The Career Race

A few weeks ago, I had a discussion with a friend on how she feels she could be doing better at this stage of her career. This feeling was largely based on what I presume is a comparison to other peers who are apparently making 'progress' in their own careers. Our conversation got me thinking about how far I've come, where I would like to be and whether I've made the right decisions so far.

Last year I took a leap of faith and switched jobs to try out something different. Was I scared? Extremely! I got tremendous negative feedback from a lot of people I looked up to or leaned on for comfort which made me question my decision even more. I dealt with this negativity because from a young age I have taken pride in owning my choices…in standing by my decision because it was mine to make and taken for a reason. It earned me a couple of spankings as a child but it’s a character trait that helped me gain confidence and believe in myself and my choices.

Like the picture above, we usually start our career race with our peers (whom we compare our progress with) at the same time. We assume that we should therefore all complete our race at the same time. The problem with this mindset is we forget that each person has their own timeline…their own race to run. We don’t know where they are coming from, or how long they’ve taken to get to where they are. We may have met at the same starting point along the course of our race or at a specific point in our respective time lines, but that does not mean we are all running the same race.

Whatever stage you are at, embrace the choices you made to get to where you are and work towards improving yourself and being the best at what you do. There is no reason to be angry or dissatisfied with the stage you are at because YOU made the choice to be there. I always like to say if you’re not happy with where you are MOVE! You are not a tree. It may take time to get to where you want to be but the most important thing is to simply take a step forward. Every one runs their own race and the choices we make today play a large role in where we find ourselves later in life.    

I am the queen of long term planning so I’m running my race now with foresight to where I want to be at the age of 40. This is a significant age for me because it’s a moment in my timeline that I want to take a step back and watch my investments (financial, physical, emotional, academic and spiritual) finally pay off.

So, dear reader, when I feel I’m not making much progress, I take a step back and pat myself on the back for coming this far. It’s been a bumpy ride but I run my race with pride and keep improving myself. The big 40 awaits!