I’ve had several conversations lately with clients who are feeling caught between their old plans and their current selves.
Once upon a time, they knew how their lives would go. They would go to graduate school. They would get a job directly related to their degree. Everything else would fall in place around that.
Except somewhere along the line, something changed. Maybe they got married. Maybe they had a kid. Maybe they got interested in something else.
And now they’re anxious that not following through on the original plan means something bad about them, that they’re lazy or weak or insert-your-favorite-self-insult-here.
All it means is that your plans changed
There’s a famous adage in both military and entrepreneurial circles that goes something like this:
Plans are useless, but planning is priceless.
It reflects the reality that baby, this world is complicated and chaotic and it keeps right on moving, so there’s no possible way that any plan could take into account all the different variables so completely that everything will turn out as you planned. Life happens.
And yet, it’s still helpful to plan, because planning asks us to articulate our goals and think about how to solve that problem, and that gets us further along the path than picking daisies. (Not that I’m against picking daisies!)
All of which is to say, of course your plans have changed
Many of us started graduate school in our early twenties. I would really hope that things in our early or mid-thirties are different than we expected back when we made our master plans back in our early twenties.
First of all, that’s another ten-odd years of life informing us. Complicated, messy, rich, beautiful, life. We know things now we didn’t then. We understand what’s important to us in a way we might not have then. We’ve probably had a few more hard knocks and challenges to help us put things into perspective.
Second of all, the world hasn’t stopped. Stuff has changed around us, and maybe the world doesn’t offer the same opportunities we thought it would. Jobs exist now that didn’t then. (Whole industries exist now that didn’t exist when I started grad school. The internet didn’t exist for everyday people when I started grad school.)
In other words, I’d actually be a little bit worried if nothing in your plans had changed since you started grad school.
We are not computers
There’s a cultural narrative that suggests that we should follow through completely on everything we start, that quitting is, well, quitting. But that’s so very computer-metaphor-driven.
We aren’t computers. We’re organic systems. And organic systems flow and adapt. We respond.
In other words, your plans changing based on your life progressing? That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.
So, if you can, try not to beat yourself up for the reality that plans change. Plans always change, because we live complicated, messy, long lives. And isn’t it beautiful?
Know you’re leaving but not sure how to actually make that happen? I offer two things that might help: a resume and cover letter writing service and a class designed to help you create a successful job search system.
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