Changing how you view your career

Do you ever feel stuck? Not sure what you want to do with your career or what you want to spend your time doing? That's where I'm at.

I enjoy my work and feel like I'm learning a lot. But if I'm being honest, I don't know what I see myself doing in five years from now. That makes me nervous.

When we are young, we are always asked what do we want to be when we grow up? It's engrained in us to create a path that we can follow from a young age to become successful - and this usually involves going to college, finding a job, and sticking to "our plan" in order to be happy.

There tends to be a lot of pressure to have a career, and to keep climbing the ladder, until you've reached the top. But what if the top isn't where you want to be?

I wish our society would stop making it seem like the most important thing in life is your career. While I appreciate the many ways your career can help you provide for yourself and your family, it shouldn't be the most important thing in your life.

So how do we change this narrative and make sure kids growing up don't feel so much pressure to only focus on their career when they get older? Model it for them now.

Show them that work can be part of your life but it doesn't have to be your whole life. If you find a job that is fulfilling and provides financially. Great. But if you are just working to make ends meet and hopefully find some enjoyment from your job, even if it's just finding some friends, that's ok too.

This conversation has been had before, and it will likely continue to come up. My hope is that more of us, and at least myself, will start to become comfortable with where they are at in life, even if it's maybe not exactly where they thought they'd be in their career journey.

Here's to challenging ourselves to ask questions about what we want our future to look like. To embracing the parts of our life that maybe aren't as thrilling or fulfilling as we'd like, but at the end of the day, we are happy. And that's all that matters.