No doubt if you have a desire to make a career transition, you want to do it right away. Once you’ve decided what you want to do, and where you want to go, you’re impatient for the change to happen.
When I decided to leave IT and go back to being a writer, I was impatient to start my new life. Every delay, every setback, every disappointment seemed timed to frustrate me.
Whenever I read articles about writers who had long freelance careers, or younger writers on their second or third books, I beat myself up.
I believed that if I hadn’t changed careers from writing to information technology, I would’ve been much farther ahead as a writer. Who knows how many books I would’ve written, or how established my career would’ve been?
Wasted Time
Even after I got a contracting position that drew on my experience as a writer and a technical person, I still reproached myself. This went on for quite a while until I finally had to stop and think. What made me think that my years in IT were wasted? Everything I’ve been through has added to my knowledge and my skills.
So what if there are other writers with a long list of published work? I’ve had experiences that are just as valid, and just as valuable.
Another Path
I simply took another path. Not the “wrong” path but my own path. Who says that I’m not where I’m supposed to be? Who wrote the rule book that indicates where anyone should be at any time in their lives?
I think sometimes we focus on the past in order to stop ourselves from dealing with an uncertain future.
We never have to face our fear of what can happen if we’re always focusing on what has happened. We don’t have to deal with the loss of control that comes when we step into the unknown.
In the Moment
It all comes back to fear, doesn’t it? Fear that we’ve lost out by making “wrong” decisions. Fear that we will lose out if we don’t make the “right” decision. Instead looking back, I’m going to begin where I am right now. All that I’ve done has prepared me for this moment. From here I can take one step, then another as I move forward to where I want to be.
Copyright © 2008 – 2016 Deborah A. Bailey
