Not Giving Up but Beware of Detours!

bySTRWhiz

272 followers

Updated 5 years ago

I recently gave my just newly college graduated son advice on whether he should accept the job offer that was offered to him. What a great age to be when you have the whole future ahead of you, and you are just planning your career path and hoping to live a happy, fulfilling life.

So as a sage parent, I told him that the most important part to consider when you are accepting an entry level job right out of college is:

Will this job opportunity allow you to learn the important things in your niche for advancement?

And if you know what you want to achieve, then identify the most efficient path that has the least resistant is the way to go. That is if you know what that advancement looks like in 5 years, 10 years, or even 20 years down the road. I wasn't sure if he understood what I was talking about so I gave him an analogy.

Image there are two elevators that can take you to two different advanced level of accomplishments in life/career path. They are equally good but different in personal preferences. Those preferences are made of such things as where do you want to live, do you want to travel, do you want to work in an office tied to a company's schedule or you rather decide on your own your working hours.

I said if you know at age 23 what you want or what you prefer, then picking the right elevator is easy. But, I also said that at age 23, you may think you know what you want but as life unveils itself, you may discover that what you had chosen is not what you wanted at all.......

Here's where the difficulty lies for most people. The question(s) that we all ask ourselves so we can get on the right elevator is (are) not the difficult part. It's knowing ourselves, discovering what our preferences are, and being able to answer those personal preference questions are what challenge most of us. What is it that you want? Where do you want to end up? How do you prefer to live your life? Do you want to travel for work?

Sometimes this search for answers can be quite difficult. So how does one handle this unknown realm of being?

This is what I told him, "Son, take this entry level job if you feel there's an opportunity to learn and advance, but beware and watch out for detours in life."

When you find that you've reached a junction of possibly getting off on a floor from the current elevator that you are on and getting on another elevator, another set of preferences, or at least, you are thinking about it because you realized that the current elevator ride is not as great as you had originally thought, this is when you realized you were on a detour this whole time and didn't even know it. But, that is okay because detour helps you become clearer.

So then how do you become clearer? How do you decide? Should you stay on this elevator, or should you get off? And then once you get off, which is the correct elevator to get on if two more but different elevators appear?

I said, "Son, here's another important part. Most people get scare and stay on the elevator that is not working for them. They are not living a happy, fulfilling life. They stay because they are scare of making the wrong decision."

So what do you do when you reach this unknown scary realm? I shared with him this wise advice I once received from someone. And it goes like this:

Start, Stop, and Continue

1. What should I START doing that I am not doing now?

2. What should I STOP doing that is not working for me?

3. What should I CONTINUE doing because it is working?

These three questions can be very helpful in organizing jumbled thoughts and feelings. They can help you in becoming clearer in what is it that you want so you can get on the right elevator.

Well, the good news for us that have arrived here at Wealthy Affiliate is that we know that we were on the detour elevator, and we were brave enough to get off, and we chose this elevator to get on. So if you ever doubt your decision and maybe another elevator is looking really good right now, just ask yourself the above START, STOP, and CONTINUE questions and then look back fondly at your detours and the purpose they had served.

Happy elevator ride to you! And thank you for reading my very first post here at WA.

DianeAustria