"I'm afraid of making a mistake. I'm afraid of making the wrong choice."

One of my clients is wrestling with the next step of her career. She feels as though the path she chooses at this point will determine the course of her career—like one choice is a mountain where she'll start at the bottom and determinedly, over time work her way up to the top.

But what if she makes the wrong choice? Does it mean that if she changes her mind, she'll need to go all the way to the bottom of another mountain and start all over again?

This may have been how things worked in the past, but it's not how they work today... 

A client asked me in our session this week: "How do I become a manager? Do I find workshops and trainings that teach me about the skills, or do I get promoted and then start learning how to be a leader? It's a chicken and egg thing, I think."

My client was visualizing herself as the egg, just starting out. But she had just gotten finished telling me that she had supervised interns in the past, served as the project lead on her team, and was given the responsibility of overseeing a relationship with an outside consultant. She also chaired a national professional committee! This gal was no egg.

This week, I've talked with two separate people who told me that, if asked about their current work situations, they would likely burst into tears. These are awesome, passionate, mission-driven people, who have so much to contribute to a team and a workplace. But they are encountering some big, uncomfortable feelings—something is calling them to take the next steps in their careers.  

The feeling that it's time to move on is an inconvenient one, with a lot of complex questions and daunting tasks.

In today's working world, instability is the norm. Gone are the days of wrapping your identity and your life around one company and one career path. Phrases like "the gig economy" and "job-hopping" are part of our vernacular, and changing not just jobs but careers every four or so years is common.

Some would say that this is disorienting and overwhelming. I say it is an opportunity to define and lead our own career paths in new and exciting ways. But we need to be prepared.