Welcome to Career Advise, the newsletter providing career advice, how-tos, and life musings through an optimistic and intriguing lens.

Each week, you will receive two newsletters written by the Oppstartr Team. Mondays — Our career-focused newsletter. Fridays — Out of Office where we discuss life and other thought-provoking ideas.

Today’s Pillar: Tend the Orchard

We Sometimes Don’t Know What We Want

You have to know what you want; this is true. However, sometimes we don’t know what we want, and we should explore our options to find our true calling. We should not say no to new opportunities if we find ourselves in this situation. If you have the chance to ask someone, “How did you end up in this role?” often, they will respond with some version of the following: “Well, I went to school for this degree, but I didn’t like it, and it didn’t pay enough, so I moved to this company and realized I really enjoy this career.” It’s not confined to white-collar office jobs either; it even happens in more defined career paths. Physicians will choose areas of medicine they thought they would like, but after their clinicals, they choose a different field.

Inevitably, it’s never a story about a pre-planned and linear path. It is usually through experience and being open-minded that we find what we want to do for a career. What you previously thought wasn’t for you just may be your true calling.

Don’t Block Your Growth

If and when we say no to an opportunity, we need to be sure that we made the decision for a good reason, not a poor one. Let’s say you were given an opportunity that, without a doubt, would have helped you advance your career, but you said no because it would have been too hard or you were scared. You may have said no unwisely, dare I say foolishly. It’s easy to say no when we are nervous or scared, but that’s usually where growth comes from. It could be the opportunity that is a springboard for even greater outcomes.

Opportunities appear along our career paths, and if we cannot discern opportunities, we may be inadvertently limiting our growth and goals.

This Isn’t Being a Yes-Man

We should not simply take any new opportunity that is presented to us. If you are partaking in this practice, you will certainly become unhappy with your situation since you aren’t truly choosing what is right for you. We should reject those offers that don’t align with our goals or fulfill us. We shouldn’t always say yes, and we shouldn’t always say no. Someone who always replies with no usually is too narrow-minded when it comes to career and life, and someone who always replies with yes usually doesn’t know what they want.

If an offer has the potential to be a stepping stone or an ultimate goal, but you haven’t considered it previously, don’t say no too rashly. We should carefully choose the opportunities that help us along our path and not derail us.

Overestimating What We Want and How to Get It

We can hold high opinions of ourselves, can’t we? That can lead us to believe we have a predestined outline of our future, and we know exactly how to get from A to B (that is if B is even what we want). Simply put, there are too many variables and situations to accurately predict our path. Worse, we can have a misguided view of what our path should be. We should not keep our blinders on because we need to know what surrounds us to fully understand our best options and path to pursue. You can be open to new ideas without needing to grab at everything. The future is unknown, and a predetermined career path will come across roadblocks. It’s naïve to think we have our careers mapped out from day one. We don’t have to have everything mapped out, nor should we, but we do need to be able to discern offers when they arise, and this will help us choose wisely. We should move toward a better idea of what we want. Sometimes what you want is not available, or there may be better options than previously thought.

It would be a boring life if we had it all planned, and where’s the adventure in that?

Thank you for reading Career Advise. Be sure to read our upcoming Out of Office issue on Friday.

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