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Then, suddenly, at 17 or 18 years old, you were told to pick a college, pick a major, pick a trade, pick a life path. And you know what’s crazy about that? At age 18, your frontal lobe -- the very part of your brain that determines good decision-making -- wasn’t even fully formed yet.
So, rather than picking a path based on what makes us special -- what we like, what we do well and where we shine -- most of us are forced to pick our path early based on values attached by others and on interests that aren’t our calling.
Our teachers tossed out career path options based on not much more than anecdotal information gathered at a specific moment in time. They possessed no crystal ball and yet we internalized their notions as predictions rather than simply suggestions.
If you’re still operating on career assumptions arbitrarily handed out decades ago, it’s probably time to get your hands on the wheel, take control of the ship and start charting your own course.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Laura Gassner Otting (@heylgo) on Apr 23, 2019 at 3:07pm PDT
Whether or not you are asking, it’s likely that every person in your life is telling you what success looks like -- fame, fortune, status, marriage, children, bigger, better, faster, now. And while each of these well-meaning advice givers holds at least one of these metrics dear, these reflect only their own definitions of success, not yours.
It’s time to stop giving votes to people in your life who shouldn’t even have voices, because when we listen to everyone else’s definition of success, we fail to make room for our own.
Want to live a “limitless” life? You can take a quick quiz to see what’s holding you back and what you can do about it.
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