Career Transition: How Do You Find your Way When There is No Trail?

Some career tracks seemed easy to follow. Get good grades in college.  Take law boards. Go to law school.  Get good grades.  Get good job at law firm.  Work 5 million hours, get a bonus.  There was a trail.  How do you find your place in the world when “there is no trail?”

This is what everyone misses, when they talk about discovering their calling, their destiny or living their wildest dreams in the sweetest of ways.  It’s not about a trail. It’s about a relationship, a relationship with a Power that is not of your linear mind. Some will call it the Divine.  Some will call it the Universe.  Some will call it non-linear, inspired thinking.  Hey call it Fido for all I care.  Just call on it.

“You’re looking for a trail,” I said to one of my clients.  “You want to see how to get up the mountain.”  This was particularly relevant since John (that’s his name for this blog anyway!) mountain climbs for adventure and does prepare diligently to attack a trail. 

“See but that’s the problem,” I said to him-- and now you.  “You’re looking for a trail.  How do you know there won’t be a helicopter, a limo, or a private jet?  How do you know the mountain peak won’t put on its Nikes and come running to meet you?”

You don’t know how this works.  You’re looking for how to get from A to Z.  But we’re working in a different alphabet, friend.  We’re working with a power that adds up to more than what can be, and will leave you wordless.  Please don’t limit what you’re looking for--- by the way you look for it.  Don’t insist that Astonishment fit into your ordinary means or amateur tool kit.

So what do you do? Yes, my super powers can hear you asking.  You follow your inborn instincts.  You follow one hunch at a time.  You follow what smells good in your bones and where things tingle.  You take one next step.  One thing leads to another and another.  It’s not a straight line, but it is a straight shot.  You start feeling safe.  You start feeling alive.  You start feeling as though everything you do leads you to everything you are.  That’s how an inspired life works.  

You think you want the trail because it would give you a feeling of security. 

Why not just go for security? 

Develop your relationship with the Divine.  Develop your partnership with grace.  Get to know the concierge or the tour director.  Once you realize how loving and proficient this guide is, you’ll relax.  Once you realize how personal and prophetic this guide is, you’ll relax.  Once you realize the mechanism behind the scenes is so refined and powerful and programmed only for your good, you’ll relax. 

Forget the trail.  Really, who wants to climb a mountain anyway?