5 Things About Work & Pursuing Your “Passion” That I Learned In My 20's
It’s ok to change your mind and let go of perfection
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It was during one of my many Christmas vacations in the Dominican Republic, my place of birth, that I remember explaining to someone for the first time what I wanted to do as a career.
We were cruising along Santo Domingo’s “Malecon,” on the familiar one-hour plus car trip from the capital’s airport to my grandmother’s home in Bani. The intense sun was sparkling on the Caribbean sea despite it being December.
I was about seven months out of college, and my insecurities about post-grad life were at a peak. I remember my uncle asking me what I had studied in college and what I wanted to work in now that I had achieved this step.
Looking out ahead into the familiar streets of the country I no longer considered my home, I went on about how I wanted to understand why some countries were poor and others rich, and that I wanted to work for an international organization and help reduce poverty around the world.
And this had really been a question I had pondered a lot, and the work I thought I wanted to do.
If he asked me that question today, though, my answer would be completely different.
I’ve never been that person who knew what she wanted out of life — especially careerwise. I could never figure out how someone wakes up one day and says,
“Oh, yes, being a lawyer is my life’s calling”
or
“Working as a medical doctor is the most fulfilling career choice I can make.”
Sure, not everyone is predestined for an unchanging career path from the moment they’re asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Yet, especially from the time you finish high school and set foot on a college campus, the self-imposed expectations for success start gnawing at you — and you start to question why you don’t have as a strong passion as all your other classmates seem to have.
And this bothered me for a long time. It fed my insecurities about my apparent inadequacies.
At a certain point, though, I came to accept that I didn’t have a passion. I started to see the expectations and the need for perfection unravel before me.
Now that I’m 31, I understand that: A) Not everyone has a passion B) Those who seem to have their life together on the outside are sometimes the most unhappy, and C) Being “mediocre” and living a normal life is not such a bad thing.
Sure, we all want success, but personal fulfillment doesn’t always align with the definition our society has for success. And even though we are always going on about how “unique” we are — be it on social media or on LinkedIn, our uniqueness is made up of the thousand failures we thought we could never outgrow, instead of the successes that others might judge as not enough.
After letting go of the expectations I had about my career and passion, I realized that these five lessons were more helpful to me in deciding what kind of work I wanted to pursue than anything a career counselor had ever told me.
1. Changing your mind about work and passion is ok
One of my biggest worries for many years after graduating from college was my resume. Almost five years after finishing school, I had nothing longer than six months on it.
In my mind, this was a big impediment to the success I thought I wanted. And in reality, it also was a roadblock during my several job hunts. One interviewer at a bank I had once applied to asked me how the company could trust I wouldn’t leave the job after a few months based on my work history.
Ouch.
And he was right. Despite how confident I was in being a hard-working, smart woman, my lack of commitment to one job or even industry or role left a lot to be desired, especially for me.
Building a good resume had dictated a lot of my choices in my 20’s, and I eventually decided to let go of it in the past couple of years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I “dusted off my resume.”
What I understand now that I didn’t get back then was that having multiple passions and trying new things is an asset that will serve you once you do decide what you want to go all-in for. From my work in customer service in finance, the food industry, at a call center, to being an administrative assistant in government, and research work and teaching in between, I am more confident in my skills, knowledge, and capabilities than I was out of college.
And if you’re someone who has also bounced from one job to another or one career to the next, it’s important to see that what you’ve learned from those experiences is actually more valuable than the gaps in your resume are detrimental to you. Unless you’ve been sitting on a couch doing nothing for several years, you’ve grown.
Especially now that resumes are not as relevant, and that having an online presence is more crucial to achieving your career goals, it’s more helpful to focus on your comprehensive knowledge and skills, rather than how long you've stayed at the same job.
2. Experience is important, but having a bit more knowledge also sets you ahead
Speaking of resumes, it makes sense that you’d want someone who has several years of experience doing specific jobs for you: your doctor, a lawyer, even the guy who does your finances.
If lack of knowledge or experience is keeping you from pursuing a newly discovered interest or passion, though, don’t let it deter you. The willingness to try, fail and learn will be your greatest asset when you’re starting a new job or career.
At first, when I thought about pursuing teaching English as a second language, I would talk myself out of applying for jobs because I didn’t have enough teaching experience. At that moment in 2019 when I decided to leave my job working for state government, I was worried that I wouldn’t make enough money from teaching. It terrified me, actually.
Eventually, and after working as an online teacher for a couple of years, I realized that all I needed was patience, tenacity, and the willingness to start from the bottom. Experience adds up, and if there is someone who has less knowledge than you in a particular job or career, that means there’s someone who is willing to pay you to help them and who will value what you do know.
3. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does move things along
I remember the first time I had to teach an online English class. I was freaking out, and I was contemplating quitting the job without having even started. I was afraid the student would think I was incompetent because I’d never taught English before.
A couple of years later, and though still challenging, I feel more at ease delivering an online lesson.
Despite what I’ve said so far about trying new things and having only a bit more knowledge than those you’re trying to help in your new job or career, at the root of success is hard work. I believe in this wholeheartedly.
If you’re a perfectionist like me, you’ve often hit your head against the wall when you’ve thought about trying something new. For me, it was teaching and also writing, for you it might be trying out social media, coding, or something else.
You might search for all the information available online (which is a lot!), lay out the perfect plan, and schedule the next six months of work in your calendar. A couple of days later you’re overwhelmed by it all, and another few weeks or months will go by without anything changing.
Sticking it out and putting your imperfect self out there is a thousand times more fruitful than waiting to be the perfect and most knowledgeable teacher, the best writer, having the most knowledge about your particular field, etc.
Effort adds up, and anything you work on or towards, no matter how little it is, will build up your experience and hence your confidence.
4. You don’t need to justify your career choices to others
Being a little know-it-all and a backtalker was kind of my thing in my early 20s, especially when it came to my mom. I remember telling her on several occasions when she questioned my job or career choices that she didn’t pay my bills, and hence that she had no right to say anything about the kind of work I decided to do (though she did let me live with her paying very little rent, so that was not completely true!).
As one of the first people to graduate from college in my extended family, and even as an immigrant in the U.S., the expectations my family had for me were that I’d work for a high-paying job straight out of college. Bouncing from internship to internship or from one low-paying job to another made them question my capabilities and work ethic.
What they didn’t understand back then was that I wasn’t confident enough or didn’t have enough guidance to land a particular job or career. I was going blind into the real world, and I was failing miserably at it, at least based on their expectations.
More importantly, both they and I didn’t know at the moment that traditional work was not right for me. It was only after several years of me trying things out that I realized that working for myself and having a flexible lifestyle was the right fit for me, instead of working the typical 9 to 5.
My current definition of success and fulfillment does not match what most of my high school or college classmates and family members think. And over time, they’ve come to accept this.
Perhaps the feeling of being judged or misunderstood for your career choices and passion (or lack thereof) has added to the stress of trying to make it in adult life. It can feel overwhelming to think that you’re not as successful as your classmates or as your family expected, and that they’re judging you because you’re not “doing things right.”
But if you are responsible for yourself, financially that is, no one has the right to question your decisions — even in the moments when you’re struggling the most. Fulfillment is more important than success, no matter what form it comes in, and only you can figure out what brings you fulfillment.
Letting go of the expectations others have for you is an important step to discovering your true passion or the career that will satisfy you.
5. You have more power than you think
One of the worst feelings you can have is powerlessness. And the funny thing about it is that we often impose this feeling on ourselves despite the many possibilities available to us.
Living in a western country like the U.S., and at a time when the internet allows you to start any business or learn anything new at a relatively low cost, or even to put yourself out there in front of potential employers and clients, it’s important to open your eyes to the possibilities available to you.
This perspective about being powerless was a real roadblock for me. After not landing the “perfect” job several years after graduating from college, or having almost 40,000 USD in debt from a graduate program I didn’t even finish, I felt like I was destined to fail in life.
Luckily, and after learning more and trying new things out, I saw that those were only small failures that set me back and that they were not going to determine my future.
As long as you have the willingness to keep going and work hard, most things are possible — changing careers, going back to an earlier passion, or becoming financially independent. Just because things didn’t work out in your 20’s doesn’t mean it’s over for you.
What is that one thing you’ve always wanted to pursue but were too scared to try? Take that first step today, this week, this month, and come back to read this whenever you feel discouraged about not being good enough.
Write a comment and let the world know what your next step will be.
