It’s Okay to Change Your Mind

It’s okay to change your mind.

Even when the plan is “set in stone” it’s okay to change that plan, to scratch it out, to make adjustments or to pick up a whole new rock and write a totally different plan.

I feel pretty confident in guessing that no one is actually etching their plans or goals into rocks…most of us are writing goals in the notes app on our phone or on an actual piece of paper…all of which can easily be edited or rewritten.

My goals have changed.

When I was in graduate school my advisor shared a statistic with my cohort:

50% of student affairs professionals leave the field within 5 years.

I remember so clearly sitting in that class room and thinking:
That wont be me.

I was so confident that I would’ve be part of that 50% because I had my plan, I had goals.
➡️Grad school
➡️Job in Career Services at a college or university
➡️Work my way up, assistant director, associate director
➡️Ultimate goal: Director of a Career Office

5 and half years later - I left student affairs and higher education.

I (more or less) became that exact statistic and you know what?

It’s okay.

My goals changed, my priorities changed, and opportunities presented themselves that I couldn't turn down.

As much as we want to plan our career and as much stress as we stress about the next step and staying in a job too long or leaving too soon, making lateral moves or questioning EVERYTHING else around our career-
life happens.
Goals change.
That’s okay.