Who Am I? What Do I Do?
This first post is dedicated to all the anxious millennial girls who are ambitious and lost at the same time. I feel you, and I’m telling you it’s going to okay.
Do you have these moments where, all of a sudden, you’re unsure of who you are at and where you’re going? It happens to me every quarter, and the most recent existential crisis happened when I came out of a virtual conference called Women in Product. Many speakers are highly achieved: founders whose company just went public, investors who just raised millions, influencers with raving fans, and senior leaders who wrote books. On the surface, they all seem to have a straightforward career trajectory. They knew where they were going, and they marched with confidence and got there before their peers to tell the tale, and share the learnings.
It’s daunting to think that we, the twenty-somethings, have to figure out all of this on our own, when we can barely parallel park. Right after college, we start searching deep in our soul and on LinkedIn to see what we want to do, while also trying to find out who our life partner is, where did that leftover lemon go, and how to file taxes. I mean, some of us are having serious trouble balancing pasta and pasta sauce so that one doesn’t run out before the other. The struggle is real.
When I reflect on my own journey it’s not as linear as what my LinkedIn profile might suggest. A lot of meandering, trying different things, asking dumb questions, getting rejected, picking myself up again. I don’t know where I’m going next, but I do know that with each step I’m taking, it’s deliberate. Dots will connect in the end, and I don’t regret any part of this meandering.