Trust That It’s Absolutely Okay to Not Know Where You’re Going

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I have spent many years of my career doing what others saw as useful in me, rather than what I wanted to do myself. The problem was I never really knew what I wanted to do, so I would just get pulled from pillar to post doing what others thought I would be good at.

Now this isn’t necessarily a bad strategy, it certainly helped me discern what I don’t want, but it only narrows the field to a point where there are still more possibilities than I could ever explore. Now with the benefit of experience and hindsight I can see that what is most important, is knowing who I am and presencing that in the world, following any intuitive nudges I get about which direction to take next.

I always envied those people who knew what they wanted from early on. Right back to the days of seeing a career counselor at school, to choose which subjects to study, there were people who knew what they wanted and didn’t want.

That said, there was also a standard list of careers that got presented, as if life consisted only of these limited choices. The realms of teaching, engineering, railways, banking, office work and human resources were my heritage, and – in those days – technology was in its burgeoning stages as a brand new study option in higher education for those who felt called to computer programming.

None of it really inspired me, which is why I ended up with a bit of a “pick and mix” degree in science – which consisted of a range of topics from psychology (which I loved) to mathematics (which I hated and failed miserably at several times) to business studies (which I aced). To be fair I think I really only went to university because the infamous Margaret Thatcher’s government was funding higher education and it seemed easier to carry on than leave.

However, after a postgraduate diploma in human resource management (or personnel management as it was called back then), I finally entered the workforce proper. Along the way I had had many part time and casual jobs to fund my social life while I studied, and most of those were face to face customer service type roles in various industries.

But when I presented myself to recruitment agencies in the hope of finding something to get started, they saw my qualifications in human resources and wanted me in recruitment. Despite it having a heavy sales component, which I hated, I ended up working for three different firms in that industry before finally getting on track with something more me.

That period in my life was coupled with a huge amount of self driven personal development. I read my way through so many books of the era, which were really driven by the “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right”  (Henry Ford) approach, which emphasizes how much attitude determines success or failure. It also emphasizes having a goal (and thus assuming knowing what one wants to do) – which I didn’t.

I then landed a customer complaints management role and found that, while I was well equipped for the day to day practicalities from the various jobs I’d had through university, what I was really drawn to was driving change and transformation from the feedback that was received from customers. I ended up doing this on various projects on behalf of the owning group of the company I started in, and in industry bodies.

Along the way it became obvious that the people component of change is where my real talents and enthusiasm lay. I was involved in a number of large transformation programs across different organisations and industries, until eventually I became disillusioned by the constant changing tides of company ownership and shareholder focus, along with school playground type antics in the management structures that most often led to any meaningful change never really getting off the ground.

This came simultaneously with the intense years of birthing and parenting small children, which began the next huge phase of personal growth in my life. I realised that when up against the grain, it wasn’t enough to simply have a good attitude. Conscious awareness of thoughts, goals and such forth seemed very distant when in a place of chronic stress. What came to the fore were constantly self sabotaging patterns and so began the years of study on what causes those and how to overcome them.

This has been a deep dive into psychology, consciousness, trauma, relationships and human potential at a deeper level than ever before. And as my children are getting more independent I have been asking “what now?” Really I have felt no surer in some ways than I did sitting outside the career counsellor’s office when I was thirteen years old.

Of course, that is not entirely true. The journey evidenced by these weekly musings for the last eight years points to a thorough examination of life and how I show up in all my aspects. It’s compass has been pointed in the direction of revealing authentic desire versus conditioned responses. I take in information from the world around me like a sponge and use it like a game of warmer-colder where one person gives the other players directions to an object in temperature words depending on how close to the object they are.

I resonate strongly with Ross Caligiuri’s words “If you feel like you don’t fit into the world you inherited it is because you were born to help create a new one”. I resonated with Briana McWilliam’s words about how much I value talking about ideas versus issues of the mundane, and I resonate with so many aspects of the main character, who is a writer, in the latest Tracey Rees novel I’m reading.

Not that I see myself writing anything so Goliath as a book at this point, but to be able to explore and ponder ideas, yes, and in writing, yes, that is me certainly. And I start to wonder, do I need a name for what I want to do at this stage? Perhaps it’s only something I will see so clearly in the rear view mirror?

Like my degree at university, I like doing a bit of a pick and mix in life. I like learning new things about myself, the world and the way we all interact. I like pondering ideas and applying the thoughts in new ways, to new things. I love helping people and I adore the ways in which we can evolve and transform and how nothing seems to change day to day, but look back a year or two or twenty and the whole world has tilted on its axis.

I doubt a single moment has been wasted on this meandering journey of mine, each step leads to another, and sometimes there’s a sidestep, but it all adds up of that I am sure. It’s all useful and in the service of whatever I’m doing at the time.

I’m at the beginning of life’s most fun and productive years, those between fifty and eighty where a lot of the years of striving are behind me. The soil has been created, planted, harvested and dug over afresh. The question is what shall grow now?

I feel far more at peace now in my life not knowing where I’m going, yet surer of who I am and having the faith to trust that if I follow what feels right for me, I’m on the right path. That is the part that was missing all those years ago as I meandered, it was a journey of getting to know myself.

So what about you? Do you know yourself well enough to presence those parts of you in the world that you wish to put to use, rather than be swayed by someone else’s plans for you? How comfortable are you in following the serendipities and things that feel right? Can you trust that it’s absolutely okay to not know where you’re going?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Want to Make a Heartfelt Change to Your Career?, How Do You Know When You Are the Best and Highest Version of Yourself?, Who Do You Need to Become in Order to Realise Your Dreams?  and What Possibilities Can You Get Excited About Right Now in Your Life? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.