How to Embrace Uncertainty in Your Career Journey

You can live anywhere and be anything you want. There are more career options and unique ways of making money than perhaps ever before. And yet, the indecision and uncertainty resulting from unlimited possibility can be remarkably paralyzing. With many possible career paths, a passion for more than one thing, and varying interests, the tyranny of choice produces anxiety.

So, what should you do? Should you follow your passion, lean into a talent, or simply take the job that pays the most money?

Rather than attempting an answer, I am going to outline the framework that best summarizes what I have discovered on my own journey.

Passion vs Talent

Passion is what naturally excites you, and it may change over time.

Talent is what you are good at, and you can discover talents you didn’t realize you had.  

Leveraging a talent to pursue a passion appears to be the sweet spot for not just success, but fulfillment, assuming that someone is willing to pay you for it. A couple of examples:

-Leverage your writing ability to educate someone on a topic that you’re passionate about

-If you’re personable, sell a product or service that you believe in, to someone that needs or wants what you can provide.

Seasons of Life

A few years back, a middle-aged man was fondly recalling to me stories of his youth, where he sailed around the world and competed in competitions. When he finished, he pointed out that there are different seasons in life, where windows of time are open for a brief period before closing for good. Miss the window, and you miss the opportunity.

I do think there is an innate awareness of how advancing age limits the body’s ability to perform physical activities like sailing. There are things you can do now, that you simply can’t do in advanced age. What is less obvious is that, unless you act in the present, you miss the current season.

From a career perspective, a dose of patience and humility is oftentimes the antidote for the restless ambition welling up inside. If you’re interested in multiple things, your life stage may dictate which pursuit comes first, and which one is temporarily on hold. Being 22 years old and single is different than 35 and married with children, which is different than 55 and approaching retirement. Consider also, that wisdom comes with age and experience. So, you might find answers at 35 that weren’t clear at 22, and while one window might have closed, engage vigorously in the opportunity before you now. You may not be able to do it all at once, so choose something that you can do today.

Write Your Story

I’ve read many books and listened to plenty of thought leaders outline their approach to living a well-designed and optimized life. Most recently, I came across a presentation Graham Weaver gave at Stanford that I believe best encapsulates how and what you should be doing:

“Do hard things, do your thing, do it for decades, write your story.”

Deep down, you know what you should be doing. Whether it’s something you do for a career or something you pursue as a hobby until it can become a career, follow it. It may be hard, and it may take years, but that’s kind of the point. Build a life you don’t need to escape from by writing your own story.