Chris Bailey* says people starting out on their careers, or taking the plunge into something entirely new, should take comfort from advice he received many years ago.
A little over nine years ago, I declined a few full-time job offers to devote a year to researching and experimenting with productivity advice.
Fast-forward, and I’m grateful and proud of the work I’ve created, including a couple of books and an Audible Original on the topic.
My third book — the best one yet (in my opinion) — comes out next January and I will be excited to share more soon.
There’s a reason why I bring this up.
For all the milestones and markers of success along my journey, I’ll be honest that at the beginning it often felt as though I hadn’t made the right call.
This is not to say I had regrets about declining those jobs — I knew there was always a chance my productivity project would land butter-side down.
However, even with this pessimism, I was okay with that downside risk.
Still, my decision to dedicate a year to productivity experiments clouded me with self-doubt and I couldn’t shake the feeling that, on some level, I had made a mistake.
During one frenzy of worry, I still remember what my then-girlfriend-now-wife said to me: “You’re not as lost as you think you are.”
At the beginning of this weird career arc, I felt lost even though I knew I had made the right call to explore my passion.
On some level, the result of my pursuit didn’t matter.
I started out with zero readers (apart from family and friends), but a part of me didn’t really care if it worked out.
I had no roadmap and had to figure stuff out along the way — and that was okay.
Hearing those words: “You’re not as lost as you think you are,” meant a lot to me — and I’ve thought about them every time I’ve felt lost since.
Since that initial period of self-doubt, I’ve come to believe that the sensation of being lost is largely just a sign that I’m operating without a roadmap.
I take the feeling as a sign I need to do three things:
Get resourceful; ask for help and guidance when I need it, and overcome whatever obstacles are in front of me at the time.
These three things help me plan my next steps with greater intention and purpose.
In other words, they help to plot a roadmap, however short, for what to do next.
They also helped me connect with other like-minded people.
In observing others following unconventional paths, I’ve come to believe that success is simply a reward for those who figure things out along the way.
You probably have periods in your life when you feel lost, doubt whether you’ve made the right call, or when you don’t know how you’re going to figure things out.
If you’re in such a situation, let me offer you the same valuable advice I received from my now-wife: You’re not as lost as you think you are.
Get resourceful, get help, get planning and get to work.
Your future self will thank you.
*Chris Bailey has written hundreds of articles on the subject of productivity, and is the author of two books: Hyperfocus, and The Productivity Project. alifeofproductivity.com.
This article first appeared on Chris’ website.
