The Things I Thought I Knew At 22 That Turned Out to Be Totally Wrong

In this series, professionals share what they'd do differently — and keep the same. Follow the stories here and write your own (please use #IfIWere22 in your post).

When I was 22, I was newly installed in a new position in a brand-new career, fresh from college. I was working as a business journalist, and it was my first job, unless I count working the window at Jack in the Box. Which I don’t.

When I look back on it, I like to think that I was thoughtful and professional, eager but measured.

The truth is that I was impatient and usually felt inadequate. I was more like the young grasshopper Daniel from The Karate Kid: Uncomfortable. Skeptical. Clueless.

I was trying to learn the impossible — how the business world worked — from the myriad of Mr. Miyagis around me.

And it did seem that everyone around me was a Miyagi, while I was chronically a Daniel. Wax on, wax off.

Here are four things I thought I knew then, that turned out to be totally wrong.

At some point, you’ll be competent.

When I was starting out, I sometimes felt so hopelessly incompetent that I kept thinking about the day when I’d be abundantly competent. All Miyagi, zero Daniel.

I thought there’d come a point when I’d set the career cruise control to ON... and just fly the rest of the way down the highway. Carefree, singing at the top of my lungs.

It turns out that the more you master, the more you realize you don’t know.

The more you understand challenges, the more you challenge yourself to learn more.

The more you hone your skills, the sharper still you want to make them.

There is no room for merely “competent” when you’re pushing for excellence. And you’ll never really get to excellence — because there’s always something further ahead that you’ve set your sights on. There’s always something else that you’re trying to make out, just ahead.

I once thought that kind of endless journey would be frustrating and depressing — that I'd feel like a racing greyhound that never catches the mechanical hare. But, instead, it’s motivating to see how close you can get. (For people, anyway. Not sure how the greyhounds might view this metaphor.)

In other words, what I’ve come to realize is that, as Mark Twain said: To stand still is to fall behind.

At some point, you’ll be rewarded for your hard work.

This isn’t totally untrue, but the part that isn’t accurate is the notion of “being rewarded.” Not only is it unlikely that anyone else will reward you, but the very notion of anticipating some kind of recognition is both folly and a little childish.

Don’t get me wrong... recognition is fine. But recognition is like viral marketing: a happy accident, not a goal.

And here’s the thing: The only validation that ultimately means a thing is the satisfaction of knowing that you did the best you could on something that matters.

At some point, you won’t have to work so hard.

In my first newsroom, I was the one staying late because I was both slow and exacting — a maddening combination, which, when coupled with my tendency to procrastinate because I was reluctant to begin precisely because I am slow and exacting, pretty soon starts to feel as circular and hopeless as this sentence.

Here’s what I came to realize: You learn the value of hard work by working hard, as Margaret Mead said. You never stop giving it your all.

If you aren’t working hard, you probably don’t care a whole lot about what you’re working on.

At some point, you’ll realize your fate.

I remember the precise moment that I first fully grokked the idea of “fate.” I was in high school, stumbling my way one summer through Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d’Urbervilles because I wanted to be seen as the kind of person who reads Hardy for fun during summer break.

A major theme of the novel is that poor Tess can’t catch a break — that she’s fated to exist as a tragic figure for a lot of reasons I could probably articulate, had I ever finished the book.

(By August, I’d abandoned the idea that I was the kind of person who reads Hardy for fun during summer break.)

My one Tess takeaway was this: Fate determines your destiny and drives most of the particulars of how your life plays out. And, obviously, my fate was to be a famous writer, or so my cocky 15-year-old self boasted to my inner self.

I’m rolling my eyes hard at myself right now. Because although where and when and the circumstances into which you are born can certainly give you certain advantages… most of what you do with those advantages is up to you. You have to stick your nose out, for one.

This seems a good time to quote Blair Waldorf: “Destiny is for losers. It’s just a stupid excuse to wait for things to happen instead of making them happen.”

So there you have it. Four things I was completely wrong about when I was 22.

And I just now thought of a fifth thing I was totally wrong about: At some point, you’ll always be right.

But guess what? Being wrong — at least once in a while — is surprisingly awesome. 

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Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs. Her new book, Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Sign up to hear more from her at AnnHandley.com.