There was a time when I looked back on my first career and thought, wow, I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out the work that I was really meant to be doing. I really enjoyed my work in research and strategy, AND it was really challenging work for many reasons. When I left that to start my business, a little part of me felt like I failed for not reaching the pinnacle of that career before leaving.
Fast forward now to 7.5 years into having my own business and just in the past year I realized something: the absolute greatest gifts, the true best parts of my time spent in that first career, have almost nothing to do with the career itself.
I have a goddaughter because of relationships forged at my first company. I learned how good discipline could feel when I designed my mornings to exercise before work because I felt strong all day. I learned the highlights and challenges that come with setting boundaries that help me shape my own life now more easily than I believed possible.
None of these have anything to do with being a great researcher or strategist. They were never things I expected to get or thought would come to me when I signed on for that job straight out of college.
And while I still use the knowledge and expertise that came from being in the industry for over a decade, the true gifts of that first career had nothing to do with the career itself.
Realizing this recently changed what I look for now when I reflect on the past: instead of thinking about a job or a relationship or an experience and wondering if it was good or bad, I peer a little further into that time and wonder – what was the unexpected gift that could only have come from that place and time?
