To Begin Again, and Again…
“You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” – Barbara Sher
Today marks the one-year anniversary of starting a new job, changing after 17 years in the same place and a plan of retiring there. A big move later in my career when most would say stay, coast, and settle. You’re too old. Your time is up. Quiet quit.
Not me. I’m not done yet. We settle and stay in places that are stale, over and where we don’t fit and aren’t welcome anymore to avoid change at all costs. Working with a career coach got me out of my own way, challenged old narratives and limiting beliefs. She helped me do the work to uncover what was next and possible. So grateful a friend sent me her way!
This past year I became a beginner again. Exhilarating, daunting and transformational. It has been the best thing that I have done for myself in years. Don’t settle and acquiesce! Take time to reflect and plan, but don’t wait to have everything figured out. Have a direction and move, the road unfolds with action, a step at a time. If and when you make a mistake, then pivot, shift, try something else. Often it is merely a tweak or a shift in attitude. We learn from trying new things and beginning again and again. Life is too short to circle dead-ends. Break trail!
“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas