more than it helps it.

Libra

(September 23rd to October 22nd)

Feeling like you’re just having the same conversation over and over, not being excited by your friends anymore, and not having trouble finding people to date but having trouble finding people who can hold your interest more than five minutes.

Scorpio

(October 23rd to November 22nd)

Not living up to your full potential, having that one passion or interest or career goal that you always secretly wanted to pursue but were too embarrassed or intimidated to admit, and living in a city or town that makes you feel bored and listless.

Sagittarius

(November 23rd to December 21st)

Being surrounded by friends and coworkers who just whine all the time, always coming up with great ideas or goals you want to go after but then never following through, and feeling stifled in every part of your life – friendships, career, hobbies, weekend plans, relationship, etc.

Capricorn

(December 22nd to January 20th)

Not having time to focus on things you care about outside of work, feeling like you’re plateauing in your career rather than rising up a ladder, and never feeling like you make an effort to let out your goofy/silly side.

Aquarius

(January 21st to February 18th)

Feeling numb much of the time, rarely experiencing lows but also rarely experiencing highs, and feeling like you haven’t been challenged, scared, or impassioned in a very long time.

Pisces

(February 19th to March 20th)

Having friendships where you’re the one doing most of the work, feeling lost and aimless in terms of where you want your career to go, and rarely ever venturing outside of the city in which you live.

Since the tender age of four years old, I’ve always had a clear vision of what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I always, without a shred of doubt, wanted to be an actress.

Many of my earliest memories involve performing staggering renditions of “Twinkle, Twinkle” and Natalie Cole songs to strangers at various restaurants. My first role on stage was as a Villager in Treasure Island at around age 8. I had the first line in our angry villager song (“Bring a dish of boiled fish and bring it right away!”) and in each of our performances over that weekend I was ecstatic to shout it out to my obviously adoring fans.

Performing on stage gave me, the little girl who had always felt like too much, a place to feel just right. I wasn’t too loud on stage, I was projecting and my vocal power was impressive. I wasn’t exaggerating when I was acting, I was being animated and making bold choices. I was never too much in the theatre, I was right at home.

Acting, being an actress, was one of the first things I ever felt really, really good at.

So naturally, I feel in love with it. It was all I really wanted to do. While other kids were memorizing pop songs and obsessing over Hollister or American Eagle, I would learn every lyric to Stephen Schwartz musicals and peruse Discount Dance for new leg warmers or Capezio heels. I was school play after school play, was in so many shows at my local community theatre I probably should’ve paid them rent. I landed my first professional gig at 17 and was on the exact track to not only be voted Most Likely To Be Famous (which I was) but actually achieve it.

The dreams didn’t stop in college either, but grew and grew and grew. I doubled majored in theatre and music and over the course of 4 and a half years, racked up not one, not two, but over 20 different roles to my name. I had regional credits, community credits, the educational credits. Everything on the surface seemed to be lining up for me to go into that magical big ocean that is the acting world and take it by storm.

But that’s the thing about the surface. While it might be time-stepping and smiling with a full face of stage makeup on the outside, that doesn’t mean that it’s accurately portraying what’s bubbling on the inside.

The thing about theatre for me, and the dreams that trailed along with it, is that it without question made me happy. Musical theatre to this day punches me in my gut and electrifies me like nothing else in this world can.

But being happy and being fulfilled are not the same thing. Not at all.

So while I was happy because I was living my quote unquote “dream”, I admittedly wasn’t fulfilled. Everything about that life was my dream, absolutely.

Until it wasn’t.

Being a performer made me indisputably happy, yes. But there was always a part of me that failed to feel fully satisfied from just being an actress.

I’m a very analytical person. I love solving problems and organizing things and figuring out not only how things work, but how to make them better. While singing out Stephen Sondheim lyrics was thrilling, it wasn’t challenging in a way that made me feel whole. I may not have been able to pin point exactly what it was at the time, but I recognize now that I always felt like I wasn’t fulling stretching myself and pushing myself by solely pursuing acting.

It all came to a head when I moved to a big city after graduating in order to pursue the dream I not only had, but it seemed like everyone who knew me had for me. I was doing it. It being the living the romantic life of living in converted one bedroom apartment so I could have a roommate and taking hour bus rides to auditions and staring at backstage.com on my computer that didn’t work unless it was plugged in.

I remember vividly the day I knew I was over it. I had booked a callback for a show I was probably perfect for, the director was ecstatic about me, it was a paid gig. Everything on paper was amazing and I should have been wildly thrilled with the opportunity.

But I just wasn’t.

There’s an old, well-known saying in regards to creative careers that if you can do anything else, you should. That if you don’t love it with your whole heart, you shouldn’t keep doing it. That if you don’t fully want to commit to that life with your whole heart, you should stop.

So I stopped.

I boxed up the tap shoes and the character shoes, filed away my sheet music, recycled the headshots I no longer had use for, and to put it bluntly, quit. For the first time since I was a kid I didn’t have an answer to the question, “What do you want to do?”

The thing about dreams and aspirations that can be difficult to understand is that when they start to control your life, they’re not actually a good thing. When you become so focused on pursuing this one thing, this one dream, it can be way too easy to ignore everything else that’s around you. Your singular dream shouldn’t be hindering you from living a dynamic life.

For me, that’s what was happening. I was growing past theatre, but continuing to be in it because I felt like I was “supposed to.” I would think about the expensive headshots and the college classes and all of the time I spent and how proud my parents were of me and I felt like I had to this not because I wanted to, but because I was expected to. I was sticking it out not because there was nothing else in the world I wanted to do, but because I felt like all eyes were on me and wanted me to make it. And in doing so, I was completely ignoring that there were other things I could do with my life and be not only happy, but fulfilled.

But at 25, after quitting the career of my dreams and instead watching the first essay I’d submitted to a website go viral, I had a realization.

Your dreams are allowed to change. Your aspirations are allowed to evolve. And you are allowed to grow with them.

There’s absolutely no way of knowing what would have happened if I would have stayed in the theatre world. And I’d be lying if seeing shows on Broadway doesn’t make me feel a twinge of nostalgia and a little sadness that my days are no longer filled with harmonizing and monologuing.

But if I would have stayed in that world, I would never have found the world I’m in now. A weird world online where most of my co-workers are in different states but I not only feel fulfilled with what I do, I feel exceptionally good at it. I’ve found a path where I get to not only utilize my creative side every single day, but I’m also constantly flexing that analytical more technical side of myself that had been dormant for so many years. It’s because I gave up my dream that I was able to find another.

The thing I think we have to understand as we navigate the bizarre aspect of life that is growing up is that following your dreams isn’t necessarily going to be a linear process. It’s filled with twists and turn, and sometimes a complete derailment. But that’s not a failure on your part. It means you know yourself well enough to listen to what your gut is telling you and trusting yourself.

And that’s something worth dreaming about.

Aries

(March 21st to April 19th)

Doing the same thing every single day, having a bucket list with practically nothing crossed off, and feeling absolutely no passion about your career or where it’s going.

Taurus

(April 20th to May 21st)

Only seeing your closest friends and family on special holidays, disliking your home and feeling like it lacks warmth or personality, and never feeling steady or certain about your life path.

Gemini

(May 22nd to June 21st)

Not having an active social life, never venturing outside your routine to try new hobbies, and ‘never finding the time’ to pursue intellectual activities like reading a certain number of books each year or signing up for classes on subjects that interest you.

Cancer

(June 22nd to July 22nd)

Feeling like most of your conversations are superficial, only having one or two friends who you feel comfortable enough with to talk about deep things, and being in a relationship where your significant other doesn’t fully get you.

Leo

(July 23rd to August 22nd)

Finding yourself in a career where you barely ever (if at all) get to think creatively, being misunderstood or even disliked by your coworkers, and not making the time to volunteer or pursue philanthropic ventures even though it’s something you’ve always wanted to do.

Virgo

(August 23rd to September 22nd)

Having a lifestyle where you feel like you’re only ever ‘getting by’ and can never stay on top of things, feeling like your living space is never as neat or as organized as you’d like it to be, and having a career and a social life that exacerbates your anxiety more than it helps it.

Libra

(September 23rd to October 22nd)

Feeling like you’re just having the same conversation over and over, not being excited by your friends anymore, and not having trouble finding people to date but having trouble finding people who can hold your interest more than five minutes.

Scorpio

(October 23rd to November 22nd)

Not living up to your full potential, having that one passion or interest or career goal that you always secretly wanted to pursue but were too embarrassed or intimidated to admit, and living in a city or town that makes you feel bored and listless.

Sagittarius

(November 23rd to December 21st)

Being surrounded by friends and coworkers who just whine all the time, always coming up with great ideas or goals you want to go after but then never following through, and feeling stifled in every part of your life – friendships, career, hobbies, weekend plans, relationship, etc.

Capricorn

(December 22nd to January 20th)

Not having time to focus on things you care about outside of work, feeling like you’re plateauing in your career rather than rising up a ladder, and never feeling like you make an effort to let out your goofy/silly side.

Aquarius

(January 21st to February 18th)

Feeling numb much of the time, rarely experiencing lows but also rarely experiencing highs, and feeling like you haven’t been challenged, scared, or impassioned in a very long time.

Pisces

(February 19th to March 20th)

Having friendships where you’re the one doing most of the work, feeling lost and aimless in terms of where you want your career to go, and rarely ever venturing outside of the city in which you live.

Since the tender age of four years old, I’ve always had a clear vision of what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I always, without a shred of doubt, wanted to be an actress.

Many of my earliest memories involve performing staggering renditions of “Twinkle, Twinkle” and Natalie Cole songs to strangers at various restaurants. My first role on stage was as a Villager in Treasure Island at around age 8. I had the first line in our angry villager song (“Bring a dish of boiled fish and bring it right away!”) and in each of our performances over that weekend I was ecstatic to shout it out to my obviously adoring fans.

Performing on stage gave me, the little girl who had always felt like too much, a place to feel just right. I wasn’t too loud on stage, I was projecting and my vocal power was impressive. I wasn’t exaggerating when I was acting, I was being animated and making bold choices. I was never too much in the theatre, I was right at home.

Acting, being an actress, was one of the first things I ever felt really, really good at.

So naturally, I feel in love with it. It was all I really wanted to do. While other kids were memorizing pop songs and obsessing over Hollister or American Eagle, I would learn every lyric to Stephen Schwartz musicals and peruse Discount Dance for new leg warmers or Capezio heels. I was school play after school play, was in so many shows at my local community theatre I probably should’ve paid them rent. I landed my first professional gig at 17 and was on the exact track to not only be voted Most Likely To Be Famous (which I was) but actually achieve it.

The dreams didn’t stop in college either, but grew and grew and grew. I doubled majored in theatre and music and over the course of 4 and a half years, racked up not one, not two, but over 20 different roles to my name. I had regional credits, community credits, the educational credits. Everything on the surface seemed to be lining up for me to go into that magical big ocean that is the acting world and take it by storm.

But that’s the thing about the surface. While it might be time-stepping and smiling with a full face of stage makeup on the outside, that doesn’t mean that it’s accurately portraying what’s bubbling on the inside.

The thing about theatre for me, and the dreams that trailed along with it, is that it without question made me happy. Musical theatre to this day punches me in my gut and electrifies me like nothing else in this world can.

But being happy and being fulfilled are not the same thing. Not at all.

So while I was happy because I was living my quote unquote “dream”, I admittedly wasn’t fulfilled. Everything about that life was my dream, absolutely.

Until it wasn’t.

Being a performer made me indisputably happy, yes. But there was always a part of me that failed to feel fully satisfied from just being an actress.

I’m a very analytical person. I love solving problems and organizing things and figuring out not only how things work, but how to make them better. While singing out Stephen Sondheim lyrics was thrilling, it wasn’t challenging in a way that made me feel whole. I may not have been able to pin point exactly what it was at the time, but I recognize now that I always felt like I wasn’t fulling stretching myself and pushing myself by solely pursuing acting.

It all came to a head when I moved to a big city after graduating in order to pursue the dream I not only had, but it seemed like everyone who knew me had for me. I was doing it. It being the living the romantic life of living in converted one bedroom apartment so I could have a roommate and taking hour bus rides to auditions and staring at backstage.com on my computer that didn’t work unless it was plugged in.

I remember vividly the day I knew I was over it. I had booked a callback for a show I was probably perfect for, the director was ecstatic about me, it was a paid gig. Everything on paper was amazing and I should have been wildly thrilled with the opportunity.

But I just wasn’t.

There’s an old, well-known saying in regards to creative careers that if you can do anything else, you should. That if you don’t love it with your whole heart, you shouldn’t keep doing it. That if you don’t fully want to commit to that life with your whole heart, you should stop.

So I stopped.

I boxed up the tap shoes and the character shoes, filed away my sheet music, recycled the headshots I no longer had use for, and to put it bluntly, quit. For the first time since I was a kid I didn’t have an answer to the question, “What do you want to do?”

The thing about dreams and aspirations that can be difficult to understand is that when they start to control your life, they’re not actually a good thing. When you become so focused on pursuing this one thing, this one dream, it can be way too easy to ignore everything else that’s around you. Your singular dream shouldn’t be hindering you from living a dynamic life.

For me, that’s what was happening. I was growing past theatre, but continuing to be in it because I felt like I was “supposed to.” I would think about the expensive headshots and the college classes and all of the time I spent and how proud my parents were of me and I felt like I had to this not because I wanted to, but because I was expected to. I was sticking it out not because there was nothing else in the world I wanted to do, but because I felt like all eyes were on me and wanted me to make it. And in doing so, I was completely ignoring that there were other things I could do with my life and be not only happy, but fulfilled.

But at 25, after quitting the career of my dreams and instead watching the first essay I’d submitted to a website go viral, I had a realization.

Your dreams are allowed to change. Your aspirations are allowed to evolve. And you are allowed to grow with them.

There’s absolutely no way of knowing what would have happened if I would have stayed in the theatre world. And I’d be lying if seeing shows on Broadway doesn’t make me feel a twinge of nostalgia and a little sadness that my days are no longer filled with harmonizing and monologuing.

But if I would have stayed in that world, I would never have found the world I’m in now. A weird world online where most of my co-workers are in different states but I not only feel fulfilled with what I do, I feel exceptionally good at it. I’ve found a path where I get to not only utilize my creative side every single day, but I’m also constantly flexing that analytical more technical side of myself that had been dormant for so many years. It’s because I gave up my dream that I was able to find another.

The thing I think we have to understand as we navigate the bizarre aspect of life that is growing up is that following your dreams isn’t necessarily going to be a linear process. It’s filled with twists and turn, and sometimes a complete derailment. But that’s not a failure on your part. It means you know yourself well enough to listen to what your gut is telling you and trusting yourself.

And that’s something worth dreaming about.

Often when I’m speaking to someone and they find out that I’m living and teaching in Madrid, Spain, they often say, “Wow that’s amazing. I wish I could do that.”

To which I always reply, “Well, why can’t you?”

For many people in their twenties, there is a tension between what they want to do and what they feel they should do.

Should we travel the world, or should we focus on our career?

Conventional thinking dictates that one must come at the expense of the other. You can travel. You can have a career. But you can’t have both – at least not at the same time.

The response I usually get is, “I wish I could, but it’s not that simple. I need to work for at least two years at x company.”

Or I get, “First I’ll work for a while and save money, then I’ll travel when I’m older.”

In theory this seems logical, but in practice it’s much more difficult. The farther along you are in your career, the harder it will be to break away. Why? Because once our salary increases, usually our expenses increase – rent, cars, and overall standard of living. So while we may be making more money, we will also be spending much more of it.

In other words, “I can’t travel because my career will suffer.”

This is the definition of black and white thinking.

See, the difficulty is that we’ve been conditioned to think of our careers in strictly linear terms. Our careers exist on a vertical spectrum and vertical mobility – climbing to the top as quickly as possible – is the highest priority.

Any deviation from this path, such as taking a year off to travel to gain perspective (which Google has actually begun to allow and even encourage), is seen as a significant detour on the road to career success.

Worse yet, we feel the immense pressure to choose our career path as soon as humanly possible, lest we waste precious time toiling away in obscurity.

This was the career culture we inherited and it still influences the way we think today – and it’s a problem.

It’s a problem because we have a generation of young people making very important decisions with a very limited amount of information. Not just limited information about their chosen career path, but limited information about themselves. We have a generation of young people that is so stressed and anxious about choosing the “right” career that they either chose a career path out of sheer pressure or worse – they choose nothing and stay in the same place.

I was having dinner with my girlfriend and my friend Claire the other night in Madrid. Claire is a fellow auxiliar de conversacion (an English teacher) in Madrid. She had been accepted into medical school in Alabama the year before and had decided to postpone her enrollment to teach English abroad in Spain for a year.

Like myself, Claire (and probably her parents too) saw this as an entirely lateral step on her career path. Surely Claire and I just needed to get the wanderlust out of our system while we were young so that we would return to the United States and prioritize what really matters.

But she was struggling with a change of heart. She still wanted to go to medical school, but she also wanted to stay in Madrid for another year. When she asked her medical university if they would still accept her if she stayed in Spain another year, they said yes.

So then what was the problem?

She was afraid to slow down. She was afraid that she wasn’t keeping pace with what her culture expected of her. As if life was somehow this big race, and slowing down and reflecting would be the equivalent of letting our competition blow past us on their way to the finish line.

We need to give ourselves and each other permission to slow down.

But what is the rush? Really, what is it?

We fear not being able to keep pace with our friends, pleasing our parents, but at what expense?

Some of us are driving 150 miles an hour towards an abstract finish line and we don’t even know why. We work countless hours, days, and years passively hoping we’re doing the right thing. We never even think to take our foot off the gas. We never even think to rest for a moment and reflect on why we want what we want.

The message the education system indoctrinated into us as children was this: “Go take out thousands of dollars of loans to receive an education that will award you the highest paying job possible. Achieve this as fast as humanly possibly at all costs otherwise you will be a nobody.”

We didn’t hear: “Live deliberately. Go travel and explore the world and find yourself first. Go figure out what you want and why you want it. Don’t rush. Take time to discover the person, the friend, the partner, and the employee you want to be.”

We teach our children how they should live – ideally quite lucratively – but never why they should live.

The result is an entire generation of young people following a centuries-old blueprint for living and then feeling completely baffled and lost when they realize the map doesn’t fit their territory.

The fact is, the more time you invest in knowing yourself – by traveling, by exploring, by experimenting – your chances of choosing the right career path increase exponentially. (Your chances of choosing the right romantic partner also increase exponentially, but that’s another article for another day.)

The less information we have, the more choosing the right career path is like playing darts with a blindfold. Maybe you’ll hit a bulls eye on your first try, but chances are you’ll need to throw a few before you even get yourself on the board.

There are a myriad of ways to travel and gain valuable life and work experience, but here’s a short list:

• You can see if your current job has an office abroad which you can temporarily transfer to.
• You can work for a company and use all your vacation days for traveling.
• You can volunteer or work as an English teacher in many amazing places in the world – Spain, Thailand, China, Korea, South America, etc.
• You can do your Bachelors or Masters degree abroad at a fraction of the cost it would be in the United States. Even some of the best and most expensive universities in Europe are much cheaper than the average American university. Some degrees are even offered for free.

These are especially valuable for those of us who haven’t found our “passion” yet. We claim to be searching for it, when in reality we’re just passively hoping it will drop out of the sky in the form of a nicely packaged career path.

Traveling, working, or volunteering abroad gives you a chance to leave the abstract realm of an ideal career and to gain valuable insight into feedback into your most valuable asset and investment – yourself.

The more you know yourself, the more you’re likely to be better at what you do.

As for Claire, maybe she had already chosen the right career path before coming to Spain. The only difference: now she knows why she has chosen it. And it will likely make her a better physician because of it.

In my own case, I always viewed coming to Spain as a lateral step in my career; and a risky one a that. Once Spain was over, I would return to the United States and focus.

As fate would have it, since I’ve been in Madrid, I’ve had some amazing career opportunities come my way.

• While my current job is as an English teacher, I’ve also begun volunteering for an organization that helps refugees in Madrid. I help them write grants and raise funds.
• I interviewed a former president of the European Parliament because she was visiting my roommate’s university in Madrid on a lecture tour.
• Last week my German friend Max and I won a debate competition at his university solving logistics problems for the non-profit financial technology company Merkur.io and his university paid for us to fly to Paris for the final competition.
• I had a job offer to be a full-time copywriter for a company based in Barcelona if my teaching contract hadn’t extended until June.

The most amazing part for me is realizing that these are all opportunities that I never would have had access to in the United States. Living abroad has opened my eyes to so many different creative career paths I never even knew existed. And I didn’t need to spend $70,000 on an education to gain access to them.

Are there people who know what they want to do career wise from a young age, follow that one path, and end up living happily and fulfilled? Of course. My Dad (an electrician) and my girlfriend (an aerospace engineer) are perfect examples of that.

But for the rest of us, a different approach is necessary. An approach that allows the freedom to expand, explore, and evolve first.

So far, traveling and my career have not been mutually exclusive at all. But I had to stop referencing the map my culture gave me because it just didn’t fit my territory anymore.

From a limited perspective, the choice between travel and career represent two diametrically opposed paths.

But in reality they can be the same path – why not take them both?

*Comparing my career path to people who are (or are around) my age and convincing myself that if my situation isn’t exactly like theirs, I’ve failed.

*Holding on to bad days after they’re over.

*Scrolling through my newsfeeds in a way that is mindless and frenetic. I understand that, at least for myself and my career, it’s impractical to try and give up social media. But this year, I would like to make it a goal to be very conscious when I’m on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook – that I’m not trying to consume dozens of things in seconds, I’m paying attention, and I’m not looking through my feeds for an unhealthy amount of time.

*Getting upset about something I absolutely will not care about in a year from now.

*Getting upset about something I absolutely will not care about in two days from now.

*Explaining my decisions and choices to people whose opinions I don’t even care about.

*Always saying ‘yes’ to things, even when I know that I really need some rest or a night to myself.

*Not putting an active effort towards quitting as many of my bad habits as possible, even the little ones.

*Convincing myself that I should be doing something productive, even when I’ve specifically set aside this time to relax and give my brain a break.

*Only reflecting on my achievements or things I did well, instead of forcing myself to analyze and work on things that I need to (and would like to) do better.

*Thinking that crying is weak or bad. With each passing year of my twenties, I’ve found that nearly 100% of the time, I feel way better and way healthier after I cry. So I’d like to stop convincing myself that I have to hold everything in when it’s dying to come out. Especially on a crappy day.

*Sleeping next to my phone.

*Not absolutely prioritizing my physical health and my mental health.

*Not being aware enough of my own emotions, and thinking they have more power over me than I do over them.